Preface
According to legend, when Li Bai was ordered by Xuanzong to write the "Book of Hefan", he boldly asked the eunuch leader Gao Lishi to take off his boots for him.
Gao Lishi held a grudge, instigated Yang Guifei, and slandered Li Bai, but Xuanzong did not make Li Bai an official, but let Li Bai leave Chang'an and return the gold to the mountain.
People hate eunuchs very much, and letting Li Bai tease this prominent eunuch leader can be regarded as a relief of hatred.
So, what kind of palace members were the eunuchs, why did the eunuchs of all dynasties have great power? What bad things did they do in history? Why did the people of all dynasties hate eunuchs to the extreme?
Impressions of the eunuch
Originally, the eunuchs were filled by criminals and slaves who had been punished by the palace, and they were the ministers who worked as miscellaneous servants in the palace, and their status was very low, and they were "sluts" who were looked down upon.
When Confucius saw Wei Linggong traveling with his wife, Confucius asked the eunuch Yongqu to ride in the same car and swagger through the city, Confucius was very disgusted and immediately left Weiguo.
Shang Ying relied on the relationship of the eunuch Jing Jian to meet Qin Xiaogong, and later became a big official, and a wise man Zhao Liang knew the details, and he was very disgusted with Shang Ying, which shows that people despised eunuchs in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
The first eunuch in history to usurp power
The earliest eunuch usurping power in history was Zhao Gao at the end of the Qin Dynasty, and Zhao Gao, who was good at patting horses, taught Hu Hai, the second son of Qin Shi Huang, the prison law, and was convinced by Hu Hai.
At that time, Qin Shi Huang's eldest son Fusu repeatedly persuaded his father to change the tyranny, and was driven out of the capital to supervise the long thief, when he was critically ill, he ordered Zhao Gao to write a testament, and called the eldest son Fusu to return to Beijing to take care of the funeral and inherit the throne, and let Zhao Gao keep the seal on his behalf.
Soon Qin Shi Huang died in the sand dunes, and Zhao Gao kept Qin Shi Huang's edict secret, but coerced Prime Minister Li Si to participate in his conspiracy, rewrote the edict, first established Hu Hai as the crown prince, and gave Su to die.
Then returned to Xianyang for the funeral of Qin Shi Huang, Hu Hai succeeded to the throne and became the second emperor of Qin, Zhao Gao appointed Lang Zhong, and executed the hero Meng Tian and his family and other heroes one after another.
Zhao Gao also persuaded Qin II to have fun, built the unfinished Afang Palace of Qin Shi Huang, repaired Lishan, punished the law severely, and looted the people, which finally triggered the first peasant uprising in Chinese history led by Chen Sheng and Wu Guang.
In order to monopolize the government, Zhao Gao conspired to kill the prime minister Li Si and became the prime minister himself, but he still wanted to be the emperor in chaos, but he was afraid that the ministers would not listen, so he first took a test, which is the famous story of "pointing to the deer as a horse" in history.
When Liu Bang's anti-Qin convoy arrived in Xianyang, Zhao Gao forced Tai II to commit suicide, but he set up the son of Su to ascend the throne, hoping to alleviate the peasant uprising.
But Yu Ying finally didn't listen to Zhao Gao's command and designed to kill Zhao Gao, which was regarded as avenging his father Fusu, but the Qin Dynasty also ended, and it can be said that the Qin Dynasty, the first feudal dynasty in Chinese history, was broken by the eunuch Zhao Gao.
The eunuch dictatorship of the Eastern Han Dynasty
The Western Han Dynasty, which was established by Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, probably accepted the lesson of Zhao Gao's usurpation, and never reused the eunuchs, and the eunuchs had a low status, so there was no disaster of announcing officials.
However, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a matter of eunuchs holding great power and sealing the marquis and eating the euphemism, and what was the reason for this? It turned out that this was closely related to the calamity of foreign relatives.
Starting from the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Emperor, there were successive generations of child emperors, with the Empress Dowager being regent in the dynasty, and the Empress Dowager invoking her brothers and nephews to take power.
When the little emperor grew up, he was not controlled by his relatives, and he wanted to take power personally, but the court was controlled by outsiders, and the emperor had no one to rely on, so the eunuch who was close to him became the emperor's only right-hand man.
