The Legend of the Concubine in the Harem

As stated in the memorial, it was not uncommon for some old-fashioned and conservative families to be unwilling to allow their daughters or daughters-in-law to enter officialdom.

In the twelve years that have passed since Lin Qiao, the female number one scholar, emerged, the number of female officials has slowly increased after four imperial examinations - after all, in those days, there were only a few families who could carefully train their daughters, and the imperial examinations did not give much preferential treatment to female candidates because of their limited knowledge. In this respect, the standards for men were the same for women. However, even so, there were still many women who rushed out from the single-plank bridge where thousands of troops and horses crossed together.

Most of the women who can pass the imperial examinations have considerable assets in their families. Either their parents are open-minded enough, or they are talented enough. If their parents are open-minded, it's good, because no one in the family will hold their daughter back - although she is a girl, she is also an upright official!

An official who can bring honor to his family!

Only a fool would push an official's daughter out the door!

But what this world is never short of are stubborn fools who believe that their daughters are meant to get married.

Recruiting a wife?

Is that the proper way?

Alas, a traditional, orderly, low-key and humble family like us would never do such an extraordinary thing. What's wrong with being an official? She is still a woman. Women have to get married, and once married, they belong to another family. No matter how many glories she has, they belong to another family!

As a result, some female officials, after passing the examination, were either not accepted by their husband's families, who thought they were too strong and extroverted and could not stay at home and be good and helpful wives to their sons; or, unmarried women were disliked by their parents' families, who thought it was unbelievable for a girl like her to do such a rebellious thing. Not being able to marry into a good family in the future was secondary. The most important thing was - as a child, how could you so easily escape from the life path that your elders had planned for you so long ago?

On the contrary, those who would have such thoughts were the middle class of the Great Sheng Dynasty. They had assets in their families and held a certain amount of power in certain places. Some of their family members even had people serving as officials in the court, and they had no shortage of offspring, especially male offspring.

Since these female officials were able to pass the examination, most of them were people of strong character. Even if their families had to sever ties with them, very few women who had been appointed as officials would be willing to return to their families and let others arrange the rest of their lives.

However, such stubbornness brought them another dilemma - being expelled from the family, abandoned by their parents, and even some married people either divorced their husbands and were unable to take their children with them; or the small family lost its home and could only live in the capital.

This dilemma was not obvious in previous years when the number of female officials was still small, but after the last spring examination, the number of female officials has exceeded one hundred, and most of them have enough strength to enter the Hanlin Academy for study, and even began to serve in front of the emperor, serve as tutors, help the scholars and run errands, while also constantly absorbing the experience of their predecessors.

As more and more female officials stayed in Beijing, their housing problems finally had to be taken seriously.

Especially those single female officials and young couples who were expelled from their families.

After all, the former is a woman whose physical fitness is inherently weaker than that of men. She has to face countless malicious intentions when she is alone outside. There have been precedents of hiring killers to rob and kill single female officials outside the city. Although the man was finally arrested and paid the price he deserved, the female official could never come back.

Although the latter is better than the former, in fact, sometimes household chores are more exhausting, especially when living in the capital, which is very difficult. It is not worth it for a female official who has finally passed the examination to be dragged down by her family.

After chatting with the emperor for a few more words, Lu Weiyuan turned the memorial in his hand to the last page and saw the three words "Xie Jinchao" at the bottom. He immediately became happy again: "It turned out to be the memorial submitted by Aunt Jinchao. I guess mother has read it in advance. Then I will go directly to find mother and tell her that you, father, think I am too noisy and want to kick me out of the palace early!"

Xie Jinchao is no longer in the Imperial Hospital. After the several female medical officers she brought in had completely established themselves and their rank was raised to the same level as male medical officers, Xie Jinchao was transferred to the Ministry of Revenue by Xie Yuzhen as an official in the Ministry of Revenue. When she was doing statistics on the household registrations of the female officials stationed in Beijing, she discovered this problem and decisively reported it, which resulted in such a memorial.

The emperor was helpless: "Your mother also agrees to let you leave the palace and set up your own residence. You can go and complain to me. It depends on whether your mother says anything or not. You will be finished."

If it was said that the emperor loved his daughter without limits, then Xie Yuzhen, as a mother, would occasionally adopt a slightly stricter attitude - there was no other way. The emperor believed so much that he was destined to have such an outstanding daughter. When Lu Weiyuan was only ten years old, he held her in his arms to attend court affairs. He didn't seem to care at all about the impact his actions would have on his daughter and the court officials, and he didn't have the slightest worry that he would accidentally raise his daughter in a wrong way.

Different from the emperor's innate absolute self-confidence, even though Xie Yuzhen had long known that her daughter was destined by heaven to be a wise and benevolent ruler, she still often worried that she had not done well in some way and that her daughter's character would be distorted.

But the slightly different attitudes of the parents brought about a pleasing result - compared to his father who doted on his mother without limits, Lu Weiyuan was closer to his mother who would occasionally show a stern face.

"Mother would not be willing to scold me for such a trivial matter." She waved her hand nonchalantly at the emperor, took the memorial and went out.

The emperor leaned back on the dragon throne and raised his hand to touch his smooth chin.

................................................................. ................................................................. .............................

"Yes, it was indeed me who proposed to your father that the two palaces be renovated and made into a princess's palace for you." Facing his daughter's question, Xie Yuzhen answered directly, "You are already fifteen years old. At this age... in ordinary families, they would have already started looking for a marriage, but I don't want you to think about it so soon, so-"

"Mom, is there anything you want me to do?!" Lu Weiyuan was not disappointed that his own mother also agreed to let him leave the palace. Or he just pretended to be disappointed for a while. After hearing his mother's tone become serious, he was immediately full of energy. "Mom, don't worry. Just leave the important things to me. I have been able to do everything well and correctly since I was a child, and I can make everyone satisfied!"