Changsheng: Peak at the Beginning

Chapter 203: Legend of Zhen Huan 73

Another new year passed, and Concubine Hui finally waited for the right opportunity to mention the ban on foot binding in front of the emperor again. The emperor looked at the girl kneeling in front of him with only a small bun on her head, and he couldn't help feeling a different kind of emotion in his heart.

He didn't expect that Concubine Hui had been thinking about this matter for several years and had not given up. He also remembered that Concubine Hui sent money out of the palace from time to time, asking the palace maids outside the palace who had reached the age of release to help buy supplies and send them to places like the Charity Bureau. There were also several so-called mutual aid associations led by the wife of Prince Ding, whose main purpose was to help those women and children who were temporarily in financial difficulties.

After a long while, the emperor stood up and helped Concubine Hui up. He sighed and said, "Mei'er, you should know what the consequences will be after such an imperial decree is issued to the world."

Since the Qing Dynasty entered the Shanhai Pass, literary inquisitions have continued unabated in order to control public opinion and public wisdom and facilitate the court's rule. The late emperor personally went to the south of the Yangtze River many times in order to appease the people and scholars in the south of the Yangtze River and win their hearts, but the effect was limited.

The emperor felt concerned. He had previously forcefully promoted the "officials and gentry paying taxes together" and "equalizing the land tax" and had already offended the entire upper class of the country. Now, if he issued a decree that people with bound feet in the family would not be able to take the imperial examinations and become officials, he would probably turn against the people.

However, this time Concubine Hui was very well prepared. She first took out a result that had been verified from the Imperial Medical Bureau.

The emperor took it and looked at it. His eyes widened immediately. He looked up in disbelief and asked, "Mei'er, is there any evidence in the record?"

Concubine Hui replied, "I am in the harem, and the doctors I can contact are all the imperial physicians and medical workers of the Imperial Hospital. This record is the news I got from the people by spending money and sending letters to my family. After getting it, I took it to the Imperial Hospital for verification. The imperial physicians and medical workers who are good at orthopedics and gynecology unanimously agreed that the news is true."

The emperor pondered for a moment, then asked Su Peisheng to call all the doctors and medical workers on duty in the orthopedics and gynecology departments of the Imperial Hospital to wait in the Qianqing Palace. He turned back to look at Concubine Hui, who continued, "I have read through ancient books and found that foot binding originated in the late Tang Dynasty. At that time, there was a dancer named Yao Niang in the palace. It is said that she had a close relationship with Li Yu's Concubine Zhou, and the two often competed in dancing and music."

"Later, someone discovered that Yao Niang's feet were smaller and softer than those of ordinary people. After much inquiry, they learned that Yao Niang had been soaking her feet in a potion since she was a child. This potion could soften the bones of her feet. She also used the foot binding method to make her feet smaller than those of ordinary people."

"Later, the tyrant emperor Xiao Baojuan liked a trick called "lotus flowers blooming with every step". It is said that someone learned Yao Niang's method of foot binding and installed a mechanism on the bottom of the shoe. He put some scented powder in it. When walking, it would naturally leave all kinds of beautiful and fragrant patterns through the pattern on the sole."

"In the Song Dynasty, the scholars in the late Southern Song Dynasty had no way to vent their anger about their careers and the future of the country, so they became more and more aggressive in torturing women's feet, as if by doing so, they would not be useless even though they had accomplished nothing."

"By the time of the Ming Dynasty, the status of scholars had risen, and the social atmosphere was completely stubborn and did not allow women to survive. Now, scholars in the south of the Yangtze River are praising small feet, and there are even many disgusting poems and teasing remarks."

"I was born in the Qing Dynasty and was a concubine of the Qing Dynasty. But I also understand that the reason why every previous dynasty fell was mostly because the previous dynasty was unjust and put the people to death. The people could not bear it, so they simply rose up in rebellion."

"The scholars are shameless. They covet the power and wealth of the Qing Dynasty, but they intensify the persecution against women. On the one hand, they persecute women, and on the other hand, they bring women out to show their innocence and determination. This is too despicable and shameless. I am speechless!"

The emperor was secretly happy to hear these words. He himself was also very annoyed with that group of literati. They always used ancestral rules and justice to obstruct his actions. He was really fed up with that group of people. That's why he refused to go when the late emperor wanted to go to the south of the Yangtze River, and it was not just because the treasury was empty.

Doesn’t he see that even though the national treasury is now full, he still has no intention of going south of the Yangtze River?

Concubine Hui quietly raised her eyes to check the emperor's face and found that the corners of his mouth were slightly raised. She immediately realized that she had hit the nail on the head. She made up her mind and continued, "From my limited knowledge, today's scholars have forgotten their ancestors. Confucian classics have been modified, deleted, and misinterpreted by them generation after generation, and there are signs of harm for thousands of years. When I was in my boudoir, I didn't really study the Four Books and Five Classics, but now I read them again, and I found that when I combined the Spring and Autumn Annals and other books to understand the Analects, I actually came to a different conclusion from many of the current annotations."

"I am just a concubine, and reading is just a pastime. But if those scholars outside have distorted thoughts from the beginning, it would be a disaster."

The emperor looked at Concubine Hui with a half-smile, which made her feel very uncomfortable and her back was covered in cold sweat. Then he suddenly laughed and said, "What a Concubine Hui, you are really smart. I am impressed by you!"

Concubine Hui could no longer retreat. She stood up and knelt again, crying and complaining, "Your Majesty, I don't understand. Aren't women in this world considered Your Majesty's subjects? The status of women was not so low from the beginning. Why do women have to suffer so much?"

The two palace maids standing in the room also fell to the ground following Concubine Hui's movements. They couldn't help but feel sad when listening to her crying, but due to the rules, they dared not even shed tears, let alone cry out loud.

No one understood the ins and outs of this better than the emperor. It was just that men were constantly squeezing out women's living space so that they could occupy their share of social resources. In order to make it easier for them to do things, many women were even reduced to pawns in the hands of men, and women were no longer considered human beings.

But Concubine Hui had a lot to say. He was the emperor, the father of all the people in the world, and his subjects naturally included women.

The emperor returned to the Qianqing Palace in silence, where many imperial doctors were already waiting.

The emperor passed the records he got from Concubine Hui to them again and carefully inquired about the reasons behind them.

A younger orthopedic doctor stepped forward and said, "Your Majesty, I am an expert in orthopedics. I have an older sister who has bound feet and a younger sister who is about to have her feet bound. So I have had the opportunity to observe foot binding myself."

"When people are young, their bones are not fully developed. This is why people say that children have soft bones."

"The foot binding of girls usually involves children under the age of seven, in order to shape the bones while they are still soft and young. When the girls grow up, their bones will grow in the shape of the bound feet."

"But I have discovered that women with bound feet are often a hundred times more dangerous during childbirth than women without bound feet. My eldest sister lost her chance of having children because of this. So I have always been against binding my younger sister's feet, but I could not resist my parents and could only watch my younger sister's feet being broken!"