Two Jin Dynasty And Northern and Southern Dynasties Character Zhi - (Fifty-Nine) Zong Ai
In Chinese history, although the founding emperors of each dynasty and each generation painstakingly demanded that future emperors not be knighted without great merit, and people with different surnames could not be crowned kings, they were basically scorned by those who came after them. Not to mention normal people, even there are many eunuchs who have achieved the title of prince, among which the Tang Dynasty is the most widespread, such as Li Fuguo; the famous eunuch Tong Guan of the Song Dynasty is also the same.
However, the first eunuch Wang Ye was neither Li Fuguo nor Tong Guan, but Zong Ai.
Speaking of ZongAi, this name may feel unfamiliar to many people, and indeed, the era he lived in was also an era that many of us were not familiar with - the Southern and Northern Dynasties. And he unlocked an achievement in this chaotic world - eunuchs can also be crowned kings!
Before Zong Ai, China already had a eunuch emperor, that is, Cao Teng. As Cao Cao's grandfather and Cao Song's adoptive father, Cao Teng was posthumously honored as Emperor Gao of Wei after Cao Pi was proclaimed emperor. However, Cao Teng was posthumously honored for many years after he died, and after all, he did not enjoy the treatment of an emperor when he was alive. And the eunuch who could wear the royal robe while he was alive belonged to this eunuch of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Mr. Zong Ai.
This Mr. Zong Ai, who was originally a normal person, was castrated because of a crime, and then entered the palace as a eunuch. However, this guy was very capable of doing things, and he was also very good at serving the emperor, and he gave Tuoba Tao a comfortable service, so he gradually became a famous courtier in the Northern Wei court, and was named the Duke of Qin County early.
Although the Northern Wei Dynasty was a Hu regime, it had a high degree of acceptance of Han culture, and it had always had a system of princely supervision of the country, and Tuoba Tao was no exception. However, the relationship between Zong Ai and Tuoba Huang, the crown prince who was overseeing the country at that time, was quite discordant, so he took advantage of the opportunity to falsely accuse the prince's Eastern Palace courtiers of being suspected of rebellion, which eventually led to the fall of the ministers around the prince, and the prince was also depressed in fear.
After the death of the crown prince, Tuoba Tao was extremely remorseful and gradually revealed his displeasure with Zong's love. When this eunuch saw the situation, he simply did not do anything and directly killed the emperor.
Do you think that's the end of it? No. When the Zaifu wanted to support the new emperor, Zong Ai killed three more Zaifu and pushed the king of Nan'an, who had a good relationship with him, to the emperor's throne.
After Tuoba Yu, the king of Nan'an, succeeded to the throne, he was at first very grateful to Zong Ai, put him in charge of the entire center, and made him the King of Feng Yi. In this regard, Zong Ai finally realized the great feats of Zhao Gao and Ten Constant Attendants before him, and Liu Jin, Wei Zhongxian and others who had never achieved before him and few people who came before him- the great feat of being crowned king!
It is reasonable to say that killing the old emperor and the three Zaifu ministers, and then being crowned king by the new emperor, can already be satisfied? Mr. Zong Ai shook his head: No, not yet!
What was even more crazy was that when this rootless prince felt that Tuoba Yu was bored with himself, he immediately set out to kill Tuoba Yu. Only this time he did not last long, and the other ministers immediately elected Tuoba Huang's son Tuoba Hao to succeed him. When the new emperor came to power, the first thing he did was to destroy the door of the eunuch who had killed his father at an early age.
A generation of eunuchs, this is the end.
Speaking of which, Zong Ai is really an outlier during the Wei and Jin Dynasties. From the time yuan shao killed eunuchs after the death of Emperor Ling of Han, to the eunuchs who took charge of the Tang Dynasty's Shen celebrant army after the Anshi Rebellion, in the past six hundred years, there were only two powerful eunuchs in China, one was Huang Hao of Shu Han, and the other was Zong Ai. If you narrow the time to the three hundred years of the two Jin Dynasties, the Southern and Northern Dynasties, then only Zong Ai is such a powerful eunuch.
When it comes to the "achievements" of abolishing and killing emperors, Zong Ai can be described as unprecedented--he killed two emperors (Tuoba Tao and Tuoba Yu). The eunuchs before him had only one record of killing the emperor, Zhao Gao; the eunuchs after him, and only the eunuchs of the Tang Dynasty, had a record of killing the emperor, and only one of them was killed; as for Wang Zhen, Liu Jin, Wei Zhongxian, and the like, they were just a dog of the royal family, and a two-finger-wide strip could kill them.
And such an "evil slave" who directly murdered two emperors and indirectly killed one emperor (Tuoba Huang was posthumously honored as Emperor Gongzong after his death), his demise was extremely rapid. When Tuoba Yu was killed, Zong Ai wanted to make another emperor, but after being known to Liu Ni, Lu Li, and others who belonged to Tuoba Huang's son Tuoba Huang, he took the forbidden army and destroyed zong ai's five clans. Such a Duke of Qin And King Feng Yi, who had once been in power over the world, was killed by a few officials who were not very senior.
There are few historical books on the sudden nobility and rapid death of Zong Ai; and for this great eunuch who once set off a bloody storm in the political arena of the Northern Wei Dynasty, it is difficult for historians of all generations to take an interest in research. Here, I would just like to mention one hypothesis, a hypothesis about the rapid demise of Zong Ai, that is, Zong Ai is a Han Chinese, while Liu Ni and others are Xianbei people.
Whether Zong Ai was a Han chinese or not is difficult to say, but it is a fact that Zong ai is a Han surname (such as Zong Hui, a famous general of the Southern Dynasty at the same time). Even after Emperor Xiaowen's reforms, he did not change the surname of Xianbei to "Zong". Moreover, in the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Xianbei people were superior people who were going to fight on horseback, and it is estimated that few people were willing to enter the palace to become eunuchs. This kind of work of serving people with urinals can only be done by the Han people.
However, people such as Lu Li and Liu Ni are authentic and humble people. The reason why it is this name in the Book of Wei is also because of the reform of Emperor Xiaowen, before that, they should be called Bu Liu Gu Li and Du Gu Ni.
A group of humble nobles, watching a Han eunuch calling the wind and rain in the Northern Wei Palace, was inevitably unbalanced. Although Zong Ai killed two emperors successively, he has not been able to control the military power, and it is estimated that it is also because of his Han identity that he cannot put his hand into the forbidden body of the Xianbei people - the reason inside the army. It is also like this, when Liu Ni and others launched the army, Zong Ai immediately tied his hands and captured.
In addition, there is another corroboration - after the death of Zong Ai, the successor Emperor Wencheng Tuoba Mao and the later Xianwen Emperor Tuoba Hong, have always been very cold to the Han people's entry into the dynasty. Although there is the shadow of Tuoba Tao's massacre of Cui Shi in it, whether there is a shadow of Zong Ai in it, it is not known.
At a time when the northern palace was in severe turmoil, the southern dynasty maintained unexpected restraint and did not attack the north. This was not that Emperor Wen of Song did not want to go north, he was sharpening his sword and preparing for the third northern expedition when he was knocked down by a sudden change.
In fact, this frail and sickly emperor who ruled the country by iron will and power was not the first time he had become terminally ill. At the time of the last serious illness, there had already been a major event that made the relatives and enemies quick and ecstatic to the people of northern Wei. So, what is this thing? We'll talk about it next time.