How did the eunuch come?

What is a eunuch? Is it castrated and incapacitated? Yes and no, the appearance of eunuchs is a kind of arrogance, a kind of ceremony and a kind of pain, which has led to countless tragedies in past dynasties. The original eunuchs were not called eunuchs, but "temple people" or "prisoners of war", which was first recorded in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. In the history of China, they are even older than some ancient countries such as ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.

How did the eunuch come?

1. The earliest eunuchs called them temple people.

BC, the mid-Shang Dynasty, also known as Yin Shang, was the most typical slavery dynasty in the history of China. Due to years of war, there have been prisoners of war and refugees in China. In order to make these low-status people easy to manage, the "castration system" was introduced. The advantage of castration system is that slaves are "asexual", which makes people weak, weak and sick, and makes these people weak and sick less.

At that time, there were "Dianmin" among eunuchs, and the earliest official name of eunuchs was also called "Dianmin", which was also a servant. The earliest record is in the Spring and Autumn Period, probably earlier than the Shang Dynasty. It was an eunuch of Tianguan Zhazai, who served in the palace. At that time, the temple people here were called "men with sexual defects", which was recorded in Li Zhou.

Temple people in the Spring and Autumn Period were not all castrated men. They may be prisoners of war, slaves with low status, free men or gods.

Sacrifice, formed in the Yin and Shang Dynasties, advocates witchcraft and divination. Sacrificial activities were quite large in the Yin and Shang Dynasties, and some temple people were slaves of God and were called gods. This kind of temple people were tortured at that time and their bodies were incomplete. Even if it is full of blood and tears, it can only live in humiliation. Until the emergence of the Zhou Dynasty, when the Zhou Dynasty was just established, it was forbidden to castrate slaves. However, because castrated slaves had already been implanted in the hearts of nobles, the prohibition of the system attracted great resistance, so the Zhou Dynasty re-standardized, allowing only sacrificial places and royal families to keep such people. Its function is to ensure that the interests of some nobles are not affected and that these people have room for survival.

Since then, as a group, the status of eunuchs has begun to move towards the historical stage. Among the nobles, they are called eunuchs, while some eunuchs are not real eunuchs, and some eunuchs are not real eunuchs. At that time, nobles often committed adultery, and so did the royal family. For example, the most famous poison of the Qin Dynasty was adultery with Qin Shihuang's mother.

Therefore, there was a saying in Historical Records: "Guests ask for officials and give up more than a thousand people for Lao Ai." What is Scheeren? Refers to the guests at home. As a teenager, he was a guest of Qin Shihuang, so he was called Scheeren. Therefore, Shi Lun was in its heyday. Among the ancient nobles, it was not only Scheeren who poisoned them, especially those who did it in the royal family, who were called officials.

Among them, the most formal is the royal family. The preface to the biographies of officials in the later Han Dynasty once recorded: "At the beginning of Zhongxing, eunuchs used eunuchs."

This move is to support him to serve his master, but to prevent adultery, which shows that eunuchs are abundant.

2. Eunuchs, eunuchs and eunuchs began to move towards eunuchs under the general name.

It was the Han, Tang and Ming Dynasties that eunuchs set foot on princes and nobles. The downfall of these three dynasties was related to eunuchs. In the Ming Dynasty, eunuchs were also called eunuchs. Not all eunuchs here can be called eunuchs, but individuals. Why this happens stems from the great power of "eunuchs" and the difference between officials.

Wei Zhongxian, for example, is a eunuch. According to Zhao, a Korean, in Notes on Shen Jia, "Before entering Beijing in the late Ming Dynasty, the inventory of a huge Ming empire was less than 2,000 yuan because of eunuchs. On the contrary, the stolen silver is as high as more than 10,000 yuan, which is ridiculous. "

Chongzhen was also furious at this, and repeatedly reprimanded the eunuch in public: "It is better to pass on the gold and silver treasures accumulated by my ancestors than to steal them. "

During the Three Dynasties, there was another saying that "it takes ten years to study in a cold window, but leaving the palace is a temporary pain and a lifelong wealth", which also led to the number of eunuchs at that time. According to the "Shantangji Examination of Chinese Officials", "There are more than 970 net households in Nanhai, and they are begging for it."

It's terrible that a village can have so many palace ladies in order to get rid of poverty. At that time, there were more than 1000 eunuchs, but the number of applicants was more than 10000. Even the court was shocked. If you want to enter the palace, you have to pay for it, not after the castration.

After the Qing dynasty, the Qing dynasty was easy to manage, and all castrated people were collectively called eunuchs. However, eunuchs are still a popular profession. According to the evaluation of The Scholars, "The castrated scholar is so vivid that I don't know whether to mourn or pity him." Still tirelessly getting started.

During the Qing dynasty, due to the chaos in the harem, the status of eunuchs was still not low. Scholars want to get ahead. You can choose the imperial examination or gain fame and fortune through humiliation, but you don't know the value of personal dignity, and it is unbearable to be driven by "interests".

Refer to Historical Records and Biography of the Later Han Dynasty.