Sixty-one, the eunuch party is fierce

Sixty-one, the eunuch party is fierce

The reason why these eunuchs under Yayi'an and Guo Bo were able to make trouble on the ground in the south of the Yangtze River for a long time was that for a long time, the Great Jin Dynasty was basically an eunuch empire.

Since abandoning the old capital Yanjing and half of the northern part of the Yangtze River, as well as the Longxing Land in Liaodong, and being forced to move the capital to Jinling and Gou'an Jiangnan, the reputation of the Great Jin court began to plummet. There were signs of separatist rule in the local area, and the court was increasingly undercurrents and people's minds changed. When the dragon veins in Liaodong were cut off, the news that the emperor had lost the protection of the ancestors spread, and the court was in danger and was shaking.

The former emperor who had just ascended the throne was still a young man who lacked skills and experience. He did not have any decent staff support behind him, and the external environment was so harsh, so most people did not think that he would achieve outstanding achievements in governing the country.

However, sometimes it is really hard to say about the things in this world. Faced with such a bad internal and external situation, His Majesty the First Emperor was still undisdained, actively innovated, bravely explored, and boldly carried out scattered thinking. In the end, he really found a new path to governing the country, and it was an unprecedented country in history. Specifically, it was the eunuchs' rule of the country!

In view of the bad times when the ministers were planning to usurp power, the generals were in power, and the party was spread all over the four fields, the late emperor used his unique brain to discuss and analyze it in order to find a group of loyal ministers, and finally came to the conclusion that all men in the world were unreliable!

The emperor's logical reasoning is as follows: Because all men have families and careers, wives and children, the focus of their relationship is to be put on the family, and they cannot offer 100% loyalty to him, the emperor. In addition, men have the potential of an ambitious family. In this world where the dynasty is broken, once they have troops and territory, they may even do the kind of thing seizing power and usurping the throne, and they really cannot be reused.

But the eunuchs with pure six senses are different. Since there is no one below, it may be okay to want to marry a wife and live a life of their lives. If you want to have children to pass on the family line, there is absolutely no chance. Since there is no next generation, the loyalty can only be dedicated to him, the emperor. In addition, since ancient times, civil officials, military generals, royal relatives, usurp the country and rebellion after taking power. However, there has never been any eunuchs usurp the country and become emperor. The so-called power-eunuched father-in-law will at most control the emperor and take charge of the government. At least it will not change the dynasty. Therefore, he felt that the two harms were more inferior. Instead of using ordinary men and placing their hopes on unimaginable loyalty, it would be safer and more appropriate to use eunuchs.

Therefore, after the late emperor came to power and ascended the throne, he handed over the power of the state to the favored eunuchs. In order to meet the increasingly heavy government needs, it is urgent to expand the ranks of eunuchs with culture. Establishing a school to educate eunuchs is certainly a channel, but it is probably too late.

So, not long after, the late emperor issued a crazy decree: "From now on, all those who pass the imperial examination and want to be a court official must be castrated by themselves. If they are castrated by themselves and want to obtain officials, they will be castrated by the court!"

Once this decree was announced, the whole country was in an uproar. Ministers wrote letters to object, claiming that if this happens, no one dares to become an official. However, the late emperor was unmoved and dared to uphold the truth. He firmly implemented this crazy decree!

Since then, anyone who was awarded an official position by the court for passing the imperial examination for the Jinshi exam will have to be stripped off by the government's consent and cut off their bodies before taking office. What's worse, due to the limited castration level of the responsible persons and the general physical weakness of scholars, the rate of death from wound infection is quite high.

This has caused many well-educated people to hide at home and dare not take the exam, which directly led to a sharp decline in the quality of the national civil service. Even semi-literate who only writes their own names can be hired as Jinshi and awarded the position of county magistrate. But there are also some people who are interested in the power. Seeing that the emperor favors eunuchs, they actually took the initiative to cut off their yangju in order to seek wealth and gain.

Next, due to the continuous trouble of the Jinshi, the castration of the same Jinshi and even the top scholar failed, and the lower body was ulcerated and bleeding, the court simply stopped being responsible for the specific castration. It was only unified that all scholars must first find ways to castrate Yangju, and after taking off their pants in public to check, they were qualified to participate in the imperial examination... The so-called scholarly character and scholarly demeanor have completely disappeared.

When eunuchs were at their peak, more than 12,000 officials from the court were held by eunuchs, and most of them were important positions of real power rather than empty titles. This really turned this country into a complete "eunuch empire".

In general, this policy of eunuchs to govern the country has its own success - regardless of those remote vassal states that had long been out of control, at least within the court, it has been quite stable for more than ten years, and there has been no rebellion by powerful ministers who have planned to usurp the country.

But the problem is that the disadvantages of doing so are also obvious. First, the complete reinforcing of local gentry - the "warriors" who are willing to castrate themselves for the sake of their career and sacrifice their families for the country are quite limited; secondly, the avalanche-like decline in the prestige of the government. After all, the people do not respect eunuchs very much, and the gentry also resisted them strongly. Finally, it led to many scholars and local tycoons who were hopeless and unwilling to castrate and competed to join the revolutionary party. Since there seems to be no hope of progress within the system of this eunuch court, then if you want to keep your future happiness while seeking official positions, it seems that you can only go to the revolution and overthrow the court...

Therefore, the late emperor barely insisted on this "advanced policy" of the new Ming eunuchs' rule for seven or eight years. In the end, he could not withstand the huge pressure from all sides. He finally issued an edict of repentance at the end of his reign, restored the normal imperial examination, and abolished the power of eunuchs to serve as an official position in the court. However, he still indulged the Ministry of Internal Affairs above the civil and military officials of the court, which made the eunuchs still quite arrogant.

When Emperor Kant ascended the throne, he further promoted the government to wipe out the big-minded Office of the Interior and let the new people he trusted come to power. Although he still often asked the eunuchs whom he favored to work outside, at least it has basically returned to normal.
Chapter completed!