The famous historian Zhao Yi once recorded such a story in his work:
After the State of Zhao was tragically destroyed by the State of Qin, a well-known "Orphan of the Zhao Clan", bearing the burden of humiliation, carrying the deep vengeance of destroying the family and destroying the country, castrated himself into the Qin Palace, and finally subverted the State of Qin from within, achieving perfect revenge for the State of Zhao! He wrote a poem from this:
At that time, the whole world wanted to curse Qin, which counted as a name and killed.
First go to Fusu and then Hu Hai, Zhao Gaogong crowned the Han ministers.
Da Jia destroyed the woman, and plotted to rejuvenate Han and xiao Cao.
Liu Hou Shi Tie Jing Qing Dagger was not as high as Qin Gong Yi Zhao.
Evil, Zhao Gao! Wei Zhao, Zhao Gao!
It is generally believed that the many internal court chaos in the Qin Dynasty caused by Zhao Gao was one of the reasons for the accelerated demise of the Qin Dynasty, such as Liang Qichao, who commented on him:
"Those who are subordinate to them are clever in their words, flattering the lord, stealing the handle of the state, and poisoning the people, such as Zhao Gao of Qin, Ten Constant Attendants of Han, Lu Qi and Li Linfu of Tang, Cai Jing, Qin Juniper, and Han Jingxu of Song, Liu Jin and Wei Zhongxian of Ming, who wear buckets, and are incomparable."
However, there is still controversy in history about Zhao Gao's motives for creating chaos in the Court of the Qin Dynasty—for example, what I wrote at the beginning is a speculation from the Qing Dynasty historian Zhao Yi's "Examination of The Rest of the Year", and he also pointed out that this passage of information comes from Sima Zhen's "History of Suoyin".
Zhao Gao's identity is also confusing, and some scholars have deduced that Zhao Gao was not an eunuch through the excavation of documents, and believe that there is no early document that records that he was an eunuch. However, historians have a unified understanding of this, and there are indeed more reliable documents that can prove that Zhao Gao was an eunuch, and there is more than one.
But it was such a famous traitor in Chinese history, after the death of Qin Shi Huang, he helped Hu Hai ascend to the throne as the second generation emperor, and at the same time let Hu Hai kill his brothers and sisters, and let him kill the chancellor Li Si, under the bad beating, Hu Hai began to carry out tyranny, so that the people of the Qin State lived in a hot water, and Zhao Gao wanted to kill Hu Hai himself as emperor, and finally the three clans were destroyed by the prince. However, the strange point was that the eunuch could not participate in the government, so why did he become a vassal of Qin Shi Huang?
Zhao Gao was born similar to That of Qin Shi Huang, who was not welcomed by his father, was exiled to the Qin State, and was a hostage.
The history books record that several of Zhao Gao's brothers were born in the Forbidden City, and people say that Zhao Gao was a eunuch based on this, saying that Zhao Gao's father committed a crime and was castrated, and then at this time his mother was discouraged and another surnamed Zhao gave birth to several of their brothers, but later Zhao Gao took his father's old path and was also castrated. The hidden palace actually means that the eunuchs did the place of cultivation after the operation, when the technology was not developed, and the eunuch had to cultivate in an impermeable place during the day to work after the operation.
Zhao Gao tasted the world's hot and cold since he was a child, this is true, after the Shang martingale changed the law, the Qin State respected the law, that idea, the people who read the law were very popular, so Zhao Gao began to study the law in order to be able to get ahead and retaliate against those who bullied him, many people did not know, Zhao Gao also wrote a book, which is related to the law, called "The Calendar". His efforts were soon valued by Qin Shi Huang and he was promoted to Zhongche Fu Ling.
This position is Qin Shi Huang's driver and bodyguard, and he is a personal figure with the same weight as Li Si, which shows that he was used by Qin Shi Huang. At that time, Qin Shi Huang's attention was not his strictness in law, but he was strong and powerful, and Yingzheng attached the most importance to two people in terms of strength, one was Mengtian and the other was Zhao Gao, one of these two people was Fu Su's teacher, the other was Hu Hai's teacher, so it can be seen that Zhao Gao may not be a eunuch, and he was also valued by the King of Qin.
During the reign of Yingzheng, Zhao Gao took advantage of Hu Hai's desire for power and killed Meng Tian and Li Si.
When Qin II ascended the throne, Zhao Gao acted as a chancellor, did whatever he wanted in the imperial court, and plotted to usurp the throne. Zhao Gao was afraid that everyone would not be convinced, so he decided to get off the horse first.
One day, when he was on the throne, Zhao Gao ordered someone to lead a deer to the court and said to Hu Hai, "The subject got a good horse yesterday and came to offer it to His Majesty the Emperor." "
Hu Hai smiled and said, "Xiang Xiang is wrong, this is a deer with horns on its head, how can it be said that it is a horse?" "
Zhao Gao replied, "This is indeed a good horse, if you don't believe it, you may wish to ask the ministers left and right to see what they say." "
The minister who flattered Zhao Gao quickly replied, "The minister is not wrong, this is obviously a good horse." "
The minister who insisted on the truth said, "This is obviously a deer, how can it be said to be a horse?" "
Zhao Gao touched the bottom from it. After the dispersal of the dynasty, all the ministers who said deer were forcibly expelled from the imperial court on various charges, and some even went to jail and beheaded, while the ministers who said they were horses were all added to the ranks. From then on, the hundred officials of the imperial court were afraid of Zhao Gao and no longer dared to tell the truth.
In the end, Zhao Gao killed Hu Hai, but Liu Bang immediately attacked Xianyang, and Xiang Yu also defeated Zhang Handan, and Zhao Gao's emperor's dream was shattered, even if the baby did not kill him, Liu Bang Xiangyu would not let him go.