Zheng He was famous for his voyages in the Ming Dynasty. From 1405 to 1424, he obeyed the orders of Yongle for many ocean voyages and created a large amount of foreign trade income. In the eyes of the Emperor, he was a hero.
As a eunuch of the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He was lucky because he didn’t live under the rule of Zhu Yuanzhang. Otherwise, Zheng He couldn’t be remembered by others for his voyages.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, in order to prevent eunuchs from being political heavyweights, Zhu Yuanzhang enacted legislation that eunuchs couldn’t get involved in politics and foreign policy.
When Yongle’s army attacked Nanjing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial eunuchs took the initiative to open the gates and even became Yongle’s spies. Therefore, the success of Yongle’s rebellion was inseparable from the support of eunuchs. After Yongle became the real Emperor, he began to trust more the eunuch.
Under such a historical background, the power of Ming eunuchs began to expand since Zhu Di became the Emperor. Once the Emperor served by these eunuchs was lazy, the eunuchs were likely to become political heavyweights.
The lazy Ming emperor caused eunuchs to be political heavyweights
After Zhu Di defeated Zhu Yunwen, he expanded the power of eunuchs to turn them into his watchdogs and spies. When the eunuchs got together, they could form a bureaucracy that could be used by the Emperor to balance the power of other officials.
At the same time, the eunuch actual was an incomplete person or not a man. Once they leave the Emperor, they would have difficulty in finding an excellent job because eunuchs had a low social status outside the palace.
Therefore, the high loyalty of the eunuchs to their owners made the Ming emperors trust them more and more. As more and more eunuchs came closer, they were able to filter the information. The eunuchs also could intercept criticism so that the Emperor couldn’t know it.
The worst case was that the Emperor no longer cared about the dynasty’s affairs, but handed them over to eunuch agents. Such behavior was hazardous, and its essence was equivalent to that the eunuch could exercise part of the decision-making power of the Emperor.
In this way, the Emperor became the puppet of the eunuchs, and they could become political heavyweights with the tacit approval of the Emperor.
In conclusion
Zhu Yuanzhang once prescribed by law that eunuchs couldn’t interfere in politics. But his posterity didn’t obey his instructions. The main reason was that the Emperor didn’t trust his officials. They needed eunuchs to act as spies, to monitor officials and limit their power.
To make matters worse, if the Emperor wanted to be lazy and let the eunuchs do the work for him, eunuchs would regard themselves as the Emperor exercising the power of the Emperor.
