You may laugh when you see this title, this eunuch does not even have the most basic fertility as a man (eunuchs have no queen, so in the eyes of the emperor, they are much less selfish than the civilian officials, so the emperor will often introduce the eunuchs into the power field to fight against the overly powerful civilian official group), these people also form a family, but also a family family, no joke, right?
(In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, these eunuchs not only became the climate, but also formed a family inheritance for generations.)
Don't laugh, during the Tang Dynasty, there was really such an abnormal situation, not only did there be eunuch families that lasted for decades or even hundreds of years in the imperial court, but these people also held important positions, and their power spread throughout the central and local governments, and some of them were even able to abolish the establishment! This is very strange, eunuchs are not unable to have children, why can the eunuchs of the Tang Dynasty achieve both power and family, how did their descendants come from?
(Eunuchs are also full of yearning for family, during the Tang Dynasty eunuchs can marry wives, and Ming eunuchs and palace women form pairs))
Although the eunuchs were physically handicapped, they also longed for a warm family life with wives and children, but now they did not have this ability, so the eunuchs came up with another trick to save the country, the wives still married, and then through the adoption of children, can not they also form a family? Although this family is formal, the two sides are not related by blood, but after all, it is also a family, and they are also people with wives and children!
(Zhao Gao actually has a son-in-law, indicating that he should also have adopted a daughter)
In fact, since the Qin and Han dynasties, eunuchs have been seen in the annals of history, such as the eunuch Zhao Gao had a son-in-law Yan Le, and Cao Teng adopted Cao Song as a son of the same clan. However, since Cao Song was not a eunuch, he could only inherit Cao Teng's title but not his court power. The "Biography of eunuchs in the Book of Wei" mentions many records of eunuchs adopting descendants and descendants, such as Qiu Luoqi adopting Qiu Yu as a son; Wang Ju's adopted son died early, and his title was inherited by his grandson Wang Gaihai; Zhao Hei adopted the fourth son of his brother Zhao Nu as an adopted son to inherit the title. Eunuchs in the Northern Wei Dynasty were highly valued by the emperor, so their titles were extremely high. The ones introduced above are all above the duke, and two are even kings! Generally, the adoption candidates are also selected among relatives and clansmen, and the number of adoptions is limited (usually only one), most of these adopted sons are not eunuchs, and when they grow up, they can only inherit the titles of eunuchs, but this title has no real power, so it is impossible to form a so-called eunuch family.
(Beginning with Colliers, the status of eunuchs began to rise dramatically.)
In the open-minded Tang Dynasty, it became common for eunuchs to marry their wives, and although eunuchs also adopted children, the number was usually only one or two (for example, Gao Lishi's father, Gao Yanfu, was a eunuch, but only adopted one son). After all, the role and influence of eunuchs in the government during this period was not significant, except for the powerful eunuchs such as Colliers, the other eunuchs were just courtiers in front of the monarch, and the adoption of so many children was obvious.
(In the early years, Emperor Dezong of Tang also wanted to exert great efforts to rule, but the town did not allow it, so Emperor Dezong began to follow the old road of favoring eunuchs again.)
However, from the late Xuanzong period onwards, the situation changed abruptly, and as the status of eunuchs rose, their adopted sons also increased. So the emperors watched the eunuch's adopted son black pressure on a large number, and their own heirs were pitifully small, feeling "Alexander". Why do you eunuchs want so many sons, and they are not your own children! Therefore, Tang Dezong issued a holy decree in the seventh year of Zhenyuan, stipulating that eunuchs should "serve more than five products within the family, allow one son, and still have the same surname, and the first day of cultivation shall not exceed ten years old."
When Emperor Dezong first succeeded to the throne, he also wanted to rise up and revive the prestige of the Tang Dynasty, but after being cleaned up one after another by the feudal towns, Dezong recognized the reality, and these feudal towns could not be trusted, so he turned to the old road of reusing eunuchs. Therefore, instead of curbing the eunuchs' raising of children, they became more rampant. Regardless of their official position, the eunuchs adopted many children, for example, the eunuch Qiu Shiliang had five adopted sons, the eunuch Yang Fuguang had dozens of adopted sons, and his brother Yang Fugong even had six hundred adopted sons!
