Chapter 44 first quarter

At the highest level of power in the feudal empire era of China, around the imperial power, several forces were intertwined and intertwined, restricting each other, and jointly playing a symphony of power. These kinds of forces are: imperial relatives, descendants, eunuchs, scholars (before the Tang Dynasty, they were powerful men, and after the Tang Dynasty, they were imperial literati), and border generals (the military generals who separated the border towns). Among them, the eunuch group has always been a brilliant "political star" and a group of influence on the stage of Chinese history.From Zhao Gao of the Qin Empire, the ten permanent servants of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Huang Hao of the Shu Han Dynasty, and Li Fuguo of Yu Chaoen of the Tang Dynasty, the eunuch group is very active and omnipotent.

However, in the Northern Song Empire, whether it was the power of the descendants, the power of the eunuchs, or the power of the separatist military generals in the border towns, they almost disappeared from the power stage of the empire. On the stage, the group of scholars was almost singing a one-man show. In the words of Zhao Kuangyin, the founding father of the country, this is called "ruling the world with scholar-bureaucrats". The eunuchs of the Northern Song Dynasty were no longer popular on the political stage. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the eunuchs’ official ranks were relatively low. Compared with their counterparts in the previous dynasty, the treatment was also very different. There is only one way to perform - to grab the jobs of the declining generals.

military post. The Emperor Zhao's guard against and suspicion of military generals reached the point where he could not add more. He often sent literati or eunuchs (mainly the latter) to serve as supervisors in the army, giving more power to the supervisors. The supervisors can often make military decisions instead of the commander. , This provided a hotbed for the eunuch forces to take the position of military commanders, and also made many outstanding military talents appear in the eunuch team of the empire. There are 27 people who lead the army and make frontier meritorious service.

In the early days of the empire, the Dou brothers Dou Shenxing and Dou Shenbao were the most glorious in the military circle. The Dou brothers were born in a family of eunuchs. Their father, Dou Siyan (adoptive father), was an eunuch in the early Northern Song Dynasty during the Five Dynasties. Although there are many famous generals who founded the country, the Dou brothers still gained a place in the military circle by virtue of their military talents.Dou Shenxing once led the Imperial Guards to conquer the Southern Tang Dynasty, and achieved the senior military position of General Wei, the left leader.And his younger brother Dou Shenbao became a legend in the imperial military circles.

Although Dou Shenbao is obese, he is very brave in battle. When he was a young eunuch, he followed Taizong Zhao Guangyi to Taiyuan. In the siege battle, Dou Fatty took the lead, and together with the soldiers, he attacked the Taiyuan tower and was hit by an arrow. He lost the lottery and was appreciated by Zhao Guangyi. In order to further train Fatty Dou, Zhao Guangyi sent him to supervise and garrison the state. Fatty Dou performed very well when he arrived in Bingzhou. He sent troops to attack bandits repeatedly. Zhao Guangyi later sent him to Xiazhou.In Xiazhou, Dou Shenbao led his troops to defeat the 14 clans including Jijia Luoni who had rebelled against the Song court for a long time, "burned their tents, cut more than a thousand ranks, and captured many people", and became famous in the frontier.

Dou Shenbao's later military career was mainly against Li Jiqian, the savior of the Dangxiang people and the god of war.As early as when the Song court wanted to use the party members to deal with the Khitans, Dou Shenbao, who was familiar with the affairs in the northwest, wrote to the court, saying that the party members' wolfish ambitions would become a serious problem for the court sooner or later, and more precautions should be taken.Later, Li Jiqian rebelled against the Song Dynasty, and Dou Shenbao led his troops to fight against him for a long time in the northwest. In the early years of Dao (995 AD), Li Jiqian led his troops to attack Lingwu City, and Dou Shenbao led his troops to hold on.The Xixia people besieged the city for more than a year, during which earthquakes occurred for more than 200 days. Dou Shenbao and Li Jiqian staged a series of offensive and defensive battles under the constant earthquakes under Lingwu City, but in the end Li Jiqian chose to retreat. The battle shocked the world, and he worshiped the deputy envoy of Xijing Workshop with his military exploits.

