[Chen Xiang shares] Ancient Strange Stories 1

How were eunuchs castrated? How did they urinate?\ During the procedure, a white cloth strip would first be used to tightly bind the person's lower abdomen, then anesthetic chili water was used for disinfection. Next, the person's hands and feet were tied up, and after that, it depended on the master's knife skills. It's best to finish it in one cut, removing everything at once; otherwise, if cartilage grows back, it would have to be cut again. If the cut is accidentally too deep, a hole might form, causing urine to spray in all directions. After the surgery, due to the lack of the 'water pipe,' eunuchs' urine usually comes out in a fan shape, and they had to squat to urinate to avoid soiling their clothes.\ How often did ancient people bathe? What did they use to wash their hair?\ Ancient people were more hygiene-conscious than we imagine. As early as the pre-Qin period, they would 'wash their hair every three days and bathe every five days.' By the Han dynasty, there was even the concept of 'rest bathing,' meaning that officials, after working for five days, could take a day off specifically to bathe. Modern civil servants don't get such treatment. Some enjoyed bathing so much that they even wrote books about it, such as Emperor Xiao Gang of the Southern Liang dynasty and his 'Bathing Classic'. Ancient people washed their hair more frequently, often using clean water and a natural cleanser called 'soapberry.'\ Ancient women wore dudous as tops; did they wear underwear?\ In ancient times, the upper garment was called 'yi' and the lower garment 'shang.' The 'shang' was somewhat like a skirt, basically just a piece of cloth for modesty. It wasn't until the Spring and Autumn period that pants appeared. Later, women would wear an extra pair of old pants during menstruation to avoid soiling their trousers, and gradually men also started doing this, eventually evolving into the modern underwear we wear today. Nowadays, not wearing underwear has even become another form of expressing sexiness.\ Ancient emperors had 3,000 concubines in their harem; did they really have that many?\ Three thousand? That's just a conservative estimate. Ancient emperors' pursuit of women was tireless. The notorious tyrant Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty once issued an edict to gather beauties from across the country, even selecting 3,000 virgins for his palace for 'entertainment.' Emperor Yang was still small fry; the real champion was Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. Although historical books depict his love with Yang Guifei as earth-shattering and heart-wrenching, the number of women in his harem reached 40,000... well, if one per day, it would take over a hundred years to go through them all.\ Did ancient women remove body hair?\ Compared to their high intelligence and progressiveness, Chinese women didn't particularly evolve much in terms of body hair removal.In fact, long ago, ancient women admired shaving off their eyebrows and then painting them on with black pigment... That's right, the women in Akira Kurosawa's film "Ran" liked to make their eyebrows into small dots, which was indeed a practice inherited from Chinese ancestors... Besides that, ancient women also popularized the practice of "threading the face," which involved using thread to remove fine facial hair... It's said that only men care about their appearance, but apparently that's not true.

Ancestors had no toilet paper, so what did they use to wipe after using the toilet?

Ancient people probably all trained in the "Ninja skill." Before the invention of paper, after defecating, they used small wooden or bamboo pieces to "scrape" their buttocks, without fear of causing hemorrhoids. Even after the invention of paper, because of the Chinese tradition of "respecting paper," and because paper was relatively expensive, using paper to wipe one's bottom was considered an irreverent indulgence, so people continued being "ninjas." It wasn't until the Yuan dynasty that the Mongols didn't care about the concept of respecting paper, and from then on, bottoms received a "gentle" treatment.

Ancient people had no condoms, so how did they prevent pregnancy?

If an ancient emperor did not want his concubines to get pregnant, he would order eunuchs to hang the woman upside down and use saffron to cleanse her genital area. In the past, women in brothels would also take a kind of "cooling medicine" containing musk to prevent pregnancy. However, the effect was not 100 percent; for example, Wei Xiaobao most likely existed because his mother's contraceptive measures failed. Some people even consumed lethal mercury. Of course, most ancient people did not intentionally practice contraception.