Why does Empress Dowager Cixi drink human milk?

There are two theories about Cixi's liking to drink human milk. One is that Cixi is sick and needs human milk to treat the disease. The other is that Cixi drinks human milk for health in order to maintain her youth and beauty.

Cixi got a serious illness when she was 43 years old, so serious that the doctors in Taiji Hospital were at a loss. At this time, Emperor Guangxu's wet nurse recommended a folk prescription to Cixi, that is, drinking human milk.

Cixi asked too many doctors, and the doctors said they could try, so Cixi began to try drinking human milk to treat the disease. After drinking human milk for a while, she found that her illness was slowly improving. So, after that, she began to drink human milk to keep healthy and prevent herself from getting sick.

Cixi is famous for her love of beauty. She heard that human milk is rich in nutrition, which can nourish the skin and maintain beauty. So in order to keep her young appearance and prevent her from getting old, she sent someone to catch some women who had just given birth and were still breastfeeding, and provided her with milk.

Cixi likes to drink human milk, bring women who have just given birth to children into the palace and provide milk for herself. It's a pity that those newborn children don't have milk to drink, and they don't know if they can survive. Those arrested wet nurses were forced to leave just after giving birth and suffered from the separation of flesh and blood.

Legend has it that Cixi secretly silenced the wet nurses after they were put home to prevent them from speaking ill of themselves and spreading gossip against them. Not only did these wet nurses not get rich wages, but they ended up in a tragic end.