The Asian Wall Street Journal once made a selection to select "the world's richest 50 people in the past 1,000 years", and in addition to the emperor is a rich businessman, there is also a eunuch, that is, Liu Jin, the great eunuch of the Ming Dynasty.
Eunuchs, of course, got rich by embezzlement and bribery. How rich is Liu Jin? His wealth is the income of the Ming Dynasty for nearly a decade, equivalent to more than 300 billion yuan. However, this guy also ended up in a miserable situation, and was slashed when he died, and was stabbed 7,000 times.
First, seize power step by step
Liu Jin was a red man by Emperor Mingwuzong's side, Zhu Houzhao, and served at the side when Emperor Mingwuzong was still the crown prince. Emperor Mingxiaozong knew that his son Zhu Houzhao was coveting pleasure, so before his death, he entrusted him to a cadre of humerus courtiers, hoping that they would lead his son to the right path.
Emperor Mingwuzong was only fifteen or sixteen years old when he succeeded to the throne, which was the age of greed, and he was very disgusted with these ministers who wanted him to focus on his studies all day. Liu Jin took the little emperor around to play and offered him many interesting things, which was very pleasing to him. The little emperor was greedy and did not like to work, and Liu Jin looked at it first, and then handed it over to the emperor.
Moreover, Liu Jin was very treacherous, and every time he reported to the emperor when he was most happy, so that the little emperor was very impatient, letting him watch and deal with it himself, Liu Jin took advantage of this power to monopolize. After that, he took the initiative step by step, controlled most of the courtiers, established an organization with himself as the core, and firmly controlled the government.
Second, there is no bottom line for accumulating wealth
After having power, Liu Jin pondered how to accumulate wealth. His first resort was to speak to Tianzi and ask the state capitals to lose all the treasury silver to the Capital Division and extract a large amount of money from it. Later, Liu Jin began to ask for bribes again, and the officials of various provinces who came to see him had to offer him a "courtesy ceremony" when they entered Beijing in order to obtain a permit to see the Son of Heaven. If you want to be promoted one or two, you have to give him more money, and after the fact, you must also receive a large "thank you gift", as little as a thousand taels, more than tens of thousands of taels.
He also sent his cronies to various places to serve and earn money for him, and also bought and sold officials, and even if some people broke the law, as long as they gave him money, not only did they not receive any punishment, but they were added to the rank of knight. When there were ministers who did not offer money to him, he fabricated charges and went directly to prison, and also created a shackle law to directly "shackle people to death." Some ministers had offended him before, and after being reprimanded by him with a staff, he was reduced to a commoner, and later he accepted the gifts of the minister's enemies and escorted the people back to the capital to be punished for thirty years.
Some upright ministers impeached Liu Jin, and they were tortured by him by various means, some were directly shackled to death, and some died of heat stroke because he knelt in front of the Fengtian Gate for falsely preaching holy wills, and many people could not bear to choose suicide.
Third, the end is tragic and desolate
In the fifth year of Zhengde, King Anhua rebelled. The Mingwu Sect sent Yushi and the eunuch Zhang Yong to quell the rebellion. After the pacification, Zhang Yong took the opportunity to offer prisoner to the emperor to expose Liu Jin's crimes, listing seventeen crimes. The emperor was horrified and ordered liu jin to be arrested, and finally moved to kill.
Subsequently, Emperor Mingwuzong personally went out to raid Liu Jin's home, and copied millions of taels of silver from his home, and also found that there were fake jade seals, jade belts and other prohibited objects. Emperor Mingwuzong was furious and immediately ordered Liu Jinling to be executed. During the execution, Liu Jin was cut more than 7,000 knives before he died, which can be described as extremely tragic.
From an ordinary eunuch to a monopoly of power, accumulating countless wealth, Liu Jin can be described as a "winner in life". However, the feng shui took turns, stepping on the jeweled mountain built by the corpse mountain and the sea of blood, and the day he finally collapsed was the time when he died. The punishment of 7,000 knives of Ling Chi was exchanged for gold and silver jewelry that could not be spent in the room, and I don't know if Liu Jin ever regretted it at that moment.