There is a word called "Yangzhou thin horse", which refers to this phenomenon. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the management organization of salt monopoly was located in Yangzhou, and many businessmen also lived here. Wealthy salt merchants fattened the local flower willow industry, and raising thin horses is one of the most typical ways.

There is a mature process for wealthy businessmen to choose thin horses. Face, posture, voice and manners can all be used as bargaining chips. In the deformed aesthetics at that time, small feet were very important, so the first-class thin horse must have the standard of "three-inch golden lotus"-"thin, small, sharp, curved, fragrant, soft and upright". The thin horse selected by the wealthy businessman will have a gold hairpin or a jade hairpin inserted in his hair, indicating that he has made up his mind. Just like picking a pony in the horse market, the price of the first-class product can even reach more than 1000 silver.

Buy a virgin at a low price and sell it at a high price. The abacus of the pimp (or aunt) is very loud. It's a pity that many poor women have been chosen as commodities. Moreover, those who can marry into the rich are lucky, and there are a lot of poor women who spend the rest of their lives in brothels. Of course, there is the luckiest thin horse in the legend. She was extremely loved by Tian Guifei, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen.

China's language connotation is complex, sometimes you can't read the meaning, otherwise it would be a big mistake! For example, the word thin horse!

Thin horse is not a horse!

Ma Zhiyuan, a famous composer in the Yuan Dynasty, wrote a famous song, Qiu Si in the clear sand, an old tree with withered vines, a small bridge with flowing water, and an old road with thin horses in the west wind. When the sun sets, heartbroken people are at the end of the world. Writing literati's sadness about autumn is highly praised by the world for its broad and desolate realm. The image of "thin horse on the west wind road" in the song has the feeling that heartbroken people are at the end of the world. The beauty of a horse lies in its thinness. If a scholar rides a fat horse, it will be a wet blanket.

I once wrote a chapter about Qin Guan in a book, because Qin Guan is from Yangzhou, a sentimental and personable master, and a prince charming that all singers like. So I got the title of this chapter at that time is graceful and thin horse. This is influenced by Ma Zhiyuan, a composer in Yuan Dynasty, who thinks that the thin horse is an image of a lonely scholar wandering around the world. Later, a university professor reminded me to study the word thin horse seriously!

Thin horse is a proper term of romantic field in Yangzhou in Ming and Qing dynasties, so it is not easy to say it casually. Just like now, you can't call people miss casually, you can't compare others to chickens and ducks, and you can't call your mother and mommy intimately, because habits and customs will affect the language and produce great changes in it.

Generally speaking, thin horses were a miserable group in Yangzhou in Ming and Qing Dynasties, where some little girls were raised and sold for money because of poor family or other reasons. They may not be prostitutes, but many of these girls end up in romantic places. In the final analysis, thin horse is a commodity and a long-term investment that makes huge profits. Sadly, this kind of goods is a person, a girl who used to be a girl!

Yangzhou has been a place of economic and cultural prosperity since ancient times. In addition, Yangzhou salt merchants were rich, warm and lustful, drank poison to quench thirst, and concubines with mistresses prevailed, which gave birth to this evil business. "Weiyang is under the king, Kawasawa is beautiful, so she is beautiful, gentle in temperament and graceful in manners." Because Shui Ze has great aura, and he is also impressed by his graceful and restrained spirit, so all parties can't be enemies. However, young people are used to imported goods, selling boys and girls everywhere in the market, adding costumes, and teaching them to belong to calligraphy, painting, chess and calligraphy, so as to invite thick value, which is called' thin horse'. "

Wu, a scholar in Qing Dynasty, recorded the thin horse in detail in Gossip at the Guest Window. "Jinling gangsters, selling girls in all directions, choose their handsome, skin conditioning, decorative clothes, delay the teacher's teaching, are calligraphy, piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, flute strings. As for melons, they are sold to officials, businessmen, rich people as concubines and even into brothels at high prices, which is called' keeping thin horses'. If the family is poor and the women are good, try to seduce them. " To put it bluntly, a thin horse is a girl bought by the rich from the poor, trained as a "mistress reserve" for the rich, or a naked abduction that harms women!

