"Pro-virtuous ministers, far villains, this ancestor Han is so prosperous; Pro-villain, Yuanxian Chen, after that, the Han Dynasty fell into decline. When the first emperor was there, whenever he discussed this matter with his ministers, he did not sigh and hate Yu Huan and Lingye. "I believe that everyone will not forget this passage in Zhuge Liang's "Teacher Table". If we want to talk about the Three Kingdoms, we can't talk about the Yellow Turban Uprising, and if we want to talk about the Yellow Turban Uprising, we can't ignore the Hengling era and the three "villains" in that era.

Don't doubt that if you want to talk about villains, eunuchs will not be able to escape, if there is a combat effectiveness index in that history, the eunuchs must be explosively strong, in the face of relatives and the "party people" as the representative of the three key battles, they have achieved three battles and three victories of brilliant victory, there is no doubt that in the 43 years of the Hengling era (146-189), the biggest, strongest and most invincible villain!

【The Fall of General Bahu】

Although Emperor Heng of the Han Dynasty has been the emperor for 21 years in the official history, he is actually the emperor for only the last eight years of his reign, and in the first 13 years he was just a puppet of a relative named Liang Ji, and how cruel Liang Ji was in history, he was so cruel that he dared to poison the emperor to death.

After the death of Emperor Chong, Liang Ji supported the young Emperor in order to control well, although the Emperor was young but very intelligent, because he couldn't stand Liang Ji's arrogance, he stared at Liang Ji and said: "This is a domineering general." After hearing this, Liang Ji directly asked the attendant to add poisonous wine to the noodle soup for Emperor Qiandi to eat, and poisoned Emperor Qiandi to death, which can be seen in his domineering and domineering.

Then Liang Ji supported Liu Zhi, that is, Emperor Heng of Han, poor Emperor Heng of Han did not dare to fight against Liang Ji after coming to power, but in order to appease Liang Ji, he rewarded Liang Ji for his aid, and even according to the standards of Huo Guang, Deng Yu, and Xiao He, in order to highlight his first merit, but this is how Liang Ji is still not satisfied. In this way, Liang Ji relied on his power and power, wealth, lawlessness, erosive life, and political corruption for many years, and finally his arrogance reached the extreme, rampaging inside and outside the court, hundreds of officials did not dare to face him, no one dared to disobey his orders, the emperor was in power, and he could not personally ask about anything.

Emperor Han Huan was already dissatisfied with Liang Ji's arrogance, and finally one day Liang Ji did something that Emperor Han Heng could no longer tolerate him.

The cause of the matter is this, Emperor Heng of the Han Dynasty had a noble man named Meng, after the death of her father Deng Xiang, her mother Xuan remarried Liang Ji as his wife. And Liang Ji is the uncle of Liang Ji's wife Sun Shou. Liang Ji's wife, Sun Shou, sent her to the court because of Deng Meng's beauty, and was named a nobleman by Emperor Huan. Liang Ji planned to recognize Deng Meng as his daughter to strengthen his control over the inner court and change Deng Meng's surname to Liang Meng, but he was afraid that Deng Meng's brother-in-law, Yilang Bingzun, would undermine it, so he sent assassins to kill Bingzun.

Later, Liang Ji wanted to kill Deng Meng's mother Xuan. The Xuan family was adjacent to the home of Yuan Yu, a regular attendant of the Zhongchang family, and when the assassins sent by Liang Ji climbed onto the roof of Yuan Yu's house and prepared to enter the Xuan family, they were discovered by Yuan Yu. So Yuan Yu immediately beat the drum and shouted to arrest people, so that the assassination plot went bankrupt. Immediately, Meng's mother fled to the palace in a hurry and cried to Emperor Huan about the ugly things that Liang Ji had done. Emperor Han Huan was furious, this couldn't bear it at all, coupled with years of humiliation, Emperor Han Heng finally decided to do something to Liang Ji. I have to say that Liang Ji was so angry at this time that he couldn't even stand it, in the second year of Yanxi (159), Liang Ji's sister Empress Liang died, and Liang Ji's other sister Empress Dowager Liang died as early as the first year of peace (150) after returning to power, this time Liang Ji basically lost the ability to control the harem, and on the other hand, due to Liang Ji's murderous indulgence in the past twenty years, the courtiers' patience with him actually reached the limit. Although Liang Ji's power is still huge, it is already full of flaws.

