"Uncle, let's just say it clearly, it's tiring to guess like this." Wei Bao laughed.

"Don't pretend, you're so smart, so much about it, how can you say it clearly." Wang Tiqian also smiled.

Wei Bao likes to see people laugh, but I don't know why, I really don't like to see eunuchs laugh.

Because when the eunuch laughs, it always gives people a cold feeling.

Wei Bao did not despise eunuchs, and even sympathized with eunuchs many times.

But Wei Bao will also feel that the eunuchs are terrible, because they are indeed not normal people, sympathy is sympathy, and fear is terrible, and they are ready to be killed by them at any time if they are not guarding against these people, especially a high-ranking official like Wei Bao who has reached the level of often needing to contact with eunuchs.

"Uncle, where am I smart, if I were really smart, I wouldn't have been able to do it for just one year, and I would have to resign and return to my hometown." Wei Bao said with a bitter face.

"That's when you retreat into advance, as I just said, it's a good move." Wang Tiqian said: "The current crisis in the imperial court, only a great talent like Xiaobao can have the strength to resolve it, and you have the trust of His Majesty, and you are the son-in-law of the British duke, it is not easy for others to deal with you!" And Xiaobao, you are left and right, and the people under Wei Gonggong and the people of Donglin are all in good shape, which is even more commendable! Your Majesty doesn't necessarily have to use eunuchs like us, if there are courtiers like you, Xiaobao, Your Majesty will definitely seriously consider reusing them. ”

Wei Bao saw that Wang Tiqian had made it clear, and secretly thought that he was really good, and Wang Tiqian came to oppose Wei Zhongxian with him.

Wei Bao never expected that Wang Tiqian would be so upright and bold this time.

Wei Bao had studied these eunuchs in depth, and even seriously imagined that for the ancient eunuchs, if they felt pain, whether it was "inhumane" or "unable to leave offspring" would have a greater impact.

After thinking about it carefully, Wei Bao felt that it was naturally more painful not to leave offspring, and the people with mature castration technology were more accustomed to castrating humans and livestock in their adolescence, and there were no sexually mature boys, who had never had sexual experience, and naturally did not have sexual impulses.

How can a man regret a feeling he has never experienced?

Many powerful eunuchs are accustomed to adopting their sons, and they have also experienced the feeling of being accompanied by relatives when they are young, so they are naturally full of thoughts about leaving their offspring.

Some eunuchs were castrated when they were young, some were castrated as teenagers, and some were emasculated into the palace by themselves as adults, and the nine-thousand-year-old Wei Zhongxian entered the palace as an adult.

There are those who cut them all, there are those who cut eggs, there are those who cut chickens, and there are those who can still do things if they are not clean, and it is said that they have not been cleaned at the age of 9,000.

There are also those who don't cut into the palace to engage in the queen mother at all, Wei Bao heard that Chang Yu and Qin Shihuang's mother seem to be like that.

After cutting it off, you can eat together, find an equally lonely palace maid to eat and live together, take care of each other, and you can have a normal life with the Queen Mother every night.

Therefore, the premise of "for ancient eunuchs" is too broad, Wei Bao feels that this kind of thing hurts the most, and the physical and mental dissatisfaction is not a big deal in the eyes of the ancients.

After the eunuch cut off the egg, there is no **, and some retain the original yearning for female friends, which can be solved by eating.

Wei Bao felt that he couldn't do that and loneliness, so that the eunuch would not be perverted, in the final analysis, it was caused by the political system.

Since ancient times, China's political forces have been divided into several shares, first of all, the state is like a company, someone first founded the company, he represents the imperial power.

But he is alone, almost everyone in the company is calculating him, he can't resist, so he asks a manager to help him manage, this person is the CEO, representing Xiangquan.

Later, someone couldn't resist the attraction of the flower girl in the world of flowers, married a daughter-in-law, married a Han and dressed and ate, and the poor relatives of the daughter-in-law's family joined the company with a pillow wind, they were relatives.

At first someone thought it was okay, so many people helped him.

Later, I found out that the company was bigger, and these guys also began to calculate him, and my relatives felt that the property was not enjoyable and wanted to become their own.