After the Tang Dynasty, people's aesthetics took a 180 degree turn, and began to take thinness as beauty. Therefore, the first feature of Yangzhou thin horse is thinness. Be thin and have a slim waist. So their owners generally strictly limit their diet. If you grow into big breasts and fat buttocks, the price will definitely be greatly reduced.

The second feature is beautiful, and basically has the artistic attainments of piano, chess, painting and calligraphy. Therefore, their boss should also give them professional art education, which is a long-term investment.

Third, most of them are miserable. Either as a concubine or as a slave, just like African slaves before.

The purpose of years of careful training is ... to reveal the largest industrial chain of pornographic services in ancient times. Do you know "Yangzhou Thin Horse"? A product that appears because local tyrants can't control their lower bodies involves a huge and professional porn service industry chain in ancient China!

What is a "thin horse"?

Since the Tang Dynasty, Yangzhou has developed a commercial economy and lived with a group of salt merchants. These local tyrants monopolize the national salt industry and can be said to be "super rich".

When they have money, they want to be happy all day. As the so-called "cold and warm lust", these local tyrants began to have evil thoughts.

They are tired of eating big fish and meat and watching big breasts and fat buttocks. They want to change their light taste. Demand means business opportunities. In order to cater to the abnormal ideas of wealthy businessmen, the industry of "keeping thin horses" appeared in Yangzhou during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

"Thin horse" refers to those slender women, and "keeping thin horse" refers to training them.

To put it simply, it is similar to a game of cultivation. A prostitute (trafficker) buys a girl, cultivates the girl into a rich businessman's favorite appearance, and finally sells it to them at a high price (thin horse is an insult to women, which means that women can be trampled on at will, just like a weak horse. )

"Thin Horse" Training Plan

To be a commodity, the "thin horse" must first have a source of goods, and the source of goods is the daughter of a poor family. Where there are many rich people, there are often many poor people. What should I do? Sell your daughter.

In Yangzhou city, if the poor raise a high-value daughter, they will be secretly remembered. When she was seven or eight years old, her aunt (a trafficker) began to buy it at home, but no one wanted that rustic girl. The most important thing for her aunt to buy a girl back is "packaging".

According to the standards of face value and figure, tooth women divide girls into three qualifications. Different qualifications have different development directions and also mean different prices.

First-class qualification: virtuous, artistic and double-hearted goblin

"You get what you pay for." The girls with the best quality have the most courses to learn. They have art classes, culture classes and entertainment classes every day as an elegant social "commodity". In order to better meet the needs of wealthy businessmen, they even learn room secrets.

Second-class qualification: smart and capable female secretary.

Girls who are ugly, smart and slightly inferior in quality rely on wisdom. Although they can also learn to read and play music, they mainly cultivate skills such as bookkeeping, accounting and account management, and their goal is to become qualified accountants. After all, the gold owner is a businessman.

Third-level qualification: domestic expert, housewife

The girl with the worst conditions can't even go to the dinner table, so she can only learn sewing, tailoring or cooking techniques such as cooking and steaming, and be a housewife who works hard.

The ultimate goal of the training is to make them fully conform to the aesthetic tastes of the gold owners, such as being slim, walking softly, looking at people with deep affection and becoming a qualified toy. After several years of packaging and cultivation, the "thin horse" finally grew to 14 or 15 years old, and dentists began to invite customers to buy it.

Guide to selection of "thin horse"

Although the gold owners are lewd and perverted, they are not stupid and will not be suckers. In order to choose a high-quality "thin horse", they have a set of strict appraisal methods (the most important thing for merchants is to judge the feet of thin horses. There is a set of very detailed methods to identify this "three-inch golden lotus", and people have also formulated seven standards, such as "fineness, smallness, pointiness, bending, fragrance, softness and integrity". )

When the gold owners choose the "thin horse", they will put a gold hairpin or a jade hairpin on her sideburns. If they don't like it, they can send her away for a few hundred pence.

