In ancient China, castration has a long history. There is evidence that the consciousness and behavior of castrating male genitals existed as late as the Yin and Shang Dynasties. There is a character " " in the oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin and Shang dynasties. Half of the glyph structure represents the male genitals, and the other half represents a knife. The meaning of the character is very clear. If further analysis is based on the glyphs, the castration technique at that time may have involved cutting off the penis and testicles together. The castration technology in the Qin and Han Dynasties was relatively complete, and care measures such as wind protection, warmth, and rest were noted after the castration operation. At that time, the place where castration was performed was called the "silkworm room". Yan Shigu's note in "Hanshu Zhang Anshi Biography" said: "Anyone who raises silkworms wants them to be warm and mature early, so they store fires in the secret room. New Corruption Punishment There is also the risk of stroke, which can be cured by entering a secret room, because the call is called Jamsil ear." A roughly similar explanation can be found in Li Xian's note in "Book of the Later Han Dynasty: Records of Emperor Guangwu", which states that "those who are tortured by the palace are afraid of the wind and need to be kept warm, so they make a secret room." There are basically two methods of castration in ancient times: one is "to remove all." "Its potential", that is, using instruments such as metal blades to completely cut off the male genitals. An example of castration was recorded in "The Biography of An Lushan in the Old Book of Tang":
Zhu'er came from the Khitan tribe and lived in (An) Lushan when he was ten years old. He was very shrewd and intelligent. Lushan held the blade to eliminate all its power, blood flowed several times, and he wanted to die. Lushan is anointed with ashes and fire, and the sun fades away.
It can be seen from this that the castration process is quite cruel. The castrated person will be comatose for a long time due to excessive blood loss or excessive pain. The measures to stop bleeding and reduce inflammation are also very simple. Fu Zhi". The second is to cut open the scrotum with a sharp blade and peel out the testicles. Castration by this method obviously does not require complete removal of the reproductive organs, but it can achieve the goal. This method is recorded in Volume 8 of Yi Jian Zhi written by Hong Mai. According to other records, in ancient times there were also the so-called "rope tying method" and "kneading method". The former involves tying a hemp rope from the root of the "testicles" of the genitals when the boy is young. This does not affect urination, but hinders the normal development of the genitals. Over time, a boy's genitals will lose their function. In the latter, when a boy is young, a person who is well versed in this technique gently kneads his testicles every day. After gradually getting used to it, the hand strength is increased until the testicles are crushed. However, if the testicles are cut off or crushed, if the testicles are already developed, although insemination can be completely avoided, the sexual desire and the ability of the court will still exist for a certain period of time, and some people will even become stronger as a result. durable. Therefore, eunuchs in ancient times used the method of "removing all their power" to cut off all genitals.
Under the relatively backward medical technology in ancient times, the mortality rate of castration surgery was quite high. During the Tianshun period of the Ming Dynasty, Ruan Rang, the eunuch who guarded Huguang and Guizhou, selected 1,565 captured Miao children at one time, castrated them all, and prepared to submit them all to the court. However, due to the cruelty of the operation and the poor medical technology, in the short period of time from when Ruan Rang castrated the young children to the time when he reported to the court, 329 children died of pain and illness. Later, Ruan Rang bought another batch of young children, castrated them to make up for the number of deaths, and presented them to the court. Ruan Rang castrated 1,894 children before and after his death, with a mortality rate of nearly 20%. Such a concentrated and large number of deaths is obviously related to the failure of castration surgery or complications after surgery.
The ancient books of the past dynasties generally record very briefly the specific circumstances of castration surgery. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, some Europeans who came to China became very interested in the Chinese court culture, which was very different from the West, and described the castration surgery at that time in more detail. However, these descriptions are mostly hearsay, far less detailed than the recollections of court eunuchs in the late Qing Dynasty who were based on personal experiences, and their reliability is also questionable. According to the recollections of eunuchs in the late Qing Dynasty, there were two famous eunuch families in Beijing, known as "factories": one was the Bi family in the Accounting Department Hutong on Nanchang Street; the other was the "Little Dao Liu" in the Fangzhuan Hutong outside Di'anmen. Those who presided over the affairs were all family descendants recognized by the imperial court. They were crowned with the sixth grade and were called "knife makers". It is said that each family has its own unique skills, but the skills are never exposed, they are just passed down from father to son. ?
You need to choose the right season for purification, preferably in late spring or early summer, when the temperature is neither too high nor too low, and there are no flies or mosquitoes, because the lower body cannot wear clothes for about a month after the operation. Those who purify themselves need to complete necessary procedures before the operation. The key is to draw up a life and death document, and have three elders and four young people as witnesses to indicate that they are voluntarily purifying themselves, regardless of life or death, so as to avoid trouble and lawsuits in the future. Of course, a fee has to be charged, but most of the purifiers come from poor families and may not be able to afford a lot of money at the moment, so they can pay it year by year after they enter the palace and become prosperous. These also need to be written clearly on the paperwork. But there are two things you must bring. One is a gift for the knife maker, usually a pig's head or a chicken, and a bottle of wine. The second is the items used in the operation, including thirty kilograms of rice, several baskets of corn cobs, several loads of sesame straw and half a knife of window paper. Among them, rice is a month's ration for the purifier, corn cobs are used to burn the kang to keep warm, sesame straw is burned into ashes and used to pad the kang, and window paper is used to paper the windows to prevent wind after the operation. The knifemaker must prepare two fresh pig galls, smelly hemp soup and wheat straw. Pig gall has the effect of reducing swelling and relieving pain. It can be applied to the wound after surgery. The smelly cannabis soup has many functions. Drinking a bowl before surgery will make people confused and act as an anesthetic. Drink it after surgery to make the operator have diarrhea and relieve urination. The excretion volume ensures the success of the operation; the function of the wheat straw is self-evident, that is, it is inserted into the urethra after the operation.
