Emperor, scholar-officials and eunuchs

Author: Decade of Cutting Wood
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: This book inherits the style of Leisurely Reading Water Margin, revealing profound insights through details. At a time when books on Ming and Qing history are abundant, the author does not follow the trend of retelling historical stories. Instead, he presents his unique perspectives on the Ming political landscape in the form of reading notes. The author selects representative figures, primarily emperors, officials, and eunuchs from the middle and late Ming Dynasty, analyzing their complex relationships of interdependence, mutual suspicion, and harm, uncovering a kind of "triangular enmity" within the Ming Dynasty. After the Ming Taizu abolished the position of the prime minister, the once-balanced between the court and the government ceased to exist. The emperor held absolute power, but one person could not manage everything. After the abolition of the prime minister, eunuchs, as the emperor's private secretaries, divided some of the imperial power, while officials relied on rituals and ancestral traditions toly stand against the emperor and eunuchs. This delicate balance, akin to a "triangular love triangle," largely influenced the political situation of the Ming Dynasty for nearly three centuries.