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Ming
During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), palace women were sorted into roughly the same three categories as in the Song. However, female officials and assistants in the Ming were organized into six established government groups, called the Six Bureaus (The Bureau of General Affairs, Bureau of Handicrafts, Bureau of Ceremonies, Bureau of Apartments, Bureau of Apparel, and Bureau of Foodstuffs). These groups were all overseen by the Office of Staff Surveillance, headed by a female official. Women workers in the imperial palace were distinguished as either permanent or temporary staff. Permanent palace staff included educated and literate female officials serving in the Six Bureaus and wet-nurses caring for imperial heirs or other palace children. These women received great wealth and social acclaim if their jobs were performed well. Seasonal or temporary palace women included midwives, female physicians, and indentured contractors (these were usually women serving as maids to consorts, entertainers, sewing tutors, or sedan-chair bearers). These women were recruited into the palace when necessary and then released following the termination of their predetermined period of service.

Throughout the Ming, there was frequent movement between the palace service industry and the low levels of the imperial harem. Although emperors frequently selected minor consorts from imperial serving women, few selected women ever reached the higher ranks of the consort structure or gained significant prominence.

As the Ming dynasty progressed, living and working conditions for palace women began to deteriorate. Lower-ranked serving-women working in the Imperial palace were often underpaid and unable to buy food, leaving them to support themselves by selling embroidery at the market outside the palace via eunuchs. Overall living conditions and punishments for misbehaving eventually grew so bad that there was an assassination attempt against the Jiajing emperor by a group of serving women. Led by palace maid Yang Jinying in 1542, the failed assassination attempt involved several maids sneaking into the emperor’s bedchamber as he slept to strangle him with a curtain cord. The attempt ultimately failed, and all the women involved were put to death, although this type of violent revolt by serving women had never been seen before in the Ming.

Due to slanderous literary propaganda written and spread by male officials and Confucian authors, higher-class female officials also saw their power begin to weaken throughout the Ming. These prominent government men began to disparage having educated women in government and state roles in response to the influence imperial women had held over the nation in the past. This prompted a gradual overtaking of female official roles by palace eunuchs that continued throughout the remainder of the dynasty.