Ming Eunuchs, pt. 3

[JesusA (imported)]

THE DEMAND AND SUPPLY OF MING EUNUCHS: Foreign Supply of Eunuchs

The eunuch system victimized not only the Chinese population but also non-Chinese peoples who lived in China's peripheral regions. At the time when the Romans were building their empire in the West, China produced the dominant civilization in the East, from which her neighbors derived much of their culture. In Chinese eyes, states adjacent to China were civilized only to the extent that they accepted Chinese ideas, customs, and institutions and agreed to use the Chinese lunar calendar to date their official documents. As a consequence, eunuchism possessed a pan-Asian character long before Genghis Khan's armies swept China proper.

The ninety years of Mongol rule ended in the summer of 1368 when the Ming forces from the south occupied Beijing and captured at least six Mongol princes and their families. Together with their eunuchs, these prisoners of war remained south of the Great Wall as hostages while the fleeing Mongols journeyed northward across the barren and brown wasteland. In 1371, a grandson of the last Mongol emperor, by the name of Mai-de-li-ba-la, was taken prisoner. Accompanied by hundreds of Mongol officials, women and eunuchs, he was detained in Nanjing under close surveillance. Ten years later, Ming generals Lan Yu and Fu Youde led an army into China's southwestern province of Yunnan and took 380 Mongol and Muslim prisoners of war. Among them were many young castrated boys, including possibly the future great Ming maritime explorer Zheng He, who was then ten or eleven years old. There is no record of how many Mongol captives were castrated as a means of punishment; nevertheless, it is known that during the early reign of Emperor Hongwu (1368 - 1398), there was an increasing population of Mongol eunuchs in Nanjing.

While the Ming forces were pushing the Mongols to the north, they also reestablished influence over China's neighboring states. From its very advent, Ming China was able to attract foreign embassies and tributary missions from all of the lands in East Asia. Korean, Japanese, Annamese, and Champan missions arrived in Nanjing in 1369. Later, tributary missions came from Cambodia, Ryukyu Islands, Siam, Borneo, and from kingdoms of the Malayan peninsula. At a time when castration was performed as a symbol of conquest and a method of revenge, rulers throughout East Asia, with the exception of those in Japan, also adopted eunuchism and often used castrati as tributes. Likewise, in addition to luxury products from their native lands, most tributary missions also included young handsome castrated boys and virgin girls. Numerous Ming documents testify to such practices. In 1383, for example, a Siamese king sent 30 elephants, various native products, and 61 servants; in 1380 the ruler of Champa presented many elephants and 125 young servants. It was not clear whether the Siamese and Champan servants were all castrated, but most of the servants from Korea, Annam (northern part of present-day Vietnam), and Ryukyu Islands were meant to be used as imperial eunuchs. In 1408 when the king of Borneo visited the Ming court, he was ushered in by a gaggle of eunuchs form China's various ethnic tribes as well as castrated men from Mongolia, Korea, Annam, Cambodia, Central Asia, Siam, and Okinawa.

The two neighboring states that provided Ming emperors with the largest number of foreign eunuchs were Annam and Korea, due undoubtedly to their geographical proximity, similar written ideographs, earlier Sinicization, and frequent contacts. Relations between Ming China and Annam were in general more precarious and volatile than those between China and Korea. Consequently, Korean eunuchs enjoyed more power than any other foreign group in the Ming court. With the enthronement of Emperor Hongwu, the Tran dynasty of Annam seemed to have found a reliable "big brother" to its north and was quite willing to perform its obligations as a vassal state by regularly paying tributes to Nanjing. In 1383, Tran Wei, the king of Annam, sent a mission to the Ming court, and among its tributes to Emperor Hongwu were twenty-five beardless castrated boys, most of whom bore the last name of Nguyen. Similar missions were undertaken every two years as Tran presented thirty eunuchs to the emperor in 1384 and again nineteen castrati in 1385.

