In Story of Yanxi Palace, Wei Yingluo sends all three of her children away. Her intention in scattering two of them to the Empress Dowager for safekeeping seems pretty clear: under the protection of a powerful figure, she can minimize the harm to her own flesh and blood and keep them alive and safe.
When I saw this scene, I could not help sinking into thought (^_^). The palace intrigue has reached this point, with everyone spending every day either figuring out how to kill your child or how to stop you from killing mine. Surely there is no better mechanism for making the harem just a tiny bit more civilized?
Protection by a powerful figure is a good idea, but it has problems too. First, you can never guard against every villain; no matter how thoroughly Empress Dowager Nihuang dominates the harem, there will always be moments when she fails to spot a schemer making trouble. Second, what if everyone sends their princes over? Is the Empress Dowager supposed to moonlight as principal of the Forbidden City kindergarten?
Are there any other approaches?
I recently reread The Story of the Romans. It often mentions how, after defeating an opponent, Rome would demand hostages–several princes handed over to be raised by Roman aristocratic families. On the one hand, this deterred the other side; on the other, the children who grew up in Rome were not treated as prisoners. They were educated alongside the children of Roman nobles. As a result, these foreign royals would most likely grow up as Rome fans, and return home as pro-Roman forces. Of course, this hostage strategy is hardly unfamiliar to us: it was especially common during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Did not Ying Zheng himself once serve as a hostage?
So, could the harem establish a hostage system?
If the rules required two hostile consorts to exchange children for foster care, what would happen?
If sworn enemies raised each others children, that should create a terrifying balance of power: if you are capable of killing my child over there, then I can just as easily kill yours over here.
Would that not bring peace to the harem?!
Three palaces and six courts, all living together in perfect harmony!
But the apparent difficulty with this hostage system is how to assess the potential hostility between two consorts.
After all, hostages can create a terrifying balance of power only between enemies. But before I kill your child, I am not exactly going to notify you in advance.
The solution might be to design the hostage system according to the order of succession to the throne.
The prince ranked a in the line of succession and the prince ranked b would serve as mutual hostages.
After all, the mothers of a and b are the ones most likely to want to kill each other.
Next, c and d would serve as mutual hostages.
If c’s mother wanted her son to gain the right of succession, she would first have to kill a and b–but then she would face a terrifying balance of power with d as well. That would make stirring up trouble far too difficult, so the desire to stir up trouble should drop sharply.
Hmm. It really does seem capable of bringing peace to the harem.
If any online novelist happens to read this and finds the idea intriguing, please contact me as soon as possible. We can co-write a game-theory version of a palace-intrigue novel and make a fortune!!
Note
- These articles in the New Psychology Insights Mini-Course series were short popular-psychology essays written back then to accompany the relevant content of Zhichao Wei: New Psychology Insights Course. They were published on the now-shuttered platform Fantuan, and the original link no longer exists.
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