back to the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BC) and continued up until 1924, when the eunuch system was abolished by the last emperor of China, Puyi. The last living palace eunuch, Sun Yaoting, died in 1996. Originally, palace eunuchs were prisoners who were involuntarily emasculated. In the Qing dynasty, men began volunteering to undergo the procedure in order to gain employment, although instances of forced emasculation still occurred. One reason why recipients willingly underwent emasculation is that they saw employment as a palace eunuch as a way to acquire wealth and power. Alternatively, poverty was a reason why fathers forced their sons to undergo emasculation, and the desire for financial benefit motivated human traffickers to force emasculation on their victims. There were several reasons why the Imperial court required its civil servants to be emasculated. Emasculation was thought to ensure a recipient's undivided loyalty to the emperor, as it severs the recipient's existing familial or social bonds and destroys their ability to produce future heirs. The choice to hire emasculated eunuchs also ensured the legitimacy of the emperor's lineage. The choice to emasculate, rather than merely castrate, was motivated by a desire to protect the chastity of women in the court, as emasculation rendered a recipient physically incapable of having sex. While emasculation was a pre-requisite for gaining employment as a palace eunuch, it did not guarantee employment. The emasculation procedure was typically performed by a trained 'knifer', or 'knife expert'. To prepare for the operation, the recipient was bathed in cold water to numb his senses and, in some instances, his genitals were twisted to reduce blood flow. The recipient was then asked if he consented to the procedure, and if he answered yes the knifer excised the genitals with a single cut. Styptic powder was then applied to the wound to stop bleeding, and a pewter needle or spigot was inserted into the urethra to prevent stenosis (narrowing). Some Chinese emasculates were the great historian Sima Qian, Cao Teng, the grandfather of Cao Cao, Zheng He, a Ming dynasty admiral of the imperial navy who sailed to Africa, and the surviving sons and grandson of rebel Yaqub Beg. West Asia To create eunuchs for the Arab slave trade, young black boys from East Africa typically had their penis and scrotum completely amputated. White boys, by comparison, were usually only castrated. Religious Skoptsy Emasculation was one form of genital mutilation