The event that turned China and Annam against one another was the successful coup d'etat by Yongle against Emperor Jianwen who disappeared mysteriously after being routed by his uncle's forces. A persistent rumor had it that the deposed Jianwen was hiding in Southeast Asia and that he was secretly under the protection of the Tran regime. Whether it was for this reason or because Tran, a vassal of Jianwen, openly defied Yongle, a war broke out between China and Annam less than four years later. In 1406 a Chinese army of 200,000 men marched across the border of Annam, bringing down the Tran dynasty. The resilient Annamese, however, continued to resist Chinese invasion in the Red River basin and, beginning in 1418, rallied under the banner of a new leader, Le Loi, driving the Chinese out of their country by 1427.

During the long period of hostilities both sides inflicted frightening casualties upon one another. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war were either executed or castrated. In 1427, Le Loi invaded a border town inside of China but suffered a crushing defeat. According to a Ming report, the Chinese slaughtered more than 10,000 Annamese, including Le Loi's chief eunuch named Le Mi. Other reports condemned Annamese alleged violations of an Asian "diplomatic protocol" as they killed and enslaved several Southeast Asian envoys who carried tributary missions to China in 1469. Other members of the mission were all killed while younger members were castrated and sold into slavery by their Annamese captors. Castration as a means of punishing prisoners of war became a legacy of Ming-Annamese relations. [The practice of castrating prisoners of war across the Chinese-Vietnamese frontier continued into fairly recent times, where a low level of conflict continues today.]

While China and Annam waged a war of attrition, Korea appeared to have a reasonably good rapprochement with the Ming government as she gleefully recognized Ming suzerainty and dutifully complied with demands from Ming emperors. At first, Korean tributary missions were sent to the Ming court once very three years, but they gradually increased in frequency, often as much as three time a year. No one knows how many Korean castrati and virgin girls were included in these missions, but Ming documents suggest that, after working for a certain period of time, Korean eunuchs were allowed to return home with honor and pensions. A few of them gained favor with their Chinese masters and became confidants of Ming emperors. One such person was Shin Guisheng, who was to become Emperor Hongwu's "ears and eyes." Other Korean-born eunuchs were entrusted with such important assignments as managing fiscal and monetary affairs for the emperor's inner court. Between 1370 and 1634, the Ming government sent a total of twenty-eight eunuch-led missions to Seoul, primarily for the purpose of installing new Korean kings. More than half of the eunuch-ambassadors were Korean-born.

There were compelling reasons for placing eunuchs from outside races and tribes in positions of trust, because one of the major concerns of the emperor was the security of the imperial line. The best way to preserve it and keep court secrets was to use foreign-born eunuchs such as Shin from Korea and Wang Zhi, a captured Yao tribesman. In the frontier provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Huguang, there existed large numbers of aboriginal tribes, who had not been assimilated into the Chinese culture and were thus considered barbarians. They were generally suspicious of the Han Chinese and were often hostile to the Ming regime. But the Ming used force, appeasement, or guile in dealing with these tribes. Whenever punitive expeditions were launched and conquests made, the supply of eunuchs became abundant. In 1460, a Miao tribe in southwest China capitulated and the victorious Ming commander ordered the castration of 1,565 Miao boys. Of these unfortunate souls, 329 died during the brutal operation. News of the tragic proportion and unusual number of casualties reached Beijing, and Emperor Tianshun (1457 - 1464) was reported to have upbraided his governor in Guizhou province for arbitrarily undertaking such a large-scale operation. [The "Miao" were continually pressured by the Chinese and gradually moved south to escape extermination and/or castration. They first entered Chinese history far to the north. "Miao" is a pejorative term for them; they prefer "Hmong" and many of the survivors who fled into Southeast Asia fled to the U.S. after the Vietnam War.] Not all the castrated war prisoners were brought to the capital; many in fact were given to local officials as rewards. In 1453, for example, the regional commander of Guangxi province, after subjugating a rebellious aboriginal people, was face with a surplus of castrated persons. Consequently, the emperor ordered him to distribute the young castrati among the royal family members and the meritorious government officials in the region.