From Zhaoyi to Yezhe: Fourteen Ranks of the Han Palace and Their Stipends

One list of fourteen ranks, from 昭儀 down to 夜者. Two books record the system, and they record it differently. The body of the Hanshu's 外戚傳 sets out the fourteen grades one by one, each with a rank it was compared to and a noble title it was equated with. The body of the Later Han's 皇后紀 has only four characters for the whole set, 增級十四, and the names are in a note, which puts the four titles created by Emperor Wu first and Emperor Yuan's zhaoyi fifth. This article lays the two lists side by side, grade by grade. The names are the same in both books; the information given with them is not. The two books were written centuries apart, and each does something different with the same fourteen names.

The Hanshu Table

The preface first explains where the titles come from: 漢興，因秦之稱號……妾皆稱夫人。又有美人、良人、八子、七子、長使、少使之號焉。至武帝制婕妤、娙娥、傛華、充依，各有爵位，而元帝加昭儀之號，凡十四等云 — six titles come from Qin, Emperor Wu added 婕妤、娙娥、傛華、充依, and Emperor Yuan added 昭儀, making fourteen in all. The body text then gives the ladder: Note what the preface does before the table: it assigns each title to Qin or to an emperor, so the ladder has a history as well as an order. The preface's order of events is also the order of rank, and it is the only place on the page that says who created which title.

• 昭儀 — 位視丞相，爵比諸侯王: placed like the Chancellor, noble rank like a king
• 婕妤 — 視上卿，比列侯: like the senior ministers, noble rank like a marquis
• 娙娥 — 視中二千石，比關內侯: like full two thousand shi, noble rank like an internal marquis
• 傛華 — 視真二千石，比大上造: like true two thousand shi, noble rank like the Grand Shangzao
• 美人 — 視二千石，比少上造: like two thousand shi, noble rank like the Junior Shangzao
• 八子 — 視千石，比中更: like a thousand shi, noble rank like the Middle Geng
• 充依 — 視千石，比左更: like a thousand shi, noble rank like the Left Geng
• 七子 — 視八百石，比右庶長: like eight hundred shi, noble rank like the Right Shuzhang
• 良人 — 視八百石，比左庶長: like eight hundred shi, noble rank like the Left Shuzhang
• 長使 — 視六百石，比五大夫: like six hundred shi, noble rank like the Fifth Grandee
• 少使 — 視四百石，比公乘: like four hundred shi, noble rank like the Lord of Chariots
• 五官 — 視三百石: like three hundred shi, with no noble title
• 順常 — 視二百石: like two hundred shi, with no noble title
• 無涓、共和、娛靈、保林、良使、夜者 — 皆視百石: six names, all like a hundred shi

Two sentences follow the table: 上家人子、中家人子視有秩斗食云, the upper and middle 家人子 are compared to the salaried 斗食 grade; and 五官以下，葬司馬門外, those below 五官 are buried outside the Sima gate. One thing is easy to miss: the noble comparisons stop at 少使, whose title is 公乘. 五官, 順常 and the six lowest names have a rank comparison only and no noble title at all. The page gives these noble titles without explaining them, and this article does not gloss them either. The ladder therefore has a top compared to the highest civil office, a middle compared to the grades of the official salary scale, and a bottom compared to the lowest salaried clerks.

The Later Han List

The Later Han passage is a preface on palace order from Qin to Han: 秦幷天下，多自驕大，宮備七國，爵列八品。漢興，因循其號，而婦制莫釐……自武、元之後，世增淫費，至乃掖庭三千，增級十四. The fourteen grades are only four characters in this body text; 掖庭三千, 'three thousand in the side courts', is a way of saying the palace was crowded, not a census and not an establishment figure. The page's concern here is not the ladder but the growth of palace expense after Emperors Wu and Yuan. The passage is an argument about extravagance, and the fourteen grades enter it as evidence of it.

The names are in the note: 婕妤一，娙娥二，容華三，充衣四，已上武帝置；昭儀五，元帝置；美人六，良人七，七子八，八子九，長使十，少使十一，五官十二，順常十三，無涓、共和、娛靈、保林、良使、夜者十四，此六官品秩同爲一等也 — each grade numbered, each title assigned to the emperor who created it, and the last group of six explicitly said to share one rank. A reader of the body text alone would not learn a single one of the fourteen names. The note does work the body text leaves undone: it supplies the names, the numbers and the founders.

Compared, the two orders differ. The Hanshu puts 昭儀 first, because it is the highest grade, compared to the Chancellor; the Later Han note puts 婕妤 first and 昭儀 fifth, because it puts Emperor Wu's four titles at one to four and Emperor Yuan's zhaoyi fifth, and otherwise follows its own order. The spellings differ too: 傛華 and 充依 in the Hanshu, 容華 and 充衣 in the note. And the rank figures appear only in the Hanshu; the Later Han page gives no shi figure for any grade. In other words the later book numbers the fourteen in the note's own order while the earlier ranks them by precedence, and the two orders cannot be used interchangeably.

A Rank Name Is Not a Stipend

Every line says 視 or 比. 位視丞相, 視中二千石, 比關內侯: the palace grade is being compared with an office rank and a noble title at court. That is not a monthly payment. 視中二千石 means the grade is treated as the full two thousand shi grade, not that its holder drew the grain of a full two thousand shi office each month. The monthly tables — the ones that run from three hundred and fifty hu down — are in this site's other article; this article stays with the ladder itself. Neither page converts a 視 rank into grain, and this article does not either. A comparison of this kind does two things: it places a palace title in the court's order of precedence, and it gives a noble title as a second comparison; the page lists the pairs and stops there. The Hanshu's words 視 and 比 do not appear in the Later Han note, which gives no comparison at all.

Details Inside the Table

Read grade by grade, several things cannot be merged. 八子 and 充依 are both 視千石 but carry different noble titles, 中更 and 左更. 七子 and 良人 are both 視八百石, with 右庶長 and 左庶長. 五官 and 順常 stand alone, at 視三百石 and 視二百石, with no noble title. The last grade is six names — 無涓、共和、娛靈、保林、良使、夜者 — sharing one 視百石. The figures stay as written: fourteen grades, six names in one, two grades of 家人子, one 斗食 comparison; 掖庭三千 is quoted as the page's phrase, never used as a headcount. Two grades can share a rank figure and still be told apart by the noble comparison, which is exactly what the table does at 千石 and at 八百石. The lowest grade is the clearest case: six different names, one rank figure, and no noble title to tell them apart.

What This Article Leaves Out

It does not write about palace institutions in general or about the position of women, and it offers no critique of either: the fourteen grades are an establishment, not a number of people, and the size of the side courts is not given on these pages, so it is not supplied here. The three articles on women in the Han, Tang and Ming are separate pieces about norms, tomb inscriptions and how historians wrote about women; this one reads a rank table. The article on official salaries is separate too: that one shows two monthly tables that do not match, while this one shows which court rank each palace grade was compared to. The units are kept as written — shi, grades, persons — with no conversion and no estimate of how many women stood at each grade. The characters stay as printed: 傛華 and 充依 in the Hanshu, 容華 and 充衣 in the Later Han note. What the two pages give is a list and a numbering, not a household roster. A list is not a household, and a numbering is not a count.

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