Do not take the television series serious, treat it as a purely entertainment only, because the folklore reflects the historical facts much more honestly than the television series due to political censorship.
In reality, the King of Qi (Qi Xuan Wang) reigned around 7th century B.C., the Zhou dynasty. The King of Zhou divided China into two hundred of so small kingdoms, and the Qi Xuan King ruled the Kingdom of Qi, made it the strongest one of two hundred kingdoms.
China was still a slavery society, and all women were treated as slaves. Even for those women who were free, their status is no different than those who weren't because the so-called "free" women belong to their husbands after they married, and they were treated as merely the properties of their husbands. Before their marriage, they belong to their families, in effect, they are the properties of their families.
What King of Qi Xuan did was that in the first time in the Chinese history, he enabled Chinese women to have the choice to have a little freedom and independence, but this was done in a rather bad way:
Because of soldiers' biological needs, Kingdom of Qi established the legal brothel system that purely served the military, a first in China, and probably the first in the world. Under this system, women who served in these legal brothels have the equal status of men, because they are merchants just like other male businessmen who sells commodities like food and furniture.
Obviously, under the current communist regime in China, this historical fact can never been allowed to be realistically reflected in TV or movies, or any other forms of publications or entertainments. The film crew must make up some fake stories to accommodates the plot and therefore, this production is purely entertainment, not a docudrama told in a comical way.