Although Emperor Heng of Han decided to do something to Liang Ji, he also understood that Liang Ji's power was huge, after the death of Liang Ji's second sister Empress Liang, Emperor Heng seized the opportunity, when he went to the toilet, he called his cronies eunuch Tang Heng alone, and asked him who among the eunuchs did not deal with Liang Ji, Tang Heng replied that there were Shan Chao, Zuo Qi, Xu Huang and Gu Yuan. Emperor Huan then conspired with the five of them, decided to kill Liang Ji, and made an alliance with biting Shan Chao's arm with his teeth.

However, there was no impermeable wall under the sky, and Liang Ji still got some information, so he sent Zhang Yun of the Yellow Gate into the palace to prevent them from launching a coup d'état. As a result, Gu Yu seized the opportunity, and he ordered Zhang Yun to be arrested on charges that he suddenly came in from outside the palace and plotted against him. Emperor Huan finally made up his mind after discussing with the eunuchs, he came to the front hall in person, summoned the scholars, and disclosed Liang Ji's crimes, and at this time, in fact, the courtiers had long been unbearable to Liang Ji, so they lacked a leader, so the joint efforts inside and outside the palace finally hit Liang Ji.

After the fall of Liang Ji, the power fell into the hands of the eunuchs, and Shan Chao, Zuo Qi, Xu Huang, Gu Ying, and Tang Heng were also made marquis on the same day because of their merits, that is, the "five marquis". This was the first and most important victory of the eunuchs in the Hengling Era, and from then on the eunuchs began their own invincible era.

[The First Disaster of the Party]

Liang Ji fell, and the five marquis were full. After the five marquis gained power, they did not admit more than their relatives Liang Ji, and they were all trivial to extort and rob the people, and the people who did not make it were boring, and they were full of complaints, and they all felt that they were embarrassed to call eunuchs. Because the five marquis played a decisive role in the process of beating Liang Ji, these idiots began to be a little proud, not only did they not take the imperial court seriously, but they even had a little contempt for Emperor Heng.

The indiscriminate behavior of the eunuchs finally made some upright students and officials unbearable, and they united to launch the "Qing Discussion", and Dou Wu, a relatively upright relative at that time, also stood on their side, demanding that the imperial court purge the eunuchs and reform politics. At the beginning, Emperor Heng of the Han Dynasty beat the eunuchs hard out of the need to maintain imperial power, Zuo Qian finally committed suicide, Gu Ying also died of depression, and the other three were demoted to the rank of marquis.

The defeat of the five marquis greatly encouraged those students and officials, so they continued their efforts, and without seeing the situation clearly, they came to a suitable general to chase after the poor. At that time, Li Ying, a native of Xiangcheng (present-day Henan City), was the leader of the struggle against the eunuch clique, and he had been falsely imprisoned for fighting the eunuchs, and was later pardoned because of the pleas of others, but he did not give in to the eunuchs. Eunuch Zhang Rang's younger brother Ren Ye Wang Lingshi, brutally killed a pregnant woman, because of fear of crime ran to Zhang Rang's house to hide, Li Ying knew, without saying a word, immediately led the officials to Zhang Rang's house to search for execution, and who is Zhang Rang? According to historical records, Emperor Heng and Zhang Rang had a broken sleeve and did not explain.

