(This article was originally my answer to the Q&A in the headlines, without originality.) ）
Wei Zhongxian (1568 – December 11, 1627), courtesy name Wanwu, was a eunuch at the end of the Ming Dynasty. After the palace changed his name to Li Jinzhong, after serving as a eunuch of Bingbi, he changed back to his original surname, and the emperor gave him the name Wei Zhongxian. During the ming dynasty, he served as a eunuch in si li bingbi, was extremely favored, known as "nine thousand nine hundred years old", excluded dissidents, and arbitrarily ruled state affairs, so that people "only knew that there were loyal people, but did not know that there was an emperor".
However, a super-cattle eunuch like Wei Zhongxian could not cover the sky with one hand in the Ming court. What about the powerful Wei Zhongxian? Chongzhen was also a holy will to abolish him. The eunuchs of the Tang Dynasty went against the heavens, killing the prince, killing the empress, and even killing the emperor. Yu Zhao'en of the Tang Dynasty could directly intervene in the affairs of the imperial court, intimidate hundreds of officials, and directly ignore the emperor. And this was unthinkable in the Ming Dynasty. Because the degree of absolute monarchy of the Ming Dynasty is second only to the Qing Dynasty in history, even the Qin Dynasty is far behind. Absolute monarchy ensured that the emperor of the Ming Dynasty could hold power forever.
Wei Zhongxian stills
At that time, Liu Jin's grand eunuch's power was no less than That of Wei Zhongxian, and emperor Zhu Houzhao narrowed his eyes, and Liu Gonggong finished playing. Because the power of eunuchs comes from the emperor, especially during the Ming Dynasty, the emperor's rights were supreme, and various systems, including factory guards, were used to ensure that the emperor's rights would not be bypassed. Eunuchs and the civil bureaucracy were a relationship of checks and balances, and although the power of the eunuchs might prevail in the struggle with the clique of civil officials, it was impossible to completely suppress the other, because the emperor did not allow such a one-sidedness. The reverse is also true. Such a one-sided force is not in line with the emperor's autocratic spirit. Whether it is the eunuch eunuch force or the civilian official group power represented by the cabinet, in the final analysis, in the Ming Dynasty, it was a pawn and tool under the emperor's dictatorship. The status of civil officials in the Ming Dynasty was much lower than that of the Song Dynasty, and even the thousand-year-old beggar system was abolished, and the status of eunuchs was generally weaker than that of the Tang Dynasty.
The reason why the emperor of the Ming Dynasty did not go to the dynasty for more than a hundred years, but he could make the huge machine of the Ming Dynasty basically work well, and the emperor could still control everything behind the scenes, this is because the Ming Dynasty had established a mature cabinet system at that time and could make the machine run for many years by the power of inertia alone. When the Ming Dynasty was just in its inception, Zhu Yuanzhang, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, made improvements to the feudal management system of the previous dynasty, and the emperors of later generations made improvements. The cabinet system has broken the previous system in which all matters large and small are exhausted by the emperor alone, and the daily administration of the country is actually managed by the cabinet, just like the cabinet of the current Western countries, even if the emperor is no matter how absurd, faint, and not to go to the court, the cabinet can operate normally, manage the country normally, and handle things. Nevertheless, it is not that the emperor has been hollowed out, but still has great power.
Chongzhen stills
The Cabinet of the Ming Dynasty was a secretarial body that provided advice to the emperor from the fourth year of Jianwen (1402) to the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), after which it gradually increased its power and later formed the administrative center of the Ming Dynasty. The number of cabinet assistant ministers ranged from one to seven, and the assistant ministers were sent abroad to run errands, and most of them called themselves cabinet ministers. Although the chief cabinet scholar (or cabinet chief assistant) had the power to vote, he had to rely on internal eunuchs to deliver the red. In this way, the emperor used the power of eunuch eunuchs to contain the cabinet civil official group, and did not let the civilian official family dominate.
Even if they were the heads of the civil servants, they had to work closely with eunuchs in order to take charge of the government. The reason why the great statesman Zhang Juzheng succeeded in reforming was because he combined the great eunuch Feng Bao and cooperated well with the eunuch forces, rather than being incompatible with each other. But even Zhang Juzheng is not actually the superior of a hundred officials in terms of the constitution of the country, he is only a "secretary general". Theoretically, he could not directly command the hundred officials. Zhang Ju used private letters to get his confidants to make suggestions to the cabinet, and then the emperor agreed to them, so as to achieve personal goals. He also took control of the inspectorate and impeached officials who opposed him. The emperor himself could not allow the imperial power to fall, so he liquidated the Zhang Juzheng family and his party after his death, and continued to appoint eunuchs to suppress the civilian official clique.
Zhang Juzheng stills
The emperor suppressed the civil officials through trusted eunuchs, which was actually a system of supervision. In previous dynasties, it was easy for ministers to take power and monopolize power, and even to subvert the country in the end, and the same Ming Dynasty cabinet power was too large, and it was easy to form a dictatorship. Therefore, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty set up a system of eunuch restraint. The eunuchs who the emperor gave trust to them, they controlled the secret service agencies such as the East Factory, and they could form a restraint on the power of the ministers and check and balance each other, so that it was impossible to produce an authoritarian, whether it was a eunuch or a civil official, who could not cover the sky with one hand, and had to honestly work for the emperor - the only monopoly, needless to say, of course, was the emperor.
Wei Zhongxian's only chance was to assassinate the newly enthroned Chongzhen Emperor in the palace. But nothing like this has happened in history. Therefore, once Chongzhen successfully ascended the throne, he was already doomed to Wei Zhongxian's tragic end.
Author: Skeptical Explorer