A Study Of Eunuch Force And Central Council In The Emperor Wenzong Period Of Tang Dynasty

The essence of eunuchs is the emperor’s domestic slaves, but the eunuchs in the Middle and Late Tang Dynasty formed a special political force gradually, participated in and influenced the change of central council. Many historians had paid their attention to the distinguished feature of eunuch force expansion in the Middle and Late Tang Dynasty. Based on previous researches, this paper tries to regard the eunuch force in the Emperor Wenzong of Tang Dynasty as research center, combined some significant events in the Emperor Wenzong of Tang Dynasty such as the succession of the Emperor Wenzong、Liu Fen Countermeasures Case、Song Shenxi Case and Gan Lu Incident, explore the bureaucratization course of eunuch and its impact and change that brought to the central council in the Emperor Wenzong’s period and the Late Tang Dynasty.Through the research on the succession from Suzong to Jingzong, we find that the eunuchs had showed supportive attitude towards crown prince in this period. Though the eunuchs were hugely influential, not until Jingzong’s sudden death did they showed the power to choose crown prince independently. The succession of Prince Jiangwang Li Han(who was renamed Li Ang later) was supported and then enthroned by eunuchs. He was Wenzong who became the first eunuch-selected emperor absolutely. The eunuchs’power of choosing heir to the throne was going on and was becoming mightier and mightier. The particularity of Wenzong’s succession had a lot to do with the eunuch force, which resulted in the diverse mode of the later emperors’succession in the Tang Dynasty and the irreconcilable contradictions between emperor and eunuchs.The source of the eunuch force relied on a new institution formed inside gradually. This institution, which was improving continually, revealed that the eunuchs became bureaucratic and institutional increasingly. The eunuchs integrated the central and local forces into an intact power system, and embedded them in the central power structure. And what’s more, the party struggles between the Niu and Li were related to this power system closely. The new institutionalized bureaucratic system wouldn’t be changed by emperor’s emotion. Wenzong who filled ambition usually worried about himself subjected by eunuch force. So, he fostered up his personal influence to struggle with eunuchs, but both the Song Shenxi Case and Gan Lu Incident failed at last.Significant changes had been occurred in the central power structure after Gan Lu Incident. Nothing could clamp down on the eunuch force’s expansion. The succession’s right of decision was in the hands of the eunuchs in the late Wenzong of Tang Dynasty. In fact, the imperial power was maintained by eunuch force. Eunuch force could be able to expand rapidly after twice suppression, in the final analysis, is due to the bureaucratic and institutional eunuch group had a significant and stable position in the central power structure in the Late Tang Dynasty.