The gold owners spent more than 1000 taels of silver to buy the "thin horse", and the biological parents of the "thin horse" only got 120 taels, and all the rest of the money went into the aunt's pocket. The huge profits from selling human flesh support many traffickers. Thin horses trained in Yangzhou are sold in large quantities all over the country every year because of their good quality and numerous praises.

The end of "thin horse"

Where did the thin horse go after buying it back? A thin horse with good quality generally has two outlets. One is to be bought back by the gold owners for their own use, to be concubines and become their playthings; Second, it was bought by the gold owner and given to officials and dignitaries as a special gift for businessmen to collude with officials.

If you are lucky, you can still enjoy the prosperity before the color fades. If you are unlucky, it is normal to be tortured by your wife.

Of course not. Those "thin horses" that were not liked by the gold owners were eventually sent to brothels. "Yangzhou thin horse" is an insult to women and a manifestation of the evil of ancient human flesh trading, but even in modern society, the phenomenon of buying and selling children and women still occurs from time to time.

"Spring Breeze Ten Miles of Yangzhou Road" At night, the fireworks Liuxiang by Qinhuai River was full of singing and dancing and heavy makeup, but who still remembers the tears shed by the "thin horse"?

Yangzhou was the settlement of salt merchants in Huaibei (Huainan) in ancient times. Salt merchants were very rich in those days, and their luxury was comparable to that of the royal family. Their wealth also supported a large number of surviving industries. "Raising thin horses" is one of them. They catered to the abnormal psychological needs of salt merchants.

Thin horse is an insult to women, which means that women can be ravaged at will like a weak horse. Why is it called "thin horse"? Because couples who are engaged in "raising thin horses" all buy young girls from poor families at low prices and sell them at high prices after cultivation, this is the same as the business model of businessmen buying thin horses at low prices and selling them at high prices after fattening, so people call this kind of women "thin horses".

First invest to buy back beautiful girls from poor families, then adjust their studies, teach them singing and dancing, piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, and then sell them to rich people as concubines or enter the Qin Lou Chu Museum for profit. Because poor women are so thin, the name "thin horse" comes from this. When I first bought a virgin, I didn't spend more than ten yuan. You can earn as much as 1520 yuan when you get married. When people see that it is profitable to follow suit, it becomes a common practice. In the Ming Dynasty, Yangzhou salt merchants monopolized the national salt transportation industry, which was the richest in the world. Therefore, at that time, the wind of "raising thin horses" in Yangzhou was the most prosperous in the country.

Some time ago, a girl traveled to Yangzhou. At that time, she sent a circle of friends and wrote, "I would like to be a thin horse in Yangzhou and travel around the world with you", and also took a selfie of myself. As a result, all her friends commented and laughed at her below. The "Yangzhou Thin Horse" in Ming and Qing Dynasties is not the kind of riding on behalf of herders, but describes some "special" women in that era. Therefore, China's words are profound and unintelligible. Don't misuse them, or they may turn into jokes in the end.

Special environment breeds special industries.

Yangzhou can be said to be an important gathering place for salt merchants in the Huaihe River during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The so-called salt merchants are all rich people. As long as they have money, they will try their best to eat, drink and have fun. So these rich salt merchants will spend money to buy "thin horses" in Yangzhou and raise them as concubines after returning home.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, many Yangzhou people devoted themselves to the industry of "raising thin horses". They buy little girls from poor families and carry out professional training. When little girls are bought, they are usually around eight years old. There are special people who teach them piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, all kinds of dances, and even cook all kinds of delicious food, and also teach them all kinds of needlework. Because most little girls from poor families can't afford to eat, they are very thin. This industry is like a businessman buying a pony and fattening it before selling it, so it was called "keeping thin horses" in Yangzhou at that time. The word "thin horse" is a bad name for those girls who were bought at that time.