The prime minister who is the CEO is also not honest, and all the officials listen to him and not listen to themselves.

The emperor was a little overwhelmed with the tug-of-war with so many people, and found that his servants were prosperous and loyal, and had no friends, so he pulled them over to help him, this is the eunuch.

The eunuch represents the emperor most of the time, and he has to fight for the emperor and civil officials and relatives, and he has to do things that the emperor and the old man are not good at; The emperor will lose those who cannot afford to lose his reputation for the ages.

In this way, the reputation of eunuchs is usually not much better, and eunuchs also have to fight with civil officials, and civil officials are responsible for writing history, civil officials have a natural sense of superiority since ancient times, and feel that they are protégés of the Son of Heaven for ten years, how can a short two guys be in power, and they have to look at his face to act, and their psychology will not be balanced, and they will naturally not say good things about eunuchs.

But in this way, there are still some eunuchs with a good reputation such as Gao Lishi, Wang Chengen, and Huai En in history.

There are good men and bad men among the eunuchs, just as there are traitors and loyal ministers among the ministers.

Of course, considering that the eunuch brother is often discriminated against by his civilian relatives because he lost something after all, it is inevitable that he will be psychopathic and do a lot of perverted things.

The role of eunuchs at the local level is similar to that of supervisors, they are only responsible to the central government, and under the imperial system, they are the emperor, and the central government is used to supervise the local and various departments.

To a certain extent, the eunuch is an extension of the royal power, and the meaning of its existence is to embody the will of the royal power in various positions.

Because of the position of the eunuchs, they often had contradictions about the specific offices.

Bosses want employees to do more and get less money, and employees often expect that they will not be deducted bonuses if they desert if they have nothing to do.

In fact, under the bureaucratic system of the central state, the boss is the emperor, and the employees are the ministers. The eunuch caught between the two would become the center of the contradictory game between the two sides, and if the eunuch was responsible for the emperor, he would definitely put pressure on the minister.

And the ministers did not dare to directly disobey the emperor, so they had to protest to the emperor by scandalizing the eunuchs. Unfortunately, ministers tend to come from the formal cultural class, and public opinion naturally leans toward the bureaucratic class.

So the reputation of the eunuch naturally did not improve.

Judging from the Confucian system admired by the bureaucracy, unfilial piety is the greatest, and eunuchs naturally carry original sin from the moment they enter the palace.

But if there were no eunuchs standing on the standpoint of imperial power to restrain the bureaucracy, then how could the bureaucracy be lawless and no one could stop it.

In fact, as long as the game between the two sides reaches a balance, no one can suppress anyone, and only then can the country and the people be safe.

When and where eunuchs originated, historical records are not clearly recorded.

In Chinese classics, the earliest record of eunuchs comes from the "Spring and Autumn Zuo Chuan: The Second Year of Duke Xu", which mentions a man named "Siren Mink", who was a favorite of Duke Huan of Qi. Zheng Xuan commented that "temple people" is "servants" and eunuchs, and "mink" is its title. Zheng Xuan's annotations are based on this, and the later "Han Feizi", "Lü's Spring and Autumn" and "Historical Records" all have records of this person, and the information has also increased a lot, but the name has been changed to "vertical diao" or "vertical knife".

According to these records, Ji Diao was a eunuch, and he was a eunuch from the palace.

Why do you want to be from the palace, it is to please Duke Qi Huan and gain power.

Later, this person was indeed favored, but he did all the bad things, corrupted the government, and even killed Duke Qi Huan alive, and was finally beheaded.

These more detailed accounts are credible, and there are also places that have been fabricated by later generations.

There are two credible places, one is that China's eunuchs originated from the Qi state in the era of Duke Huan of Qi; The second is the emergence of eunuchs, whose castration was spontaneous and voluntary, not forced.

It was the eunuchs who first had the people from the palace, and then the Duke of Qi Huan looked very appetizing, rather than that Duke Qi Huan relied on his power to forcibly castrate others and force others to be eunuchs.

It's important to understand and remember this sequence.

