His family members. Eunuchs are generally held by men who lose their sexual ability after castration. During thousands of years of civilization in China, eunuchs and eunuch system have been closely linked with absolute monarchy, which is an important part of the political system of the whole country.
This paper mainly discusses the reasons for the emergence of the special group of "eunuchs" in China history.
In the process, I have deepened my understanding of the eunuch system in China and the initial link between the eunuch system and China's political culture.
First, the poisonous flower under feudal centralization of authority-"eunuch"
Eunuchs in China are about the same age as eunuchs in other countries in the world. However, its system is strict.
I'm afraid the secrets are huge, the number is huge, the ability to influence politics is strong, the scope of influence is wide and the duration is long, which is unique in the world. Of course, eunuchs are not the only unique historical phenomenon in China. According to research, eunuchs are very universal in the world. Three or four thousand years ago, there was a special group of eunuchs in ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Babylon and the kingdom of India.
First of all, the appearance of eunuch phenomenon must be after the emergence of private ownership and class society, and it is a stage.
When it is in the countries and regions of "oriental absolutism", it is what we usually call the monarchy era. In China, the consensus is that eunuchs have appeared in China since Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties. The history book says: "Since the bookmark, there have been many temples." Here often refers to the palace gate, and Changdian refers to the eunuch slaves who guard the palace gate.
Secondly, the eunuch phenomenon appears in a society with men as the family center. Create lineage and paternal line according to paternal line
Inheritance right, in such a society, male "parents" become political authorities, in charge of people's life and death to seize power, and many women become tools for male masters to vent their desires, making the emergence of eunuchs a group inevitable.
With the establishment of patriarchy, men replace women as the ancestor of surnames, so it is necessary to clarify the blood relationship between father and son.
Unified relationship, the establishment of blood relationship between father and son must be based on the fixed relationship between husband and wife, thus, a new marriage idea appeared. The worship of primitive ancestors is mainly reflected in the worship of sexual organs responsible for reproduction. Another change in ideology is the emergence of women's concept of chastity. Patriarchal clan requires the patriarch with pure blood-the son of heaven is extremely noble, and blood is more important.
Since the Xia Dynasty, China has entered the era of "home is the world". Is he the king of the world?
Earth, handsome, is it Wang Chen? According to historical records, Wang Xia had 12 queens. In Shang dynasty, the number of princesses further increased. By the Western Zhou Dynasty, the system of empresses was more complete. According to the Book of Rites, "the ancient emperors had six palaces, three women, nine concubines, twenty-seven concubines and eighty-one emperors", and there were more than a hundred women in the harem. Such a huge harem inevitably needs a large number of eunuchs to serve it, so as to maintain the normal operation of the palace and satisfy the extravagant life of the emperor. Therefore, how to ensure the purity of the emperor's bloodline and the chastity of his concubines has become a problem that the emperor must solve.
In order to ensure women's chastity, both parties who violate the precepts of sexual relations are brutally punished.
In order to solve this problem, corresponding laws and legal institutions have been established. In the process of establishing criminal law, the object and scope of castration gradually became clear and expanded. The establishment of castration in Xia Dynasty has been clearly recorded. In the criminal law of Shang Dynasty, there were only four kinds of punishment: mo, Cuo, Cuo and Kill, but there was no official punishment. However, the unearthed Oracle Bone Inscriptions confirmed the existence of castration in Shang Dynasty, and the object was to use
Prisoners of war serving their sentences in court.
Finally, the emergence of eunuch phenomenon must also have a scientific and technological condition, that is, society has emerged.
Mature castration. Mr. Witford made an argument that "there seems to be no institutionalized eunuch in ancient America", but in the "eastern society of the old world", one of the reasons for the eunuch phenomenon is that "many major civilized regions have castration systems for livestock". Coupled with the development of ancient medicine in China, it also provided conditions for the emergence of official punishment.
In short, during the Xia and Shang Dynasties, with the establishment of autocratic monarchy, various social contradictions became increasingly acute and ruled.
Classes use the power of the state to take all effective measures to consolidate their rule. In order to meet the needs of maintaining absolute monarchy, patriarchal clan system, lineage inheritance and life safety, they need "neutral" slaves who are physically and militarily superior to women but will not have sex with women. Developed medicine makes it possible to castrate the human body, and the law provides a basis for this cruel behavior. The conditions for the emergence of eunuch system are basically mature.