After girls buy them, they usually keep them at home for about five years, and when they are thirteen or fourteen, they will go to a special market to sell them. Those rich businessmen with big bellies and round waists will choose thin horses, and the selection of thin horses has a very strict process. First the five senses at first sight, then the figure, then the girl's feet. A large number of wealthy businessmen value girls' feet most and have a set of detailed identification methods for girls' feet. If it meets the seven standards of "thin, sharp, small, curved, fragrant, soft and upright", then girls' feet are first-class "three-inch golden lotus", which is the favorite standard of wealthy businessmen.

Girls who are good-looking and know all kinds of manners will be bought back by these wealthy businessmen as concubines. Such a girl is a first-class thin horse and her fate is relatively lucky. The thin horses left by those wealthy businessmen will not be so lucky. Most of them will be bought by pimps in brothels and then serve all kinds of people. Although they say they can eat and drink, their lives will be ruined.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were so many people engaged in the sale of thin horses in Yangzhou, mainly because the industry was very profiteering. People who keep thin horses only buy a girl from a poor family for a dozen copper coins and carefully let them learn for five years. Generally, it can sell for tens of hundreds of taels of silver, and those first-class thin horses can even sell for thousands of taels of silver. It is precisely because of the huge profits of this industry that many people in Yangzhou were engaged in this industry at that time.

The luckiest "thin horse" in history

To say the luckiest thin horse in history, it must be the concubine of Chongzhen, the last emperor of Ming Dynasty. She is Tian Guifei. Tian Guifei's mother Wu was a famous prostitute in Yangzhou at that time. Her daughter learned all kinds of piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, boudoir etiquette, embroidery women workers, and even how to detect men's minds, that is, to train them into thin horses. Tian Guifei lived up to expectations and finally married Emperor Chongzhen. In the history of the Ming Dynasty, Tian was the only woman with such a humble background and no children who could become an imperial concubine so quickly. Tian Guifei is elegant, versatile, literate and martial, and deeply loved by Emperor Chongzhen. Later, Tian Guifei died in Chongzhen in July of 15, and Emperor Chongzhen was very sad. Finally, she was buried in Tianshou Mountain as an imperial concubine. Later, Emperor Chongzhen and Empress Zhou were also buried in this mausoleum, so Tian Guifei was the luckiest thin horse in history.

Conclusion: The word "thin horse" is a great insult to women, just like today's girls can't be called "miss" casually. These two words have similar meanings, which is insulting. It was at that time because of the special environment and in a special era that the special industry of buying and selling thin horses was born. Nowadays, the times are developing. In today's civilization, there would be no such dark business as buying and selling thin horses.

Regarding the definition of thin horse, Xie in the Ming Dynasty described it in his Five Miscellanies: Weiyang lived in heaven and earth, Sichuan and Ze were beautiful, so women were beautiful, gentle in temperament and graceful in manners. As the saying goes, women are attracted by too much anger, so all parties can't be enemies. However, Weiyang people are used to treating this as a strange commodity. The market sells boys and girls everywhere, adds costumes, teaches, teaches arithmetic, teaches piano and chess, and pays attention to being rough and straight, which is called "thin horse".

With the wind of concubinage, there will be the wind of jealousy. For concubines, how to satisfy their own desires and avoid the jealousy of "mistress" (the wife in the family) has become the first choice. There is a simple reason. The thin horse produced in Yangzhou not only has the necessary color for women, but also has the ability to play chess and cook. Moreover, the education they received from childhood is how to maintain family peace after becoming concubines as adults. These thin horses have been educated in a humble way, so even the jealous wives of large families are "stricter than others and wider than those who promote childbirth."

Yangzhou in the Ming Dynasty did have a perverted human flesh business, which was euphemistically called "keeping thin horses". Generally, the poor raise a good daughter and are adopted by the rich at the age of seven or eight. "Thin horses" are divided into three categories: handsome and ugly, smart and stupid.