The emperor relied on the help of the eunuchs to eliminate his relatives and restore his power, so he naturally had to be grateful to repay, such as the Han and Emperor relied on the power of Xuanguan Zheng Zhong and others, except for the relatives Dou Xiandang and, Zheng Zhong made great contributions, and the emperor made him the Marquis of Qingqing.
Since then, the history of eunuchs and marquises began, when Emperor Huan of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was the dictatorship of Liang Ji, and there was no one around the emperor to discuss, so Emperor Huan looked for loyal eunuchs.
summoned Shan Chao and Zuo Guan, the two were very willing to accept this task, and suggested that they act quickly, and then Emperor Huan summoned Xu Huang, Bei Ai, and Tang Heng, and swore an oath to cut their blood, determined to eliminate the Liang Party.
Under the joint planning of the five eunuchs, the Liang family finally wiped out the group of relatives, and finally people often referred to the powerful with "five marquis", that is, the eunuchs of these five feudal marquis.
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, 12 eunuchs such as Zhang Rang and Zhao Zhong served as Zhongchang Chuan, and their fathers, brothers and sons were all over Lena as officials, looting the people, and the people complained, and finally a peasant uprising broke out.
And they were in charge of the documents in the imperial court, and had great power to convey edicts, which people simply called "Chang Shi", and they also built palaces and buildings on a large scale to consume materials, and Emperor Ling of Han was only a puppet in their hands at that time.
In the late Tang Dynasty, eunuchs deposed the emperor
In the early Tang Dynasty, the eunuchs had a low status, only managed the affairs of the palace, and could not ask about the government affairs.
This system was maintained until the beginning of the Kaiyuan Dynasty, but when it came to Xuanzong, this system was changed, although these Xuanguan leaders also had bad deeds, but they were loyal to Xuanzong, and there was no harm to the government and society.
But in the late Tang Dynasty, the harm of eunuchs became greater and greater, Dezong let the eunuch leader lead the imperial court's Shence army, the palace set up a palace city, the poet Bai Juyi wrote the famous new Yuefu poem "Selling Charcoal", on Yue described the eunuchs at that time to rob the people of the fruits of labor.
Later, the eunuchs completely controlled the emperor's power to abolish life and death, Xianzong in his later years, hoping to live forever, taking pills, Xuanguan Wang Shoucheng recruited all kinds of liars to make alchemy, Xianzong took these mercury-containing products for a long time, and his temperament was violent, and the eunuchs around him were often whipped and killed, and Wang Shoucheng was also uneasy.
In the fifteenth year of Yuanhe, Xianzong was seriously ill, Wang Shoucheng and another eunuch in charge of the Shence Army, Tutu Chengban, had a tense conflict, Wang Shoucheng took the lead, and when Xianzong took medicine, he asked Xuanguan Chen Hongzhi to send a bowl of poison, and Xianzong died immediately after taking the medicine.
On the one hand, Wang Shoucheng supported Li Heng to succeed to the throne as emperor in front of Xianzong Ling, which was for Muzong, and on the other hand, he sent troops to kill Tutu Chengxuan and the prince Li Yun.
When Mu Zong came to power, the power naturally fell into the hands of Wang Shoucheng, and Wang Shoucheng lured Mu Zong to pursue a promiscuity life, and Mu Zong died after only 5 years as emperor.
After the death of Mu Zong, his elder than Jingzong Li Zhan succeeded to the throne, Jingzong was more absurd than Mu Zong, often summoned the rogue children into the palace to play football, wrestling, often hit the head to break the blood, break the arm, Jingzong also praised and applauded.
At that time, Jingzong trusted the eunuch Liu Keming the most, once Jingzong was drunk, when he went to the dressing room, Liu Keming and other three eunuchs waited, Liu Keming thought that the opportunity had come, and made a look at the other two eunuchs, extinguished the lights, and killed Jingzong in the dark, when Jingzong was only 18 years old.
Then Liu Keming forged the edict and set up Li Wu on the throne as the emperor, but Wang Shoucheng and his eunuchs refused to obey the order, and united with Liang Shouqian, the captain of the Shence army, and brought Mu Zongzhi to Li Han to crusade against Liu Keming.