What is not credible is that the utilitarian explanation of the origin of eunuchs attributes the eunuchs' self-palace behavior to utilitarian considerations, saying that they were to gain power and wealth in order to invite the monarch to favor.

It's too bad to think and too hard to believe. According to the record of "Han Feizi: Ten Mistakes", Guan Zhong was old and sick, and Qi Huan Gong went to ask him who was available. When asked about the erection, the pipe replied, "No." Mrs. love her body, jealous and good inside, erect Diao Zi Yan (from the palace) thought that he was in the country, his body did not love, and he could love the king? ”

The pipe's answer pointed out a pair of contradictions. On the one hand, it is by nature for everyone to cherish their bodies. On the other hand, in order to invite pets, he actually seriously damaged his body and engaged in the palace.

Guan Zi's conclusion is that a person who doesn't even love his own body can cherish Qi Huan Gong you. In other words, the eunuch's self-palace is contrary to human nature, and Guan Zhong is absolutely opposed and rejected.

In this way, if the first person to self-palace is indeed out of utilitarian considerations, then he will face a double loss. On the one hand, he himself suffered a huge direct loss, losing his body and one of the most important things in life.

Even if he could indeed gain power and wealth later, this loss could make all power and wealth meaningless: he could not enjoy the pleasures of men and women, the family pleasures of father and son, and the pleasures of family. On the other hand, even if the price of self-palace is so high, you are likely to be unaccepted by society, discriminated against and ostracized, and the probability of success of your pet invitation plan becomes very low.

In fact, Guanzi's attitude towards eunuchs represents the general attitude of Chinese society at that time.

It is even said that at that time, the degree of rejection of eunuchs in Chinese society was even greater than that of pipes.

"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has a story. Xiahoudun was shot in the eye by an arrow in a battle, and hurriedly pulled out the arrow, not wanting to bring out the eyeball.

Then, Xiahoudun made a move that now seemed strange but tragic, grabbed his eyeballs and devoured them.

Before eating, he also said a sentence, which can be regarded as an explanation of his behavior. He said, "Do not abandon the blood of the father and the mother."

Xiahoudun's words are also well-founded. "The Book of Filial Piety: The Beginning of the Righteousness" says: "The body is skinned, and the parents who receive it dare not destroy it, and the beginning of filial piety is also." "Also in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Cao Cao once ordered that those who destroy the peasants' crops should be beheaded.

Unexpectedly, before the words fell, Cao Cao's horse was somehow startled, ran to the farmland and trampled a large area of the seedlings.

Cao Cao's next reaction has been called a classic case of traitorous male performance. Cao Cao said, the military order is like a mountain, I have violated the law, and I must also be beheaded, but I want to "cut my hair and act as the head".

Now people generally understand this as Cao Cao's slippery head, but the crux of the matter is, why was the "head of the hair cut" so convincing by his army at that time? Now which country's leader has committed a crime, and he said that he wants to "cut his hair and act as the head", is this feasible and credible in the slightest?

The "Acting Head of Hair Cutting" revealed more information not because of how treacherous Cao Cao was, but how much people in the Three Kingdoms era, at least the people of the Central Plains generation, generally attached importance to hair, and valued hair as important as life.

Xiahou Yuan's raw eyeballs, Cao Cao's hair cutting head, and the earnest teaching of the "Book of Filial Piety" to cherish the hair and skin of the body all point to a fact that has long been forgotten by later generations: in early China, there was a philosophy of life that highly valued and cherished one's own body, and this concept was even a kind of religious worship.

The body is subject to its parents, and what comes from parents is an innate state, a natural, natural state.

This kind of body worship in early China is rooted in the importance and worship of "nature".

"Nature" in the traditional sense of China is fundamentally different from "nature" in the modern sense. In the traditional Chinese sense, "nature" means natural, and its opposite is "man-made" and "intervention".

Therefore, nature can also be interpreted as non-artificial, non-intervention, that is, "non-action", and "nature" and "non-action" are two sides of the same coin.

"Nature" in the modern sense refers to the physical world outside of man, whose qualities are material and mechanical, and its opposite is man.