Anyone who is smart, handsome and romantic will be taught to play the piano, play the flute, recite poems, write, draw, go, play backgammon and wipe dominoes when raising a family. Generally, female teachers are invited to teach geisha. Besides dressing up, standing, sitting and lying down, they also learn pillow customs according to special textbooks.

A second-class woman with medium talent will not teach her kung fu such as playing, singing and painting. Generally let her know some words, learn two sets of pipa and black boy, learn to do accounts, manage housework and do business. The guest got married and left it to the shopkeeper.

In the third class, she won't be asked to know the string. She can only learn some needlework or pick wool and thread, and she can make money by cutting big and small. Some of them also learned how to cook, fry and steam on the stove, cook in the oven and put fruit, each with his own skills.

Yangzhou, a custom of teaching women physiology, is commonly known as "fireworks world".

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Yangzhou was a gathering place for salt merchants. Salt merchants are rich because their industrial profits are huge, and the luxury of their lives can be comparable to that of the royalty. This has also led to some industries for their consumption, and "raising thin horses" is one of them.

As the ancients said, hunger and cold are good for food and clothing, and food and clothing is lust. Some quick-thinking people provide beautiful women as concubines to cater to the abnormal psychology of these wealthy salt merchants. They go to some poor people's homes to buy some beautiful girls, and ask people to teach them poetry, song and dance and manners, so as to please the rich and make a profit. Most of these girls are thin because of family difficulties. Therefore, people call this phenomenon "keeping thin horses". Because this phenomenon originated in Yangzhou, it is called Yangzhou thin horse.

My humble opinion, welcome to discuss in the comment area.

The novel Pan Liangyu mentions that Yangzhou's thinness is not far from history. It reflects the contempt for women in China feudal society. In the famine years at that time, bribing women and children to cross the line of life and death was a common means for the poor. Like a child bride. Sacrifice one to save the whole family. For "black-hearted" landlords and rich people, they were taken away cheaply by three wives, four concubines and eight aunts. They enjoyed life and made a small sum of money, which was common in those years. The maids and children in TV plays are of the same nature. Even the better poor families have child brides. This is a feudal feature with a long history. The socialist revolution in New China is only a feudal remnant carved from the roots. The Constitution stipulates that men and women are equal in China. India: Bangladesh or Women's Society?

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, many poor families in Jiangnan gave birth to girls. When they were seven or eight years old, Yangzhou people who raised thin horses visited their home, hoping to spend money to buy the little girl. After buying it, according to the girl's talent and appearance, she was taught poetry and songs, piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, needle and thread, and sold at a price, which was called "thin horse".

This dirty business actually has an elegant name like "The old road is thin, the sun goes down, and heartbroken people are at the end of the world", and it is said that the source of this name is a poem by Bai Juyi, a great poet in the Tang Dynasty:

No skinny horses, no little prostitutes.

The funeral is now, I don't believe you can remember.

Ma Fei walks fast, prostitutes can sing and dance,

Three years and five years, I heard that I have a new owner.

These humble little "thin horses" trampled by others are unaccompanied, lonely and hungry. The only hope is that these women will be recommended to wealthy businessmen as concubines when they are fourteen or fifteen years old. If the buyer is in love, he will insert a gold hairpin or a jade hairpin in a woman's sideburns.

Zhang Dai, a gifted scholar in the Ming Dynasty, recorded the selection process in detail in the article "Yangzhou Skinny Horse": "When I arrived at Skinny Horse's house, I sat down and got tea. My aunt helped Skinny Horse out and said,' Girl, meet me.' Worship. Say,' Girl, go up.' Let's go Say, "Girl, turn around." Turn around and stand out. Say, "Miss, lend me your hand." Do your best, your hands, arms and skin will come out. Said,' the girl is' xianggong'. In the blink of an eye, my eyes came out. Say,' How old is that girl? Say how old you are. Say,' Girl, go again. Pull her skirt with your hand and stick out your toes. However, look at the toes, whoever goes out with the skirt first will be big; The skirt is tied high, and the toes come out first before leaving. Say,' Girl, please go back. One person goes in, the other person comes out. There must be five or six people in a family. It's not salty. "

Some girls were not selected by wealthy businessmen, and the ending was even more tragic. They may be sold to brothels to do the flesh business.

