In 25 AD, Liu Xiu of the Nanyang Hao clan defeated the various armed forces entrenched in the Central Plains and restored the name of the Great Han Dynasty for the Eastern Han Dynasty. Liu Xiu restored the Western Han system that had been destroyed by Wang Mang's new dynasty, and foreign relatives and eunuch forces once again appeared on the stage of history.
In the early days of the Eastern Han Dynasty, enlightened politics and excellent emperors covered up the problem of foreign eunuchs behind the prosperity, and by the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, most of the successor emperors were young and ignorant, and there was a lack of independent ministers in the dprk, and the scholar class was in the inferior position of political struggle, resulting in the power being held by foreign eunuchs.
This article will take the Eastern Han Dynasty as the time background and talk about the differentiation and integration between the three major forces in the political arena of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
A foreign relative and a eunuch
The so-called foreign relatives refer to the emperor's maternal and wife clans, most of whom rely on concubines and nepotism to ascend to the rank of official, and even monopolize the government of a country, and in order to stabilize their status, foreign relatives send their clan relatives to serve in the DPRK, so they form a foreign relatives and friends party.
In the last years of the Western Han Dynasty, Sima Wang Mang interfered in politics as a foreign relative and seized imperial power, which eventually led to the demise of the Western Han Dynasty and the rise of the masses everywhere. After Liu Xiu established the Eastern Han Dynasty, although he strengthened his guard against foreign relatives, he only rewarded them economically, did not allow them to enter the dynasty as officials, and even left ancestral training, stipulating that posterity could not be crowned as relatives of concubines, and prohibited them from participating in the dprk.
However, as we all know, the ancestral training is used to break, since the time of Emperor Ming of Han, the emperor has relaxed the restrictions on foreign relatives participating in politics, Empress Ma blows pillow wind to the emperor every day, and Emperor Ming grants Empress Ma's brother The position of General Hu Benzhonglang, which opens a precedent for foreign relatives to interfere in politics. After Emperor Ming, all the emperors of the Eastern Han Dynasty took the throne as a young lord, which also gave foreign relatives the opportunity to intervene in politics.
Eunuchs, on the other hand, are another major political group around the emperor, if foreign relatives represent the interests of the emperor's matriarch, then the eunuchs represent the imperial power itself to a certain extent, and the eunuchs have served the emperor since childhood, so in terms of personal feelings, the emperor is more inclined to be close to the eunuchs than to the courtiers and officials. They also became an important political tool for the emperor to cut off his relatives, so they became another major group opposed to foreign relatives.
Although there was a common situation between foreign relatives and eunuchs, under the specific political climate of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there would be a situation in which foreign relatives were dominant and the two major groups colluded with each other. For example, during the han dynasty, in order to balance the two major groups of foreign relatives and eunuchs, Empress Deng adopted the strategy of using both foreign eunuchs, and Cai Lun, a lieutenant from the eunuch, became a red person around Empress Deng and became an important force in the monopoly of Tang's foreign relatives.
Most of the eunuchs were from humble backgrounds and did not have excessive cultural attainments, and in order to make up for the lack of this, the eunuchs in power were keen to raise literati and make friends with celebrities to raise their own value. And some mercenary scholars and doctors chose to join the eunuchs, and even put down the bones of the literati and recognized the eunuchs as righteous fathers, which can be described as doing everything to the extreme.
Compared with the foreign clique, the eunuch clique is an extremely corrupt political clique, concentrating the greedy and brutal nature of the landlord class, this is because the eunuchs are political upstarts, the eunuch clique itself does not have power, its power depends on the emperor's favor or not and the degree of favor, which is why once the eunuchs have great power, they wantonly slaughter dissidents and hostile forces, exert their power to the maximum, physical defects make their psychology incomplete, deliberately pursue supreme power and wealth, The large-scale land annexation at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty was also the eunuch behind the scenes.
It was also because of the dictatorship of eunuchs that the people were not happy at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and eventually a large-scale Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out, and the Han Zuo ended in 400 years.
2. The Emperor and Eunuch of the Dou Clan join forces
In 88 AD, Emperor Zhang of Han died of illness, and Liu Zhao, who was only nine years old, succeeded him as Emperor He of Han. His adoptive mother, Empress Zhang Dedou, was made Empress Dowager Dou.
Empress Dowager Dou was young and widowed, and naturally focused her energy on the way of power and art, and her brother Dou Xian could be described as a soaring, gathering the Great Sima and the Great General in one, and the power was tilted towards the opposition, and the hundred officials did not obey.
In the first year of the han and emperor's succession, Dou Xian ordered someone to assassinate Liu Chang in the capital, and after the conspiracy was leaked, he blamed the crime on Liu Gang's head, and was later discovered by the Ting wei mansion and imprisoned in the palace for his crimes.
When the Northern Xiongnu invaded the Central Plains in the south and there was a shortage of major generals in the dprk, Empress Dou took the opportunity to absolve Dou Xian of his sins and ordered him to lead troops to recruit the Northern Xiongnu to make meritorious contributions to the crime. Dou Xian lived up to expectations, uniting with the Western Minority Alliance to break the Northern Xiongnu army at Zhuo evil mountain, beheading more than 10,000 people, and Dou Xian also regained the position of Grand General of the Great Sima for his military achievements, far surpassing the status of the Three Dukes.