Second, the source of eunuchs
In the feudal era dominated by feudal Confucian culture, free love between men and women was considered as a transcendence ceremony.
Legal deviance. China's ethics has always believed that "there are three unfilial things and no great future". "Being covered with skins, parents dare not hurt it, and filial piety begins." However, in the 3000-year history from the establishment of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the demise of the Qing Dynasty, eunuchs never stopped, showing unparalleled continuity. Where is its source? Thought-provoking.
Early eunuchs mainly came from prisoners during the war, including foreign countries, foreigners or hostile dynasties.
Prisoners are divided into children and adults according to their age; Some sinners or their families went to prison and became eunuchs. Mencius, the eunuch in The Book of Songs, was slandered as a sinner and sentenced by a judge. Shi Xian and Gong Hong in the Western Han Dynasty were imprisoned for breaking the law. Sima Qian was sentenced to death for angering Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty because of Li Ling's defense.
In addition, the youngest son of ordinary people was castrated and presented to the court as a eunuch or a tribute.
It is an important way for feudal society to enter the prosperous age. Since the abolition of castration in the Sui Dynasty, the way to castrate criminals and then enter the palace as officials has been cut off. However, the demand for eunuchs has never stopped and is expanding day by day. In addition, eunuchs often suddenly gain power, which is a great temptation to those who can't get a career, and promotes great changes in social atmosphere and ethical concepts. Therefore, the palace became the main source of eunuchs, and there was no name for castration. And castration, which has the reality of castration, has also begun to develop into lynching and folk.
Third, the abnormal life of eunuchs.
Eunuchs are a group with the least number, the most characteristics and the greatest influence in the history of China, but they are despised.
Class is a deformed, cruel and most inhuman product. The first psychological characteristics of eunuchs are inferiority and power desire. This sense of inferiority comes from physical defects, from social and psychological discrimination, from the sadness of losing or being abandoned by family, from the weakness, ignorance and attachment brought by humble work. However, the existence of this sense of inferiority and the huge and unimaginable physical pain have caused great psychological stimulation.
At the same time, the psychological characteristics of eunuchs are related to age, origin and education. Generally speaking,
Eunuchs who are deeply influenced by Confucianism will not resist the social system that harms them, nor will they do evil by virtue of their power, but take other ways to express their anger and achieve their goals. For most eunuchs, they come from the lower class, have no education, have the desire to master power, and are not bound by Confucianism and future generations. Once in power, they will give full play to their power to show off their enthusiasm and satisfy their desire for life, thus disrupting the normal order of feudal society. For example, eunuchs in the Eastern Han Dynasty competed for luxury and made sea poison. Eunuch in Tang dynasty
Holding the relieving power and robbing the son of heaven is like holding a baby. The eunuch in power in Ming Dynasty controlled Chaogang, which became an important reason for social unrest.
Another obvious feature of eunuchs is revenge. For eunuchs, the acquisition of power can be used as
The reward of one's own suffering is like drugs and anesthetics, and it is the desire to rule others, dominate others, and let others suffer and retaliate. What some eunuchs did when they were in power was almost nonsense and incomprehensible, but they could feel a kind of abnormal psychology of revenge on the whole society.
In addition, the psychological characteristics of eunuchs are also manifested in other aspects. In life, some eunuchs
Take a wife and concubinage, do whatever it takes to show all kinds of perverts in the room. Economically, he showed great greed for wealth and did whatever it took to satisfy his greed. Although eunuchs have no offspring, they adopt children and shelter their sons and nephews. These are all different.
To sum up, the physiological characteristics of eunuchs caused a series of psychological changes. This change is related to the following factors
The huge contradiction between social psychology and social environment further complicates eunuch psychology. Driven by all kinds of complicated psychology, eunuchs took advantage of their own advantages and loopholes of feudal regime to participate in various struggles extensively, which had a great influence on the historical process.
Second, the poisonous flower-the bloom of "eunuch" and its final demise
The development trend and the most obvious feature of feudal society in China are autocratic monarchy and centralization.
By the way, in line with this, although the administrative organizations in the Qin and Han Dynasties and even the Ming and Qing Dynasties have changed a lot, the general trend of their evolution and development is that the organs at all levels are more and more closely manipulated and controlled by the emperor, among which eunuchs and eunuch systems are always closely linked to absolute monarchy.