Man's attitude towards nature is not worship, but exploitation and discrimination, which requires active intervention, not inaction, but action.

The documentary origins of this idea are Judaism and Christianity, but the true origin is much older, from the ancient Western Asian civilization.

During the period of opposition to Buddhism, Han Yu put forward a concept called "entering the master and leaving the slave", which was often talked about by Song Confucian.

The change in the meaning of the word "nature" is a typical new generation of masters and slaves. An alien meaning enters and becomes a master, while the original meaning is driven away and becomes a servant.

The best summary and embodiment of Chinese nature worship comes from Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, which can even be called "natural science" and "wu wei xue".

"Man is the law of the earth, the earth is the law of the sky, the heaven is the law, and the Tao is the nature"; "Dare not do it by supplementing the nature of all things"; "It is to do nothing with the saints, to teach without words, and to do nothing, then there is no cure"; "Patriotism and governance of the people, can you do nothing? The Tao often does nothing and does nothing"; "I do nothing and the people are self-reliant, I am so quiet and the people are self-righteous"; "It is because the saint does nothing because he is not defeated, and he is not attached to it."

Due to the widespread concept of valuing, cherishing, and even worshipping the individual's body, and due to the existence of "nature" worship and "wu wei" worship, the utilitarian explanation of the origin of eunuchs can never be trusted, and eunuchs can never be produced within Chinese history and culture.

So what is the purpose of the self-palace behavior, and where does it appear?

The oldest legends and accounts about eunuchs come not from China, but from ancient Western Asia and ancient Egypt.

In the beginning the eunuchs did not come from the secular realm, but from the religious realm, they were priests, they were in the temple, they served God.

It was only with the advent of the royal family that the priests went from the temple to the royal family, from serving the gods to the kings and monarchs.

In fact, in ancient West Asia and ancient Egypt, and even later Christianity and civilization, and even modern secularized kings and governments have a constant relationship with God and religion.

In ancient Egypt, the pharaoh himself was a god.

In ancient Lianghe, the king was not a god, but an agent of God on earth.

So, in ancient Western Asia and ancient Egypt, it was a natural process for priests to go from serving God to serving kings.

So when did the eunuch priests originate in ancient Lianghe and ancient Egypt, and for what purpose did they castrate their genitals?

There is no direct historical record of these issues, and there is currently no convincing explanation.

In fact, Ancient Egypt and the ancient Two Rivers civilization itself quickly disappeared with Alexander's invasion in the 4th century BC.

Their language, writing, and sacrificial rituals have long been forgotten, and both areas are covered by the *** civilization.

It was only in the 19th century, with the rise of archaeological excavations, that people excavated a large number of ancient physical objects and written materials from the underground and ancient tombs in these two places, and soon deciphered the cuneiform writing of the ancient two rivers and the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, and the ancient civilization that had been buried in the ground for more than 2,000 years was rebuilt and known to the world.

By combing through the historical evolution of the ancient Lianghe and ancient Egyptian civilizations, we can understand their spirit and thinking, especially when compared with the Chinese civilization of the same period.

On this basis, it is possible to find out the answers you need.

The eunuch priesthood consisted of two elements: the priesthood and the removal of the living vessels.

The study of the origin of eunuch priesthood is divided into two questions, one is the origin of priesthood, and the other is the sacrificial behavior related to living vessels.

The answer to these two questions is why there is such a group of eunuchs.

These two questions are not two separate questions, but they are closely related and one, but they are separated from the logic of thinking.

To study the origin of the priesthood, we must first study the origin of the gods and the origin of the sacrifice, because the priests serve the gods and are the formulators and presiding over the sacrificial rituals.

When it comes to God, modern people have the impression that He is omniscient and omnipotent, the creator and ruler of the world.

To God, man can only obey and suke infinitely.

In fact, such an image of God came later, to be precise, after the emergence of "monotheism" in 1500 BC.

The most typical and successful monotheistic religion was Judaism, but, in addition to this, around the same time, Hinduism also possessed the core characteristics of monotheism, and there was a monotheistic Reformation in ancient Egypt, which soon failed.