In Chinese history, there was a so-called eunuch house of the first class, which often boasted of being an official eunuch for generations. In fact, the so-called generations, there are very few more than three or four generations. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Yuan Shao often showed off his family's "four generations and three dukes", but by his generation, the "qi number" had been exhausted. "A shock made everyone frightened, and I looked back at the prime minister to see that it had turned to ashes." This riddle in "Dream of the Red Chamber" vividly shows that the families of those eunuchs who are famous and famous are only temporary glory and wealth, and they will soon disappear.
Yes, the Haining Chen family, which continued from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, is one of them.
The Haining Chen family rose in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, there were two brothers, Chen Youjiao and Chen Youxiang, one was an official to the Shaoqing of the Taichang Temple of the Siyiguan Temple, and the other was a political envoy in Guizhou. Among his descendants, Chen Yuanhui and Chen Zubao, were also admitted to the Jinshi during the Ming Dynasty and became high officials. In the third generation, Chen Zhizhen was the leader of the Chongzhen Dynasty, and after entering the Qing Dynasty, he became a university scholar in the imperial court. The fourth generation Chen Yuanlong is the prime minister, Chen Xuan is the Rebbe Shangshu, and Chen Nong is the Punishment Department Waiter. Later, there was Chen Shixuan, who was an inspector during the Yongzheng period and a minister during the Qianlong period. His nephew Chen Yongshi served as an inspector. At that time, it was already the middle of Qianlong. Some people in the Chen family have been high officials in the dynasty for more than two hundred years. If even the middle and lower officials are counted, they can be pushed forward to Chen Zhongfu during the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty, and can be extended to the Jia and Dao years backwards, and the time is longer.
Chen Jiashi eunuchs are prominent, not only for a long time, but more strangely, father and son brothers often appear on the same list. In the forty-second year of the Kangxi Dynasty, there were three members of the Chen family who were in the same middle class. By the fifty-sixth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, there were three more people on the same list. In the imperial examination, there are many readers participating in the examination throughout the country, but there are only about two hundred people in one subject, and the Chen family occupies three seats exclusively, and moreover, this cannot but make people look at each other sideways. Since the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, people have talked about official valves, and the first to none is the "Haining Chen Family". If we talk about the influence of the Chen family, here is an example.
During the Qing Dynasty, one of the descendants of the Chen clan, Chen Chongli, was originally a descendant of Zuo Yi (auxiliary official) who started his family and became a retired official to the Daotai of Jianchang Province. Once, the Daoguang Emperor summoned him and asked about his origins. Chen Chongli thought to himself, now that everyone in the world is interested in the imperial examination, how can Zuo Yi be born and open his mouth. He took out the name of his ancestor and answered the question that he was a descendant of Chen Yuanlong and Chen Shixuan. As soon as the Daoguang Emperor heard the names of these two people, he understood and said, "Rugu Haining Chen Jiaye." He was then promoted to the position of Salt Transporter.
Even the emperor, who was deeply in the ranks, was familiar with the Chen family in Haining. And Chen Chongli relied on the signboard of "Haining Chen Family", not only rose high, but also fished for a fat shortage. It can be seen that the Chen family is not ordinary.
The Haining Chen family is so prosperous that the world feels very magical. Chen Himself made this matter mysterious and mysterious. A man named Chen Qiyuan said in the "Notes on Yong Xianzhai": "My family was originally a Bohai Gao clan, a relative of the emperor during the Song Dynasty, and later crossed south with Emperor Gaozong of song and settled in Lin'an (present-day Hangzhou). The ancestor (the first generation in the family tree) Gao Yuyou learned Haining, because of his sleepiness, he stopped on the Zhao Family Bridge and suddenly fell into the water. There was a tofu shop next to the bridge, Chen Mingyu, who was taking a lunch break, dreamed that there was a green dragon going down the bridge, suddenly woke up, just happened to see a man falling in the water, hurriedly rescued, knowing that it was the son of the clan family, he stayed at home and recruited him as a son-in-law. Soon after, he gave birth to a boy, named Chen Rong, and grew up to make a living from a tofu shop.
One day, Chen Rong got up in the middle of the night to grind tofu, and occasionally saw two lanterns coming from the crack in the door. Feeling strange, he quietly flashed outside the door to peek, and it turned out to be a reader and a Taoist monk. I saw the Taoist priest point to a piece next to the tofu shop and say, "This is the most auspicious place." Buried here after death, there must be a very human subject among the descendants, and there must be a stone and eight buckets of sesame seeds (referring to how many sesame seeds there are in one stone and eight buckets, and how many people in the descendants are officials). The reader asked, "Why do you have to test your words?" The Taoist priest replied, "Lay two eggs here, and tomorrow at this hour the chicks will hatch." So the reader took two eggs and buried them in the soil.
The next day, Chen Rong got up as usual to grind tofu, suddenly remembered yesterday's events, and went to see what was going on, and sure enough, he saw two chickens. He was in a state of horror when he saw two lanterns from far and near. By this time the chicken had been dug out of the soil by him and could no longer be buried. So he hurried home to get two eggs, buried them in place, and then hid aside, holding his breath and snooping.
"After a while, the two men came. The Taoist priest squatted down with confidence to pick up the soil with his hands, and when he found that it was still an egg, he was dumbfounded. The reader blamed him for not speaking well. The Daoist priest said in confusion, "Maybe the luck has not yet arrived." The two men returned in despair and did not come again.
After a few years, Chen Rong estimated that the scholar and the Daoist had long forgotten about this matter, so he was buried in the place designated by the Daoist priest according to his father's high forgiveness. After the second generation, there are indeed Denko and the first. It has been three hundred years now, and of the thirteen generations, more than 200 of them have been admitted to the rank of scholar and scholar, three have served as prime ministers in the imperial court, and eleven have been officials of the ranks of Shangshu, Waiter, Inspector, and Envoy. When the ancestor was first buried, Chen Rong planted a sandalwood tree on the tomb, so kan public opinions called it 'Haining Chen's sandalwood tomb'. When Emperor Shengzuren (i.e., the Kangxi Emperor) was touring the south, he heard about such a strange thing and came to watch it. ”
The above-mentioned explanation of Chen Qiyuan's passage about the official yun hengtong of the Chen family is nothing but Qi Dongye's language and nonsense, and it is difficult to be recognized by the world. Everyone would rather believe another theory, that is, there was an emperor in the Qing Dynasty who was originally a descendant of the Chen family, and he was the Qianlong Emperor. In the late Qing Dynasty, from the gentry to the women and children, there was no one who did not know that the Haining Chen family had a son who became emperor. So that the next folk song was circulated: "Chen and The Emperor, a total of one case."