After Wenzong ascended the throne, he always wanted to get rid of Wang Shouchu and avenge his grandfather Xianzong, so as not to be killed by the eunuchs again.
Wang Shoucheng originally intended to install these two people next to Wenzong and monitor Wenzong's actions, but Zheng Zhu and Li Xun were bent on recommending the removal of the eunuchs who were authoritarian, and they replaced them.
Let Wenzong promote the eunuch Qiu Shiliang to the lieutenant of the Shence Army, take advantage of the contradiction between the enemy and the king, contain each other, and then send someone to send poisoned wine to Wang Shoucheng and force him to commit suicide, thus clearing the Wang Shoucheng group.
When Wenzong was seriously ill, Qiu Shiliang made a fake edict to abolish the original prince Li Chengmei, and Li Yan, the younger brother of Wenzong, was the emperor's younger brother and forcibly sent to the palace.
Later, after Wuzong Li Yan ascended the throne, he appointed Li Deyu as the prime minister and grasped the control of the Shence army.
The power of the Ming Dynasty Xuanguan reached its peak
The Ming Dynasty was the dynasty with the largest number of lenient officials in Chinese history, and the eunuch institution at that time was divided into 12 eunuchs, each with a "eunuch" to lead.
With the power of the eunuchs, the sycophants see the eunuchs, regardless of the size of the taste, they are complimented and called "eunuchs", originally, "eunuchs" are the leaders of the eunuchs, and the "eunuchs" have become synonymous with the general eunuchs after the Ming Dynasty.
At the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, in view of the lessons of the eunuchs' dictatorship in previous dynasties, clearly stipulated that eunuchs could not serve as civil and military officials, and their grades could not exceed the fourth grade, and they were not allowed to associate with court officials.
But when Emperor Yongle became the ancestor, he changed Taizu's policy and began to reuse eunuchs, but there were indeed outstanding talents among the eunuchs at that time.
For example, Zheng He, the famous eunuch of the Three Treasures, once led a huge fleet and went to sea 7 times, leaving a glorious page in the history of world navigation.
But most of the family officials after Wuzong in the Ming Dynasty, and the most powerful was Liu Jin, when the prime minister Li Dongyang could only nod yes, so people called Liu Jin "a political eunuch" and "emperor of the land", and Wuzong became a puppet.
The famous scholar Wang Shouren once angrily reprimanded Liu Jin when he was the head of the military department, and he was also demoted to Guizhou Longyang Yicheng at this time, but Liu Jin still did not understand his hatred and sent someone to assassinate him on the way.
Liu Jin also set up an insider factory outside the "East Factory" and "West Factory" to make the arresters go out and suppress dissidents. And set up a special torture device, a secondary flail, weighing 150 catties, once put on the body, it will be crushed alive.
Within a few years, as many as thousands of people were executed by him, Liu Jin's atrocities aroused the dissatisfaction of the people, and in June of the third year of Zhengde, someone wrote an anonymous letter and pasted it on the official wall, writing about Liu Jin's atrocities.
Liu Jin was furious, and immediately summoned more than 300 court officials to kneel in Fengtianmen to blame themselves, it was the height of summer, kneeling from morning to night, 3 people fainted to death on the spot, and dozens of people fell.
In the evening, Liu Jin threw them into prison again, and the next day he found out that the letter writer was a eunuch, and then released the official from prison.
After the rebellion was quelled, Yang Yiqing found that Zhang Yong was very dissatisfied with Liu Jin, so he encouraged Zhang Yongzhi to subdue Liu Jin and designed for him to eliminate trouble.
After Zhang Yong waited for Liu Jin to withdraw, he took out a whistleblower and detailed Liu Jin's 17 major crimes, and then Wuzong ordered him to be put in prison, and the next day the courtiers celebrated with a crown, and they all wrote to ask to kill Liu Jin to thank the world, and Liu Jin's dead party also wrote to expose it.
summary
When Liu Jin was escorted to the execution ground, all the people were happy, and before the execution, they had been bitten to death by the people, which shows how strong the people's hatred for the eunuchs is.
But if the rulers of the past dynasties want to enjoy themselves, they can't do without eunuchs, so after Liu Jin's death, the disaster of eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty has not ended, and there are stories of Xuanguan Li Lianying and others in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, and the influence of eunuchs is also famous in history.
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