The eunuchs can't stand it, and Emperor Han Heng can't stand it either, so it depends on the owner to beat the dog? So the eunuchs began to fight back, and in the ninth year of Yanxi (166), the eunuchs sent people to falsely accuse Li Ying and others of "raising Taixue travelers, befriending the apprentices of various counties, and driving each other together, co-ordinating the party, slandering the court, and suspecting customs." What does it mean, to put it simply, "Li Ying's gang formed a gang and deliberately disturbed the court." ”

The black material is available, which is very good, so Emperor Heng of Han decisively ordered the whole country to arrest the "party members". More than 200 people, including Li Ying and Chen Shi, were arrested, and even the party members who escaped were heavily rewarded. In the second year, with the help of Dou Wu and others, Emperor Huan finally issued an edict to pardon the "party members" to the fields, but stipulated that they were all imprisoned for life and were not allowed to be officials, which is also the so-called "party power".

In this way, the first confrontation between the eunuchs and the scholars in the Hengling era finally ended with the eunuchs' victory, and those "party people" also never raised their heads during the Han Heng Emperor period, but this is not the end, with the support of relatives Dou Wu and others, the "party people" finally got a chance to breathe, Emperor Heng will always die, the eunuchs can not be under the wings of Emperor Heng forever, the upright scholars and doctors still believe that the light will always come, but unfortunately they don't understand that the eunuchs will always be the emperor's dogs, and soon, Emperor Heng died, The second duel between the "party members" and the eunuchs began.

【The Second Disaster of the Party】

After the death of Emperor Liu Zhi of the Han Dynasty, Liu Hong was selected by his relative Dou as the heir to the throne, known as Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty (168-189). The general Dou Wu made a meritorious contribution to Liu Hong's succession, and his clansmen were added to the rank of knight, and since then the Dou family's relatives have been in power for a while. After Dou Wu came to power, he quickly persuaded Emperor Ling to remove the party system, and he and the then Taifu Chen Fan joined forces to start a large number of scholars who were punished during the first party system, and his relatives and scholars joined forces to prepare for a plot to eradicate the eunuchs.

Things reached a climax in August and September of the first year of Jianning (168). In August, Dou Wu instructed Shang Shu to order Yin Xun and others to impeach and arrest Wei Biao, the commander of the Yellow Gate, in order to further impeach the eunuchs. On September 7, the secret seal written by Yin Xun to Dou Wu was obtained by Shi Zhuyu, a eunuch party official, and the matter was leaked. Wang Fu, Cao Jie and other eunuchs panicked, they were forced to huddle together, blood alliance, and decided to launch a coup d'état that night, Dou Wu and others did not expect the eunuchs to be so sharp and bloody, and they were beaten at once.

History refers to this coup d'état as the "September Coup".

In the early morning of the next day, the eunuchs won a complete victory in the coup d'état, Dou Wu, Chen Fan and others were brutally exterminated by the eunuchs, and those who were not executed were exiled to Jiaozhou, and the Empress Dowager Dou was relocated to Nangong Yuntai to live. The coup d'état appeared to be a complete victory for the eunuchs, but due to their overly bloody and brutal methods, it also laid the groundwork for the tragic future of the eunuchs in the late Han Dynasty.

But the eunuchs, who had already hit their relatives, were not satisfied, and they made persistent efforts and launched a second party rebellion.

In the second year of Jianning (169), Zhang Jian, the governor of Shanyang County, impeached Hou Lan, a regular attendant, for his extravagance and disturbance when he returned to his hometown to sweep his mother's grave, and demolished Hou Lan's house and even his ancestral tomb. Therefore, he angered Hou Lan and instructed his fellow villager Zhu He to write a letter to impeach Zhang Jian and other 24 famous people in Shanyang for forming a party and plotting against him. After Emperor Ling saw the concert, he asked Cao Jie, who took advantage of the topic to explain that the party members endangered the society and asked to expand it to the whole country to eliminate the party members, and Emperor Ling allowed the performance. In the end, this political catastrophe caused a large number of scholars to flee, and 600 to 700 people were persecuted to death. Since then, the eunuchs have achieved a complete victory over their relatives and scholars, and their power has reached the peak of the Hengling era, and it can be said that the entire era of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty was the world of eunuch politics.