To grow into a qualified "thin horse", you have to endure strict skill training. Those masters who teach various skills always hit people with sticks, even if they can't play a small note correctly, they may be beaten.

In the eyes of most people, Yangzhou thin horse is equivalent to Wei Chunhua's occupation, which is a misunderstanding. Because thin horses are far from simple.

Let's talk about what Yangzhou thin horse is first. Yangzhou thin horse is a group of unfortunate girls who have been selected, trained and trained since childhood.

Their training is not as simple as singing and dancing to please men.

What kind of piano, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, wine and tea, treating people, talking and behaving are just the most basic skills. Besides these, there are appreciation of antique Wan Wen, women workers who cut and embroider clothes, health massage medicine, cooking spoons, making snacks and so on.

Up to now, everyone is the goddess of extensive reading.

Of course, because people's qualifications are different, the training direction of Yangzhou thin horse is also different. Yangzhou thin horse should be divided into three classes according to its appearance, figure and talent.

After advanced training, there will be countless dignitaries visiting relatives and friends. The middle and lower classes are generally sold to senior clubs.

It can be said that Yangzhou thin horses are generally concubine, or a famous pear garden, and in the end they are all unprofessional professional women.

In addition, the truly beautiful Chen Yuanyuan is born with a thin horse.

Let's talk about why the word "thin horse" comes from Bai Juyi's poem "Don't raise thin horses, don't teach little prostitutes."

Thin horse is an insult to women. It means that you can trample and humiliate women at will, just like a pony that can be bullied by others.

Later, it evolved into buying ponies and fattening them before selling them.

In addition, there are reasons for choosing standards.

"Fine, small, sharp, curved, fragrant, soft and upright". It is the standard for thin horses to choose. Because thinness is the most basic option, these unfortunate women are also called thin horses.

Third, talk about the birth of thin horse, which originated from thin horse and concubinage.

Concubinage prevailed in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Once a scholar went to high school and almost always did two things, changing his name and surname and concubinage. There is even a saying that "change your name and marry a small one".

Changing one's name is to show the promotion of one's status, while marrying a younger one means having more children and expanding the family. Of course, some people just because of pure lust.

Although the law of the Ming Dynasty stipulated that Rhapsody in July was over 18 years old and had no children before concubinage. But it has not been effectively implemented in reality. Everyone should understand this. Officials are all men, and men are not good.

But as we all know, it is almost impossible for the daughter of a big family to be a concubine. After all, not everyone can give his granddaughter to Yan Song's grandson as a concubine like Xu Jie in the Ming Dynasty.

Few people can take a fancy to the daughter of a poor family unless she is very beautiful. Brothel woman, because of her occupation, few people will choose.

Those famous artists who are excellent in color and art, knowledgeable and innocent are very popular. But such a woman can't be met, so the birth of the thin horse was born. Geisha refers to a singer who sells art and does not sell herself. )

Because concubinage is prevalent, Yangzhou has been famous for its beautiful women since ancient times. So in Yangzhou, there is an industrial chain that adopts women, trains women and then sells them. At that time, this kind of industrial chain was called raising thin horses.

It is far-fetched to say that Yangzhou has been a prosperous place since ancient times, that Yangzhou has money and that salt merchants have abnormal desires.

The basis of "riding a crane to Yangzhou for 100 thousand yuan" is that Yangzhou has beautiful women. Without beautiful women, literati and poets have already gone to other places.

To sum up, some people have compared Yangzhou thin horse, Datong aunt, Taishan sister-in-law and Xihu mother-in-law, which is wrong.

In essence, Yangzhou Skinny Horse and Datong Boyi cultivate concubines for dignitaries, and then others. This is different from other unfair professional women.

But in any case, it is the tragic product of ancient male superiority and feudal ethics.