One of them was the height of autocracy with eunuchs pulling the strings behind them.
Minh Thanh To reigned on the throne of the Ming empire for 22 years, but his beginnings as the Son of Heaven (Son of Heaven) were not very golden: His mother was just a Korean or Mongolian concubine of some sort. the lowest rank in the harem. Later, he became emperor only by overthrowing his grandson, Chu Doan Van, who was the legitimate successor under the title of Emperor Minghui. Perhaps in order to overshadow his less-than-luxury origin, he ordered the capital of the United China to be moved from Nanjing to Beijing, clearing the game to start over.
The beginning of violence
The founding emperor Emperor Hongwu entrusted his fourth son, Zhu Di, to govern the northern provinces, a difficult land, always facing danger from nomadic tribes on horseback, even following the Mongols withdrew. He chose Beijing, the old capital once used by the Mongols, and set his sights on building an exemplary administrative system.
Minh Thanh To (reigned 1402-1424)
To do this, he assembled a group of trusted sages under his command. Having personally led the army in a number of victorious campaigns, he earned their unconditional loyalty. With this same large army, he waged war once morest Zhou Yunwen following the death of his father in 1399 and entered the capital Nanjing three years later.
In order to cover up the act of usurping the throne, making people forget the details of his identity, Zhu Di carried out many powerful activities. First, he introduced the ruling slogan of Yongle (or “Eternal Joy”, which is why history books also named him Emperor Yongle) and removed his predecessor from the official list of rulers. Emperor. He then stripped the remaining Ming princes of power and placed his confidants in every core position. Disgraced mandarins were often exiled or simply lost their heads. This purge is said to have up to two thousand victims. And yet, the new emperor also set up a secret service to monitor the work and thoughts of officials.
That much people and jobs also require a huge infrastructure. With over a million inhabitants, Nanjing on the Yangtze River was the largest metropolis in the world at the time. Chinese historian Professor Kai Vogelsang writes: “A wall nearly 40 kilometers long encloses everything that belongs to a capital: the imperial palace, the courtyard, the rooms, the authorities. , the granary, the royal academy, the temple and the army barracks – all moved a thousand kilometers north”!
Forbidden City
Beijing is not chosen at random. Later historians also suggested that in Nanjing, the old center of the South, the emperor did not feel safe in the face of the enemy’s ambush.
But perhaps it was the foresight of a prominent politician that led Emperor Yongle to announce a far-reaching decision in 1406. The government should move to Beijing, thousands of kilometers away. The Mongol lords of the Yuan Dynasty, who had ruled before the Ming Dynasty, established their headquarters in Beijing, which in those days was known as Dadu. Beijing was located on the edge of the steppe, hinged to the north, from where the empire might be acquired and defended more easily than Nanjing, the center of Han civilization.
The massive exodus turned the lives of over a million slaves and 100,000 artisans to work day and night on a new construction site, 720,000 square meters and with nearly 10,000 rooms: the Forbidden City. Food, taxes and tribute reached Beijing through a canal. A ten meter high wall with four gates separates the capital from the rest of the world. About 300,000 soldiers are stationed in the outer ring to ensure security. Beijing is the petrified expression of power and gold.
February 2, 1421 was a solemn ceremony: Emperor Yongle inaugurated his new capital with a lavish festival. 28 heads of state were invited, the total number of guests was 26,000. They were served a ten-course meal, but only following prostrating themselves before the Emperor. Those who do not bow properly will be forced to repeat by the eunuchs.
Empress Dowager Tu Xi and the serving eunuchs
The road to promotion to the number 1 position
The Forbidden City became the residence of the royal family, the harem with 2,000 concubines and tens of thousands of eunuchs. It can be said that, more than with the generals who fought with him, Minh Thanh To put his trust in the loyalty of the eunuchs since he conquered a Mongol fortress in Kunming from the time he was a young man. Prince. All men were killed, and all boys who had not yet reached puberty were castrated in whole or in part, according to customary practice in China at the time. Not a few people died when castrated with a knife, the survivors shared a common feature of unconditional submission.
In China, castration includes removal of the penis as well as the testicles. Both parts are cut at the same time with a knife. The phenomenon of eunuchs has existed in China since regarding 146 AD, they are often used as civil servants. The eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty in China played a decisive role in the administration of the imperial palace. Their duties covered almost every aspect of daily life in the royal palace. They are also in charge of purchasing copper, tin, wood and iron. They also had to repair and build ponds, city gates, palaces in major cities such as Beijing and Nanjing, as well as palaces and mausoleums. They prepared meals for a large number of people in the palace, taking care of the animals in the palace.
Since ancient times, eunuchs have been both a traditional punishment (one of the five punishments) and a means of obtaining employment in the Imperial services. Some powerful eunuchs, such as Ming Dynasty official Zheng He, are said to have discovered the Americas before Christopher Colombo. Self-immolation is also a common practice to gain power.
The justification for hiring eunuchs as high-ranking civil servants is that they are incapable of having children, so they will not be tempted to take power and build a dynasty. Usually, eunuchs are considered more trustworthy than other officials. In ancient Chinese astronomy, a constellation was designated as that of the Emperor, and to its West, four stars were identified as “eunuchs”.
Representing the personal will of the emperor
The truth is always a little less poetic: the king is always afraid that his children are not really his own blood! As a result, only eunuchs were allowed to serve the emperor and were next to the 2,000 concubines who were divided according to a strict rank in the harem. This ensures that the king’s children are “true descendants” of the Royal Family. Moreover, the “familiar and flatter slaves” might not jeopardize the “divine office” that the emperor had received from the god.
British historian Gavin Menzies writes: “Only eunuchs were considered lowly enough to be silent witnesses to the failures and weaknesses in the private life of the Royal Family, only they were allowed to perpetuate themselves. the day when he carried his concubines, naked or loosely wrapped in silk, into the king’s bedroom.
Conflict between eunuchs who were always close to the emperor and other officials was a familiar theme in Chinese history, of course not always. There were cases of very capable eunuchs serving as advisors to the emperor, and the resistance of unusually “talented” officials often stemmed from jealousy. Under Ming Chengzu there were Korean, Mongol, and Central Asian eunuchs, in part who were captured from Mongol-controlled Yunnan in 1381, among them the great maritime explorer Zheng. Hoa, or from Vietnam like Nguyen An, is said to be the architect who built Thien An Mon. In fact, eunuchs represent the personal will of the emperor, while other mandarins represent the political will of the ruling apparatus.
The eunuch system in China was not abolished until November 5, 1924. The last eunuch of the Puyi royal family, Sun Dieu Ting, died in December 1996.
For his subjects, Emperor Yongle’s costly adventures had a pleasant side effect. When he died in 1424, the treasury of the court was so empty that it might not conduct any more major military campaigns. So this Ming emperor also goes down in history as the beginning of a long period of peace!