When did eunuchs appear? Are all eunuchs?

The name "eunuch" first appeared in Liao Dynasty. It was originally the name of a senior government position, not necessarily held by eunuchs.

Not all eunuchs in early China were eunuchs. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, eunuchs were completely used as eunuchs. In the Ming dynasty, there was a word "net army", which refers to an army composed of eunuchs.

In the Ming Dynasty, there were twelve prisons and twenty-four yamen in the imperial court, and the leaders were eunuchs, all of whom were eunuchs. Junior eunuchs are called "less prison" and "middle prison", and senior eunuchs are called "eunuchs"; So "eunuch" became the title of senior eunuch, and later became the general name of eunuch. 1July, 923, Puyi abandoned the palace eunuch.

Introduction:

Eunuch (tàI Jian, the great eunuch in film and television drama) is also called eunuch. They usually refer to neutral people who lost their sexual ability after castration in ancient China. They are officials who serve emperors, monarchs and their families. Also known as temple people, eunuchs (choosing sons), eunuchs, officials, middle officials, internal officials, internal ministers, internal servants, internal supervisors and so on.

Classification:

There are several sources of officials. The first is the use of men with congenital physical defects or developmental disorders, and they must be dismissed when their physiological functions are restored, such as the Book of the Later Han Dynasty? Luanba Biography records that Luanba acted as a eunuch because of developmental disorder, and later "Yang was unobstructed, begging for retreat was in vain."

Secondly, there are methods of castration without permission. For example, "Everything is done wrong" mentioned "ruling the internal affairs from the palace". Later, from the end of the Western Han Dynasty to the Eastern Han Dynasty, some people were not even ashamed of castration.

The third kind is eunuchs who have been corrupted or sentenced to death and become corrupt officials, such as Lao Ai. Although his execution was fake, he is still a corrupt official in name.

After the Sui Dynasty, castration was abolished as a formal punishment, and eunuchs should mostly be castrated voluntarily. In the Ming Dynasty, eunuchs were eunuchs except some children of ethnic minorities (such as Zheng He and Wang Zhi) who were taken captive from the south. Most of them are castrated voluntarily, and there are more eunuchs in Zhili Hejian and other places. The castration of eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty should have been the duty of the imperial court, and the people were forbidden to castrate themselves. But this ban has never been seriously implemented. In the mid-Ming Dynasty, a large number of people who could not enter the palace or be eunuchs after castration were called "unknown white officials".

In the late Ming Dynasty, many positions originally held by female officials in the imperial court were changed to eunuchs, so eunuchs were as numerous as ants, reaching100000 at most. In Qingxian, Jinghai, Hejian, Cangzhou, Renqiu, Nanpi, Zaoqiang and other counties near Beijing, many people rushed to enter the palace to be clean. At that time, the eunuch's testicles and penis were packed in red flannel bags and hung in a dry room in the shade of the Forbidden City. Red ropes are hung on the beams, the eunuch is farthest and driest from the wet ground, and the one who enters the palace for the first time is closest to the ground, which is called the nursery. The Night Talk in Daidou contains "private castration of children in Gyeonggi", and the old news of the sun cites the "white-headed gossip" recorded in "everyone has a son, and castration is a blessing for eunuchs".

Most eunuchs in the Qing Dynasty were Han Chinese, and Yong Zhengdi banned the flag bearer from being a eunuch.