Zhu Youjian learned from Zhang Xiaobao that the cruel exploitation of the palace maids by the Ming Dynasty court was so perverted that the royal family never treated the palace maids as human beings, but only treated them as consumables.

When the palace maids get sick, they cannot seek medical treatment and let them die by themselves. This is simply unimaginable in later generations. There are two reasons for such harsh rules.

First, because men other than the emperor are not allowed to enter at will in the harem, it is stipulated that the palace concubines have diseases below the palace, and doctors are not allowed to enter.

Second, in order to maintain the privacy of the royal palace, unless the emperor gives grace, the palace maids are strictly prohibited from leaving the palace. Therefore, the sick palace maids can only rely on their own vitality to continue their life, and cannot reduce their daily labor. When the lucky imperial physician sees his pity, he will secretly give some medicine, or ask a familiar eunuch to go to the imperial physician for some medicine, which may lead to a little more life.

The palace maid named Li Haitang was just a very common minor illness in later generations, but she could not seek medical treatment in time or take sick leave. So she gradually became a high fever, resulting in a worry for life.

The only thing Li Haitang could do was to ask the little eunuch Zhang Xiaobao, whom he knew, to go to the Imperial Hospital to ask the imperial doctor to pick up some medicine. If he unfortunately died of illness, the palace would not bury her. Instead, the eunuch who handled the body burned it with fire and threw the ashes into an abandoned dry well.

Fortunately, Zhang Xiaobao met Zhu Youjian. After receiving his famous post, he only prescribed a few pairs of antipyretic drugs. Li Haitang broke free from the critical death crisis and recovered within two days.

However, this is just a treatment of symptoms but not the root cause. Li Haitang was lucky to be treated by the imperial physician, but it was just the emperor's special kindness. If she fell ill again, or other palace maids encountered the same situation, would she still ask the emperor to rescue her every time?

In view of this, after Zhu Youjian finished his three-day activity at the grassroots level, he quickly issued an order to establish an internal hospital, which was specifically responsible for treating eunuchs and palace maids. He asked the internal hospital to select a group of young, literate and clever eunuchs and palace maids who were invited to come to the internal hospital to teach them medical skills.

In addition, Zhu Youjian also formulated a sick leave system for eunuchs and palace maids, stipulating that eunuchs and palace maids can go to the inner hospital to issue sick leave bills. With the sick leave bills from the inner hospital as evidence, eunuchs and palace maids work in the yamen must approve sick leave.

As soon as the decree issued by Zhu Youjian spread, many eunuchs and palace maids living at the bottom were very happy on the spot, especially those who were restricted from entering and leaving the palace, wishing that Zhu Youjian would give him a tablet of immortality to bless Zhu Youjian for a hundred years of life.

Zhu Youjian's good policies were not only so, but he soon made major reforms to the release system of palace maids.

It turned out that there was no provision for the release of palace maids in the Ming Dynasty. After palace maids entered the palace, they often spent their entire lives in the palace.

Compared to the eunuch who had a special institution for retirement after he was old, the release of palace maids was just a grace that the emperor occasionally carried out.

When Emperor Chenghua ascended the throne, Grand Secretary Li Xian said: The weather was not harmonious, and from the strong yin energy, from Xuande to Tianshun, there were too many palace people selected, and they were particularly sad and resentful, so they should be released, so the emperor released some palace maids.

This time it was released from the first year of Xuande to the eighth year of Tianshun, 38 years ago. The palace maids who entered the palace during Xuande, such as 13 years old, were released at that time.

Since there was no pension system in the Ming Dynasty, the palace maids not only had no food and clothing after going out, but also had difficulty getting married. After all, they were fifty years old and could be grandmas among the people. Who would marry such an old palace maid?

In this era when the average life span is only over 30 years old, men who go to 30 years old call themselves old husbands, women who go to 30 years old call themselves old women, and palace maids who are over 50 years old leave the palace. It is a burden for their families, and few families are willing to accept palace maids home.

This is the case when the emperor is willing to give him a favor and release him. The palace maids are still living so hard, but most of the time, the palace maids are not allowed to release him. Most of the palace maids spend their lonely life in the palace.

The old palace maids ended up in extremely miserable. There were as many as 10,000 palace maids in the Ming Dynasty, but the emperor did not want to see the white-headed palace maids, but he was afraid that the secrets in the palace maids would be revealed after leaving the palace. Therefore, the elderly and debilitated palace maids had only one place to go, which is the hell on earth that all the inner courts had changed their eyes when they heard about it - the Washing Clothes Bureau.

The Washing Clothes Bureau is one of the twenty-four yamen in the Ming Dynasty, and was led by an eunuch in charge of seals. According to the "Zhuo Zhongzhi", "Any palace people who are old and guilty and deprived of retirement will be sent to this bureau to live. The inner palace officials will provide salt and rice to wait for them to die to prevent the leakage of the matters of the great internal affairs. The law is the best."

Zhu Youjian also learned about the great suffering of the palace maids by going to the grassroots level, so he made the first move to formulate a system for the release of palace maids.

According to regulations, as long as the palace maids serve the royal family for more than fifteen years, they can adhere to the principle of voluntary decision to decide whether to leave the palace. The royal family will pay a considerable severance money according to the annual salary of the palace maids serving the royal family, and ten taels of silver per year.

Palace maids who are unwilling to leave the palace can continue to stay in the palace for service. At the age of fifty, they can enjoy royal support, and are responsible for receiving the nursing homes run by the royal family.

In addition to establishing an internal hospital and formulating a system for release of palace maids, Zhu Youjian also abolished the corporal punishment imposed on eunuchs and palace maids, and changed it to a confinement that was disgusting in later military news.

These good policies were spread, and the eunuchs and palace maids naturally reached the peak of support for Zhu Youjian, and Zhu Youjian's reputation was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

However, the system introduced by Zhu Youjian has attracted considerable doubts from Empress Zhou. According to the principle of the male lead and the female lead inside, the tens of thousands of palace maids in the imperial city were originally managed by the Empress, but Zhu Youjian interfered in the management of the palace maids, which naturally made Empress Zhou feel unhappy.

Empress Zhou always obeyed etiquette and followed the etiquette in everything. After coming to Qianqing Palace to see Zhu Youjian, she tried her best to advise: "Your Majesty, the ancestral system cannot be changed casually. If the palace maids spread the secrets of the palace to the people after leaving the palace, where will our royal family be faced?"

Zhu Youjian laughed and said, "People are inherently good. I treat others with kindness and righteousness. I believe they will treat me with kindness and righteousness. Of course, if you let them go out of the palace, you still have to take necessary precautions.

The so-called punishment without teaching is regarded as abuse. Three days before leaving the palace, we should first provide them with confidential training. We must understand the reason why disaster comes from the mouth. If they dare to reveal the secrets of the palace to outsiders after they leave the palace, then the government and the Jinyiwei are not a good meal. As long as they dispatch three or five minor officials, it will be enough to teach them that they will never be reborn."

Queen Zhou said: "I'm afraid they will be threatened by others."

Zhu Youjian said: "Don't worry about anything. Compared to the moral policy of releasing the palace maids, what can the mere rumors hurt us? As long as we do things, we should do things drastically without having to worry too much.

By the way, you just happened to be here. I will leave it to you to establish an internal hospital and the release system of palace maids. After all, you are the queen, so it is more appropriate for you to do these things."
Chapter completed!