Even if there are three filial pieties and no queen is greater, it should be enough for you to adopt a few, Yang Fugong, what do you want to do when you adopt six hundred? Moreover, the composition of these adopted children is quite different, some of these people are eunuchs, some are military generals or civilian officials, what is the situation?
(I have to say that the eunuchs of the late Tang Dynasty were indeed very powerful, and they not only controlled the central government, but even controlled the forbidden army))
First, eunuchs adopted eunuchs, and this adoptive father-son relationship created an unrelated, inherited eunuch family that controlled senior positions in the court for generations, and these eunuch families were often able to sustain more than three generations. Let's just count a bunch of them: Yang Yanzuo, Yang Zhilian, Yang Qinyi, Yang Xuanyi, Yang Fugong to Yang Shouzhen for six generations as privy councillors (this is the eunuch supreme political commander, equivalent to the prime minister!). Five of them served as lieutenants of Shen Ce and held the power of forbidden troops (this was the supreme military commander of the eunuchs, and also the commander of the central army of the Tang Dynasty). Such a powerful power is almost comparable to the Yuan Shao family of the fourth and third dukes! In addition to the Yang family, there are also qiu family members who are inherited by Qiu Shangke, Qiu Fengyi, Qiu Wensheng, and Qiu Shiliang, and five generations of eunuchs, and Qiu Shiliang has once "killed the second king, one concubine, and four prime ministers, and was greedy for more than twenty years", and even the emperor could not take him. Another example is Liang Shouqian, the elder of the Six Dynasties, an old eunuch who controlled the government for twenty years, and he also came from a family of eunuchs that lasted for six generations. In addition, there are the Liu family represented by Liu Honggui, Liu Xingshen, and Liu Zunli, the Tutu family represented by Tutu Chengcui, Tutu Shituo, and Tutu Shixin, and the Ximen family represented by Ximen Zhen, Ximen Go luxury, Ximen Jixuan, Ximen Kuangyuan, Ximen Sigong, and Ximen Chongsui.
For the eunuchs, it was much faster and more convenient for them to adopt children than normal reproduction, and they could be adopted children with a greeting, so the eunuch family was also snowballing.
If the adoption of the eunuch is to ensure the power of the eunuch family, and there is still some family implication, then the adoption of the warrior directly leads to a change in the nature of the eunuch family.
(Yu Chao'en has taken in a lot of local warriors to be his adopted son)
Unlike the adoption of small eunuchs, the number of adopted sons of eunuchs can often reach dozens or even hundreds of people (think about it, if every eunuch adopts dozens of small eunuchs, the eunuchs in the palace will not be enough!). Therefore, most of the adopted sons of these eunuchs were military generals and civilian officials), so that they could not only expand their political influence and improve their political status in the palace, but also remotely control the local military through their adopted sons. The generals of the outer domains were also very keen to become the adopted sons of eunuchs (because they also needed a backer in the imperial court who could speak). For example, the Xianbei man Shang Kehu, who followed An Lushan and Shi Siming in rebellion, and then submitted to the imperial court and became the adopted son of the great eunuch Yu Zhao'en. Yang Fugong, who has just been introduced to you, has six hundred adopted sons, many of whom are jiedushi and zhou assassins, and six hundred adopted sons who serve as overseers in various places. His brother Yang Fuguang's adopted son is not so many, but there are also dozens of people who serve as military and political chiefs at the local level.
(The epitaph of Ma Gongdu's wife Wang details how the eunuchs married.)
Since the formation of the family, eunuchs also flourished in marriage with each other. These eunuchs not only played the family marriage set, but also became more handy. This so-called marriage shows a strong political factor, the so-called marriage has no basis for love, and the eunuchs do not value the character of their wives, but only covet the power of the woman's family, so this marriage is only a means used by eunuchs to maintain and expand the power of the family.
For example, the wife of Yang Zhilian, the second generation of the Yang family, was the adopted daughter of the eunuch Liu Shouzhi, and the adopted daughter of Yang Zhilian's brother Yang Weiliang was married to Liu Run, the eunuch and deputy envoy of the Divine Strategy Army. The Yang family gradually developed their roots through marriage with eunuchs.
