The Western Han Dynasty was founded in 202 BC and enjoyed 210 years, while the Eastern Han Dynasty was founded in 25 AD and enjoyed the state in 195 years. When we think of the Western Han Dynasty, we think of Ming Junduo, from Han Gaozu Ding Ding Tianxia to Han Xuan Emperor "Filial Piety Zhongxing" after more than one hundred and fifty years, many of which are capable and outstanding emperors, none of them are faint, although there are also cases of foreign relatives in power, but the emperor can try to resolve, as for the eunuchs who subvert the government, there is no such thing, and the Eastern Han Dynasty is different, the eunuch dictatorship is rampant to a crazy situation.
Since the death of Emperor Xuan of Han and the ascension of Emperor Yuan of Han to the throne, the imperial power of the Western Han Dynasty has gradually fallen into crisis, foreign relatives and eunuch forces have risen, and a Wang Mang has emerged from the family of Wang Zhengjun, the empress of the Han Yuan Emperor, and Wang Mang's usurpation of the throne has made the society of the Western Han Dynasty, which was already chaotic because of land annexation and other reasons, more turbulent, and the imperial system surnamed Liu has lost its prestige, how can the world still sit steadily? The Western Han Dynasty perished, but the subsequent unified dynasty of the Eastern Han Dynasty was still founded by the descendants of Liu, and the eastern Han Dynasty was established and relied on for stability differently from the Western Han Dynasty.
One of the points is that the "dispute between the eunuchs" in the Eastern Han Dynasty is particularly obvious, and it is very different from the Western Han Dynasty, the "dispute between the eunuchs" began from the han and emperor periods after the founding of the country for half a century, the han and emperors were Liu Xiu's great-grandson, the 4th emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, he was only 3 years old when he was made crown prince, and when he became the emperor 9 years old, of course, he could not control the government, and his predecessor Emperor Zhangdi of Han had been too indulgent of empress Dou's mother's family, that is, foreign relatives, and the emperor ascended the throne, and the dou clan as an adoptive mother was justified in the name of the dynasty, and the history of the dictatorship of foreign relatives in the Eastern Han Dynasty began from then on.
But we know that since it is a "dispute between relatives and eunuchs", the foreign relatives only play a role in it, and the foreign relatives sit on the throne, where does the position of the emperor go? In order to balance, the emperor must seek another side of the force to suppress foreign relatives, this is like a balance, when the two sides are equally weighted, they can be balanced, once one head is heavy and one is light, the power will fall to the heavy side, and the emperor in the middle also has to look at the face of the side that is heavy, when the young Emperor he is facing the situation of foreign relatives, Empress Dou assists the government, her brother Dou Xian is promoted to a waiter, and the rest of the Dou family also controls the secrets of the imperial court, and surrounds the little emperor tightly.
Han and Emperor were not fools, on the contrary, he was naturally intelligent and proficient in the art of checks and balances. In the case of Dou Xian's power expanding to the point of "the system of no one being called long live", he noticed that the eunuch forces represented by Zheng Zhong, the chief eunuch, were available, relying on eunuchs to sweep away relatives, and the clouds of the Dou family pressing on the emperor's head dissipated, and Han and the emperor regained imperial power, but the other end of the scale rushed up, the eunuch Zheng Zhong was able to participate in political affairs, and the scourge of the Eastern Han eunuch rebellion was also buried.
It can be said that the "dispute between the eunuchs" of the Eastern Han Dynasty began with the Han and the emperor, if the Han and the emperor can live a long life and find another more suitable balance method for the stability of the dynasty, perhaps the dispute between the foreign relatives and eunuchs of the Eastern Han Dynasty will not be so serious, but the reality is that although the Han and the emperor are very successful, they only lived for a short period of 27 years before they died, and then the young emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty could simply sweep out a basket, and the Han Emperor Liu Long ascended the throne in 100 days and died before he was one year old; Empress Deng established Liu Hu, the emperor of Han'an, which again appeared in the situation of foreign relatives.
Emperor An of Han made Yan Ji empress, and the result was that the Yan clan took the Tang clan and replaced it, replacing the old and the new; the Tang clan relatives were cautious and cautious at the request of Empress Deng, and performed better, but in the face of the meat of imperial power, it was also inevitable to be involved in the struggle between various forces, and finally the Tang clan relatives were liquidated with the death of Empress Deng, and the yan relatives participated in the government affairs with the eunuch forces because of the support of Emperor An of Han, forming a balance.