Since the establishment of the eunuch system in the Western Zhou Dynasty, all dynasties have followed the eunuch system without exception.
Unparalleled continuity. In the long-term evolution, the eunuch institutions from scattered to complete, from messy to strict, occupy an important position in the state institutions and become an important guarantee for the continuous strengthening of the monarchy.
In the pre-Qin period, eunuchs were called temple people, mainly from prisoners of war and criminals who had been in prison. Western Zhou Dynasty
Later, China entered the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Although some eunuchs were involved in politics and their social and economic status was improved, on the whole, their strength was still relatively weak.
During the Hanwu period of the Qin Dynasty, eunuchs and eunuch systems were mature. Unified feudal dynasty
The feudal bureaucracy was consolidated and became a model of later feudal dynasties. Including the eunuch system. The title of eunuch appeared, and eunuchs began to have the dual identity of both official and slave.
During the Three Kingdoms and the Jin Dynasty, because the rulers learned the lessons of the previous dynasties, they suppressed the eunuch power and eunuch administration.
Political, economic and social status has declined compared with the previous dynasty. In the Northern Dynasties, eunuchs not only served as senior officials in the palace, but also served as local governors. Eunuchs' participation in politics was serious, such as Zong Ai and Liu Teng in the Northern Wei Dynasty, which brought serious harm to the political situation and social status at that time.
In the Tang Dynasty, eunuchs could formally hold the post of foreign court and serve as senior Wu Zhi. After the middle Tang Dynasty,
Eunuchs have mastered the central imperial army, and where there are envoys of our times and observation, there are military and political supervisors, forming a eunuch military and political supervision network from local to central. Eunuchs flourished in the Tang Dynasty, especially the left and right corps commanders who controlled the imperial army and did little to protect it, and held the real power to manipulate the political situation. The eunuch who served as the Tang envoy even claimed to be the prime minister of the imperial palace, and even developed to the point of arbitrarily abolishing the emperor.
Song dynasty inherited the old system of Tang dynasty in form, but due to the strengthening of autocratic monarchy in Song and Yuan dynasties.
The imperial court appointed nobles to manage it. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the eunuchs' power was weakened, and they did little in politics and their social status was not high.
The centralization of the people's monarchies was further strengthened in the Ming Dynasty, and the eunuch system reached the level in the history of China.
Peak. Twelve eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty, four divisions and eight bureaus, are collectively called eunuch twenty-four yamen, and the head is
Silijian eunuch. Judging from the history of the Ming Dynasty, eunuchs were fully involved in national life, and their institutions were all over the political, economic, military, judicial, diplomatic and other fields. It has its own system in scale, a large number of people, and is increasingly superior to state institutions in function, and gradually becomes the second administrative system directly subordinate to the emperor and parallel to the bureaucracy.
In the early Qing dynasty, thirteen eunuch yamen were set up, with eunuchs as the head. After Kangxi acceded to the throne, in view of
Curses on eunuchs in the past dynasties, the establishment of an internal affairs office specializing in royal affairs, and the formulation of detailed systems to strictly limit eunuch activities have played a great role in preventing eunuchs from monopolizing power. In the Qing Dynasty, the political, economic and social status of eunuchs was always defined at a very low level. Only in the late Qing Dynasty did a few eunuchs such as An Dehai, Li and Xiao get involved in politics.
A cannon shot of the Revolution of 1911 destroyed the decadent rule of the Qing Dynasty and ended feudalism for more than 2,000 years.
Rule also buried eunuchs and eunuch system that lasted for thousands of years, and eunuchs disappeared in the long river of history forever.
In short, the curse on eunuchs has been fierce since ancient times, and there are countless theories about eunuchs since ancient times. The position of eunuchs in history and
The role of eunuchs, the reasons why they are authoritarian and chaotic, etc. It has attracted a lot of people's attention. However, we have to face the fact that only a few eunuchs can monopolize state affairs. As eunuchs, some people do not die, some people do not die, some people are cruel, and some people are brave and upright.
Among the forces of castration, it has caused serious harm to social politics and economy. At the same time, among the eunuchs in history,
Heroes come forth in large numbers, including Cai Lun and Sima Qian in the Han Dynasty, Zhang in the later Tang Dynasty, Zheng He in the Ming Dynasty and Kou Liancai in the late Qing Dynasty. With their wisdom and sense of justice, they have made great contributions to social politics, economy and culture.