Qiu Shiliang's uncle Qiu Wenyi's wife Wang shi was born into the eunuch family. The four generations of the Wang family were high-ranking eunuchs, especially Lady Wang's elder brother Wang Yuanyu, an old eunuch who served as a privy councillor during the Xuanzong period, and then promoted to lieutenant of the Right God Ce Army, holding the power of forbidden troops, so the history is called "Only the Qiu clan, the Wang clan, the family reputation is prominent, the branch faction is successive, the heirs are loyal, and the joint construction of honors." Of course, this "loyal heirs and joint achievements" is of course a stinky foot of the undisciplined literati, but it is an undeniable fact that the Qiu and Wang clans jointly expand their influence through marriage. Qiu Wenyi had six adopted daughters, five of whom were married to other eunuch families.
Wang Yuanyu's second daughter married another eunuch, Ma Gongdu, who served as a general of the left-wing wei general and a military supervisor at Fengxiang. Ma Gongdu had seven adopted sons, six of whom were eunuchs, each of whom had an extraordinary status.
So you see, this enemy family, the Wang family, and the Ma family are closely united through marriage, and their power is intertwined, forming a situation of "branches winning the league" and "pro-party glue", which makes the eunuchs' power even more inflated, and the dictatorship is arbitrary. But the eunuch marriage was flourishing and lively, and the real pity was that these innocent women, as the adopted daughters of the eunuchs, their future was to marry other eunuchs, not to love their husbands, and even less to give birth to lovely children, and this marriage system was undoubtedly a great destruction of these sound, yearning for love women.
(Since the tail of the domain was too big, the emperor could only hope for eunuchs, who traveled to various places as overseers))
Eunuchs, as slaves of the monarch, were looked down upon throughout the ages, but in the late Tang Dynasty, these eunuchs actually developed into a family family, which has a lot to do with the political environment in the middle and late Tang Dynasty. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, eunuchs ushered in their first appearance, and the emperor gave great power to the local government, and also sent eunuchs to the local areas to serve as overseers. After the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, the tail of the clan town was not great, and the imperial court, in order to curb the increasingly powerful clan town power, sent eunuchs to monitor it more frequently. Civilian officials and military generals could not be trusted, and the only eunuchs that the emperor could believe were eunuchs who were one with their own honor and disgrace, so the eunuchs were not only given powerful political power. These eunuchs also infiltrated the central and local military systems, where eunuchs controlled the central forbidden army, and at the local level eunuchs took control of the army by acting as overseers or adopting adopted sons. Eunuchs also played an important role in suppressing the Huangchao Rebellion, with the eunuch Yang Fuguang becoming the commander-in-chief of the Tang army, luring Huangchao's general Zhu Wen and recapturing Chang'an.
(Zhu Wen was a barbaric saboteur who ended the future of the eunuchs while ending the Tang Dynasty.)
It was precisely for this reason that the eunuchs made waves in the late Tang Dynasty, played with the government of the dynasty, and even deposed the emperor. However, the eunuchs forgot that their power was all based on the Li Tang Dynasty, and when the fortunes of the Tang Dynasty were declining, these invincible eunuchs were horrified to find that their control was getting smaller and smaller. Those who hold real power everywhere are dismissive of these eunuchs, and even the emperor can't speak well, who still listens to you things? Zhu Wen, who was born a second-rate son, even killed more than seven hundred eunuchs in one go under Fengxiang City. When the Li Tang Dynasty was counting down, the eunuchs could only helplessly follow the Tang Dynasty to accompany the funeral, and the so-called eunuch family never appeared in Chinese history.
(Li Keyong's righteous sons, the famous Thirteen Taibao)
However, this trend of adoptive children has far-reaching effects, and many warlords have adopted children in a different way to expand their power. For example, Wang Jian at the end of the Tang Dynasty once served as the adopted son of the eunuch Tian Lingzi, and he himself adopted more than forty adopted sons. Zhu Wen himself had adopted sons Zhu Youwen, Zhu Youqian, Zhu Yougong and so on. The most typical is of course Li Keyong, the King of Jin, whose adopted sons are known as the "Thirteenth Taibao" (also reflected in novels and film and television works). However, these adopted sons have no brotherhood to speak of, and they fight and kill each other for power.
To be fair, the eunuchs adopted children in disguise to satisfy the desires and needs of the family, and we understand that someone can send them to the end when they are old. However, this kind of "father-son relationship" has constantly changed after being involved in politics, but in the end it has become a tool for them to reject dissidents and play with the government, which is really sad and regrettable!