Dou Shenbao fought against the party members in the Northwest for decades, and he was by no means inferior to any famous general of the time. Later, like his father, he became an envoy to the imperial city and lived to be seventy-one years old. Although the Dou family brothers have galloped on the battlefield all their lives and made a lot of military achievements, they are still not welcomed by the scholars. The stories about the two Dou generals circulated in the court are all jokes.About Dou Shenxing is the story of Huzi.At that time, there was a famous painter named Guo Zhongshu (later known as the ancestor of Jiehua). Taizong Zhao Guangyi heard his name and called him to Beijing, and arranged to live in Dou Shenxing's mansion.Guo Zhongshu was originally a handsome guy with a long beard (people in the Song Dynasty considered beards to be beautiful, such as Su Dongpo with a big beard), but he shaved off his beard when he arrived in Dou's mansion. Dou Shenxing didn't know why, so he asked handsome guy Guo Why did he shave suddenly? Painter Guo said to follow you. Isn’t General Dou beardless?I laughed out loud.

Dou Shenxing was humiliated by this, of course he was very wronged and angry, so he naturally brought the complaint to Zhao Guangyi's ears, and Zhao Guangyi's impression of Guo Painter suddenly dropped a lot, and it depends on the owner to beat a dog (not to mention that Dou Shenxing is such a dog) mighty wolfhound).Soon, Painter Guo made a small mistake, and Lao Zhao exiled him to Dengzhou.Painter Guo later died on the way. And Dou Shenbao fought in the frontier for dozens of years, Song people did not record many heroic deeds in their notebooks and chats, but they always talked about his obese figure.One of them records that in the second year of Taiping Xingguo (AD 977), sweat was flooding, and Zhao Guangyi sent Liang Jiong, the commander of the Zezhou Imperial Army, to lead 3,000 soldiers to block the breach. Those who participated in the flood relief and rescue were the young eunuchs of Huangmen at that time. Dou Shenbao and the fledgling young general Li Jilong.Liang, Dou, and Li came to the river for a ferry. There were two small boats by the river, one good and the other bad. In terms of body shape, Liang and Dou were both big fat people, so naturally they couldn't sit on the same boat. In terms of seniority and rank, Liang Jiong was naturally much taller than Dou and Li, so Liang Jiong took a good boat alone, while Dou Shenbao and Li Jilong took another bad boat.As a result, when the boat arrived in the river, Dou was too heavy, and the boat was damaged, so the water seeped and collapsed after a short walk. Dou and Li almost died. Fortunately, they found an old tree in the rapids and saved their lives. He also saved two outstanding military generals for the empire (Li Jilong was one of the four famous generals in the early Northern Song Dynasty).

In addition to the Dou brothers, Wang Jien is also a eunuch with more military talents.After Zhao Kuangyin's death, the original queen ordered Wang Jien to quickly summon the prince Defang to the palace to take care of the funeral, but he went to Nanfu to summon Zhao Guangyi and made great contributions to Taizong's enthronement.Wang Jien was the logistics minister of the three-way Northern Expedition Army during the Northern Expedition in the third year of Yongxi (986 A.D.). Later, he was appointed by Zhao Guangyi as the envoy of Jiannan and Liangchuan. He led the army into Sichuan in two ways to suppress the uprising of Wang Xiaobo and Li Shun Li Shun, the leader of the rebel army, was captured.At this time, Wang Jien had achieved the highest rank of eunuch Zhaoxuan envoy (a sixth-rank official). For this reason, Zhao Guangyi specially set up a new official rank Xuanzheng envoy, which was specially awarded to Wang Jien.

In the middle and late stages of the empire, on the one hand, the generals were more and more suppressed, and the generals were getting farther and farther away from the center of political power; on the other hand, the power of the eunuchs was slowly expanding.At the beginning of Taizu's founding of the country, there were no more than 50 people in Ye Ting, but in the Renzong Dynasty, this number increased to 180, and the eunuch team of the empire reached more than 4,000.In the Hui and Qin eras, the number was even greater.Eunuchs participated in the empire's military operations more frequently. When Shenzong launched the five-way northern expedition to Xixia, two of the five-way generals who led the army were actually eunuchs.

Among them is Li Xian, the father-in-law known as the most capable of fighting in history.