Emperor An of Han was also a short-lived man, only living for 32 years, and after his death, Yan's foreign relatives established Liu Yi as emperor, Liu Yi was only the son of the king of the domain, and yan's foreign relatives controlled the government's tools, reigning for less than a year. In the struggle between the new generation of foreign relatives and eunuchs, eunuchs prevailed, Yan's foreign relatives were overthrown because of eunuchs, and Liu Bao, the king of Jiyin, was called emperor because of eunuchs, for Han Shun Emperor, originally because of eunuchs to become emperors, Han Shun Emperor naturally had to rely on eunuchs, during which time a new foreign power Liang Shi emerged.
Empress Liang's father Liang Shang and Liang Shang's son Liang Ji successively became great generals, so that later liang Ji poisoned and killed emperor Han. The Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty did not know what was wrong, The Han Shun Emperor still only lived to the age of establishment and died, and for more than twenty years, the Liang clan dictatorship, the Chong Emperor, the Quality Emperor, and the Huan Emperor were all in the hands of the Liang clan, if it were not for the Han Huan Emperor Liu Zhi using shan chao, Xu Huang, Zuo Yi, Tang Heng, and Gu Yan, 5 eunuchs to sweep away the Liang clan, I am afraid that the Liang clan would continue to be arbitrary. Unfortunately, the Liang clan fell, and the eunuch forces made up for it.
Since Emperor Huan of Han made eunuchs the "Five Princes", the power of eunuchs in the Eastern Han Dynasty reached its peak, and from then until the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the forces of scholars, foreign relatives and eunuchs were dead and alive, and two disasters of the party broke out, which eventually led to great chaos in the world, the Outbreak of the Yellow Turban Uprising, the rise of the princes, the Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty completely became a puppet in the hands of warlords, and the fortunes of the Eastern Han Dynasty naturally came to an end. It can be said that the dispute between the eunuchs pushed the Eastern Han Dynasty to its demise, but why was the dispute between the eunuchs of the Eastern Han Dynasty so serious that it could not get out of the strange circle of alternating with each other after more than a hundred years of struggle?
In fact, we can find that the Eastern Han Dynasty buried the hidden dangers of the dispute between relatives and eunuchs from the early days. In the end, the eunuch force is only a knife in the hands of the emperor, this knife can be used well to balance, can hurt the enemy, and if it is not used well, it will hurt itself, and at the beginning of the founding of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Guangwu Emperor Liu Xiu relied on the powerful forces, for example, Liu Xiu opened a company, the shareholders are all haoqiang, he abolished Empress Guo and changed his wife Yin Lihua, where is the deep affection so simple? Obviously, it is to suppress the Haoqiang of Hebei and support the Nanyang Haoqiang behind Yin Lihua!
The imperial power is weak, the powerful forces are expanding, and the land annexation is serious, so the three generations of the Guangwu Emperor Liu Xiu, the Hanming Emperor Liu Zhuang, and the Han Zhang Emperor Liu Ju must ease the contradictions and strengthen the imperial power without touching the bottom line of the powerful forces. According to common sense, the official positions of the Chinese Dynasty should have been held by scholars, but the Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty gave eunuchs such powers, because they were the best cronies around them.
The foreign forces were from a powerful family, the eunuch forces controlled the balance between China and the DPRK, and a third party force, the Shi clan, participated in it, and the rise of the Shi clan stemmed from Liu Xiu's emphasis on Confucianism. Proficient in Confucian classics, in the Eastern Han Dynasty is a bright road into the career path, the scholar clan relies on this line to pave a huge network of relations between the old and the old officials, and even can influence the public opinion of society, the mystery of the Confucian classics is not passed on to future generations, is it still passed on to outsiders? In this way, the scholar clan also condensed into a group, balancing foreign relatives so that they were afraid of the world's remarks and did not dare to change the dynasty at will.
In the history of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the gentry, foreign relatives, and eunuchs formed three powerful forces to influence the situation of the Dynasty, which was inseparable from the strategy of weakening the power of the Eastern Han Dynasty and strengthening the imperial power set at the beginning of the founding of the Eastern Han Dynasty. In fact, this method can not be called confused, but the emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty is like a curse, this young person died early, that is still a young succession to the throne to continue to die early, how the little emperor can perfectly control the imperial power, can only be alternately filled by foreign relatives and eunuchs, thus, there is a hundred years of bad eunuch disputes in the Eastern Han Dynasty.