After Dou Xian took office, he ordered local officials to go to the Great General's Mansion to meet with the Great General when they entered the court to report for duty. At that time, Shang Shu's servant, Shele Hui, because of his disobedience to Dou Xian's intentions, was ostracized by the people in the DPRK, and he was afraid of his life every day, so he had to commit suicide to apologize to save the family.
In addition, Dou Xian's employment was even more nepotism, his brother Dou Jing was cruel and did not learn martial arts, but was appointed by Dou Xian as Guanglu Qing, and his family slaves used Dou Xian's power to rob the women of the people in the streets of Luoyang, bullying the commoners, causing a miasma of smoke in Luoyang, and the people saw Dou Shi going out like a thief, and closed the doors and windows to hide in the house.
Dou Xian was greatly annoyed by this, and sent his soldiers to force the merchants to open a business to solicit customers, and the violators were robbed of their family property, and the heavy ones were killed by Dou Xian's slaves in the street. Dou Xian also installed eyes and ears and eyeliner in the judicial organs and the court lieutenant's palace, causing the ministers to dare not play.
In 92 AD, Dou Xian's power reached its peak, and he was not satisfied with being a courtier, so he entered and exited the harem at will, and discussed rebellion with the minions of the court. However, Dou Xian believed that the great cause was complete, so that he lost the most basic sense of secrecy, and the news of Dou Xian's rebellion soon reached the ears of Han He and the Emperor who had lived in the deep palace for a long time, and although the Han He Emperor at this time was young, his mind had long been mature.
He selected a group of eunuchs loyal to the imperial family in the palace, and prepared to arrest Dou Xian the next time he entered the palace. One day, Dou Xian and Deng Di and others entered the palace to meet the empress, and the army they brought was stationed outside Luoyang, Han He was very happy, so he ordered his men to close the gates of the harem, ordered the Yulin army to arrest Dou Xian's henchmen, and beheaded all the Dou clan's minions that accompanied Dou Xian into the palace.
Subsequently, Emperor Hanhe ordered his entire family to return to the fiefdom to recuperate in the name of Dou Xian's infirmity, and at the end of the same year, Emperor Hanhe announced several major crimes against Dou Xian, and in order to give the famous general who attacked the Xiongnu in the north the last decency, Emperor Hanhe gave him a cup of poisoned wine, and Dou Xian and his brothers committed suicide in the fiefdom after thanking the emperor for his kindness.
After Emperor He of Han eliminated the Dou clique, it was natural to reward those who had meritorious service, and Zheng Zhong, the chief servant of Zhongchang, regained the great general YinShou, and the authorities made the first contribution, and they were enthroned as eunuchs, and after their deaths, the title was hereditary by their adopted son, which created a precedent for eunuchs to be marquises. It marked the beginning of the eunuchs' seizure of power in the Eastern Han Dynasty, laying the groundwork for the rebellion of the Ten Constant Attendants at the end of the Han Dynasty.
2. The Scholar Group At the bottom of the pyramid
Someone once divided the political arena of the Eastern Han Dynasty into three mountains - foreign relatives, eunuchs, and scholars. Unlike foreign eunuchs, scholars did not rely on nepotism and relations with the emperor to ascend to power, and they represented the bureaucratic interests of the state. Therefore, they were inferior in the power struggle of eunuchs and foreign relatives, and the group of scholars and doctors was also divided into three parts, and some of them were not afraid of power, bent on serving the people and the country, and traveled east and west at the time of the country's peril. There were also some scholars, tempted by eunuchs and foreign relatives, to extinguish their conscience and become the pawns of powerful officials and civilians.
The scholar class was essentially a vassal of imperial power, and since liu che of the Western Han Dynasty had exalted Confucianism, it adopted a carrot-and-stick policy toward the scholar-doctors, turning the scholar class into a political tool for the authoritarian government.
But after all, scholars are a group of intellectuals, in that era of scarce educational resources, most of them were bureaucrats or outstanding talents, most of them had lofty ambitions and a strong sense of social responsibility, even if most of these people played a "silent majority" role in peacetime, but once the country and the nation fell into danger, they could exert great strength, which is why in the political struggle of eunuchs and foreign relatives, the scholar class can play an unexpected role.
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Second Emperor Huanling was too fond of eunuchs and foreign relatives, and the chaos of the government eventually led to large-scale peasant enterprises. Social unrest provided the scholar with an ideal place to display his talents and realize his political ambitions.
The clans and nobles who were entrenched in various places raised troops one after another, occupied a state or a county, and became princes who divided one side, while the scholars with lower political status chose the lord and obeyed, and most of the heroes at the end of the Han Dynasty also attached importance to recruiting talents, and these officially frustrated or dissatisfied with the government entered the power center of the princes as strategists, while the eunuchs and foreign relatives at this time could no longer make any waves in the court because of the loss of the prestige of the central government.
3. Conclusion
Foreign relatives, eunuchs, and scholars were special political groups spawned in the specific political environment of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and their essence was still a conflict of interest between the imperial power and the bureaucratic clique.
The three groups wrestled with each other in political wrestling and also cooperated with each other, forming a political balance unique to the Han Dynasty. However, the status of these three classes is not the same, because of their own class limitations, it is difficult for scholars to retreat in the political struggle between foreign relatives and eunuchs, and a small number of aspiring scholars are either persecuted and killed by foreign eunuchs, or choose to aid in abuse and become political tools of the two major groups.
This situation lasted until the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when the rise of the family clan partially merged with the scholar class and reached a phenomenon of overlap. The rise of local power gave the low-level scholars an opportunity to show their ambitions, and eventually became an independent political force, and the later Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties were the world of scholars.