During the operation, in addition to the surgeon, there are usually three or four assistants. The castrated person needs to lie on his back on the bed in a semi-recumbent position. Several assistants tie and fix his lower abdomen and upper thighs with white cloth. Then someone is responsible for holding down his waist and abdomen, while the other person uses "hot pepper" "Soup" to clean and disinfect the castrated parts. The scalpel used for castration is a sickle-shaped curved blade. It is said to be made of an alloy of gold and copper, which can prevent infection after surgery. However, there is usually no special disinfection measure when using it. Roast it on the fire. Even if it is disinfected. After all this is completed, the surgeon uses a sickle-shaped curved blade to remove the castrated person's penis and scrotum, usually in two steps: the first step is to cut off the testicles. Make a deep incision on the left and right sides of the sac, and cut off the tendons so that the testicles can be squeezed out. This requires the castrate to straighten his body and push his belly outward. After using all the strength of the whole body to squeeze out the testicles, the cutter will stick the sliced ??pig gall to the left and right sides of the balloon.
The second step is to cut off the penis. This requires a very high level of skill. If the cut is shallow, there will be room left, and the brittle bones inside will bulge out in the future, and a second cut will be necessary, which is commonly known as "stubble brushing" in the palace. It will collapse inward, forming a pit shape, and it will be fan-shaped when urinating, which is inconvenient for life. Nine out of ten eunuchs in the palace have urinary problems. This is the sequelae of castration. After the penis is cut off, a barley straw is inserted, and then another piece of pig gall is split and applied to the wound in a butterfly shape. It is said that some used a plug-shaped white wax needle to insert into the urethra, and covered the wound with paper soaked in cold water. This is probably a technical difference caused by different purification places. "LengcoffH
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After the operation, the castrated person must be supported by someone and walked indoors for two to three hours before he can be born. Lie down and rest. The three days after the operation are the most difficult time for the castrated people. During these three days, they lie on the special door panel, and their hands and legs are tightly tied with locks, and they cannot move at all. The main thing is to avoid touching the wound to avoid infection. There is a small hole with a trap in the middle for defecation. There was no good pain relief and anti-inflammatory method at that time. To avoid wound infection, it was strictly forbidden to drink water. It was extremely painful. After three days, the white wax needles or wheat straws were removed and the urine could be discharged, and the operation was successful. However, the suffering was not over. The most important thing was to stretch the legs. Every time I stretched my legs, my heart and liver were broken in pain and my whole body trembled, but this was a good thing for the castration. It is necessary for those who have been castrated, otherwise it may cause the waist to be rickets and unable to straighten for life, so they will have to endure this kind of severe pain.
Each castrated person will have to endure this kind of severe pain.
Men, without exception, have experienced painful torture. This process is so cruel and painful that those who were castrated will still remember it throughout their lives. Recalling:
In those days, there were no anesthesia, injections, or hemostatic drugs... I pressed a lively child there and cut off his vital organs. That child must be in so much pain! Every vein is piercing his heart, and his heartache is almost jumping out of his mouth... After the operation, a tube must be installed in the urethra, otherwise the granules will grow dead and he will not be able to urinate. After it came out, I had to undergo a second operation. Later, I heard from people who knew this, that after cutting off that thing, the wound should not be scarred quickly... so the dressing must be changed frequently. The medicine is just tissue paper coated with paraffin, sesame oil, and pepper powder. Every time the medicine is changed, the pain is excruciating.
Xiao De Zhang Xiangzhai, courtesy name Yunting, is from Jinghai, Tianjin. At the age of 12, he "resigned himself to the palace" and entered the palace as a eunuch in 1892. In 1892, he entered the Nanfu Opera Troupe in the palace to learn Peking Opera. In 1898, he was promoted to the post of eunuch in the harem. After the Gengzi Incident, he was promoted to the imperial eunuch. In 1909, he was promoted to general manager, and he was extremely powerful in the palace. In 1913, he left the palace and worked as an apartment in Tianjin. He lived in seclusion and did not care about political affairs. , aged 81. m鶫劓i?}(騽%
I remember that at that time, I lay on the earth kang all day long... my spine felt like it was broken, and I wanted to turn over, but I couldn't. If you dare to move, even if you bend down a little, the wound will feel painful! I just lie down like this to defecate and urinate. The dust is changed every day, and it is still wet. *憸;4?+
The cut off penis is called a "treasure", and under normal circumstances the knife maker will indeed hide this thing like a "treasure". On the contrary, there is no right to get it back. After being processed by the knife maker, the "treasure" is usually put into the "sheng", wrapped in a big red cloth, and carefully placed in a high place indoors, called "gaosheng", which means to rise to a high position, so as to wish for purification. The person will have good luck in the future and be promoted step by step. In the future, when the person who purifies himself becomes successful and redeems his "treasure", the knifemaker can take the opportunity to collect the money and ask for it. To redeem one's belongings, eunuchs call it "returning one's flesh and blood to one's home." For them, this is the biggest happy event in their lives, and the ceremony is very grand, just like welcoming a bride. There are also cases where the family members of the purified person keep it themselves. In the past, poor families in the countryside had nothing higher than the beams of their houses, so they often hung them from the beams, raising them a little higher every year to wish their children to "promote higher and higher" in the palace.