Fun time: How did Qianlong select girls in the imperial selection ?

In the Qing dynasty, the imperial selection took place about 80 times. The selection process couldn't keep exactly same. So in this video, I use the imperial selection happened in 1795, the 60th year of Qianlong's time, as an example to explain the selection process. In October 1795, Qianlong retired. So this selection was the last imperial selection that took place in Qianlong's time. In the beginning of 1795, about 8000 girls participated in the first round of the imperial selection. This year, Qianlong was 85 years old, but he still personally inspected those girls. Now, here comes our first question. How long did Qianlong spend on the first round selection? The answer is 4 days. During those 4 days, Qianlong selected girls according to the order below. On the first day, the bordered yellow banner and the bordered blue banner. On the second day, the plain yellow banner and the bordered white banner. On the third day, the plain white banner and the plain red banner. And on the last day, the bordered red banner and the plain blue banner. From this order, we don't see the difference between the upper 3 banners and the lower 5 banners. I guess this arrangement is making sure that Qianlong could inspect about 2000 candidates per day. The emperors could freely choose where they met those candidates. This time, Qianlong met those girls in the Jiangxuexuan, which was in the imperial garden. Starting from Kangxi's time, the government provided a free breakfast for the imperial selection candidates. The selection started after the breakfast. This time, the selection started at 8 am. We know every banner had 3 branches. For example, plain yellow banner included Manchuria plain yellow banner, Mongolia plain yellow banner, and Han Chinese plain yellow banner. For one specific banner, for example, the bordered yellow banner, Qianlong first selected from Manchuria bordered yellow banner, then Mongolia bordered yellow banner, and at last, the Han Chinese bordered yellow banner. Manchuria, Mongolia, and Han Chinese. This order was fixed. For one specific branch, Qianlong met with the younger girl first. This order also was fixed. For the same age girls, every 6 girls stood in a row. Now, here comes our second question. How long do you think Qianlong spent on inspecting 2,000 girls? The answer is 1 hour. This means Qianlong spent about 10 seconds on every row. Remember, one row included 6 girls. So, in the real history, in the first round of the imperial selection, it was impossible that the emperor asked the candidates questions, which you usually see in Qing TV dramas. In ancient China, people would get down on their knees when they saw the emperor. But in the imperial selection, candidates needn't do nothing because there wasn't much time. 6 girls came into the room and stood in a row. Then Qianlong spent about 10 seconds on looking at them. Then those girls leave the room. The girls who were chosen by the emperor were called Ji Ming. The others who lost were called Liao Paizi. Now, here comes our third question. In those 8,000 candidates, how many of them passed the first round selection? The answer is 13. On the fifth day, 8 of those girls were selected by Qianlong and become the winners of this selection. If we divide 8 by 8,000, we got 0.001, which is 0.1%. Luckily, Qianlong didn't promote those girls as his imperial women. He arranged for them to get married to royal clan members. Among those 8 girls, a girl who was from Manchuria-bordered Yellow Banner Niu Hulu clan was arranged to marry Qianlong's grandson Mingning, who became the emperor Daoguang. At last, I want to clear up a common mistake you see in Qing TV dramas. In dramas, you see the emperor's daughter, the empress, and the noble consort show with the emperor in the imperial selection. In real history, in a normal situation, the emperor was the only person who showed in the selection and made decisions. Because Qing imperial selection was a political event. I will tell you the details about this topic later. Thank you for watching this video. See you soon.