The Ends of the Eunuchs
After his abdication, the Xuāntǒng emperor Pǔyí was left with the enormous financial burden of the Imperial Household, including 1000 eunuchs. They were far fewer in number than under the Míng, but still, in the opinion of imperial tutor Reginald Johnston, formed an organization that existed to promote its own survival rather than that of the emperor, and were of little use to him. Under Johnston’s influence, Pǔyí abolished the eunuch system altogether in 1923.
The earliest records of the existence of eunuchs in China date back to at least 3200 years before they were mostly banished from the palace. Early mutilations were mostly punishment for adultery or a way of quietening the unruly, or a humiliating expression of complete victory over captured enemies. However, the use of eunuchs as servants to the court and particularly to the imperial bedchamber also has a long history. The eventual result was a situation where the eunuchs, who could be relied on to manage the imperial harem without impregnating any of it, became the only ‘male’ servants, forming a barrier between the humanity of the emperor and his ministers, who needed only to believe in his divinity.
The constant proximity of the senior eunuchs to the emperors tended to give them immense influence over the weaker monarchs. In the worst cases those emperors who found the contents of their seraglios more interesting than affairs of state allowed the eunuchs to run the country for them, a habit blamed for the collapse of more than one dynasty. Emperors grew up surrounded by these plump, timid, soft- or screechy-voiced part-men who tended to all their needs and to whom they were completely accustomed. Consorts and concubines sometimes ran into the thousands, and at the height of their power under the Míng as many as 5000 eunuchs were employed in the palace.
Their ability to acquire great power and vast fortunes through selling their influence and through fiddling the imperial accounts led men to self-mutilation and the eventual rise of professionals in the field of preparing them surgically for court service. The only other route to influence was through years, sometimes decades, of study to pass several levels of Confucian examinations. So perhaps giving up one small pleasure through a little operation, refined by the time of the Qīng so as to have a very low mortality rate, seemed the loss of little for the potential gain of much.
Undoubtedly, with the kind of double-think common in Chinese society even today, the operation was anti-Confucian, but it was honoured because it was also an ancient custom and therefore good. Filial piety, a key Confucian doctrine, required each person to take care of the body his parents had provided. This presumably did not include lopping bits off — especially not the bits involved in another major Confucian duty of reproducing to continue the family line and provide offspring to tend the ancestors’ shrines. But a significant part of the male population was likely to remain too poor ever to marry, and so neither the loss of those parts a bride might value, nor the loss of the prospect of using them to make children, seemed much to the point.
Male readers may wish to cross their legs before reading on.
Having had his parts washed with pepper water and being held down tightly by the surgeon’s assistants, the candidate eunuch was asked whether he would regret the operation afterwards. Those showing the slightest hesitation were sent away. Those steadfast in their desires had both penis and testicles cut off, a plug inserted, and their wound bound tightly with cloths soaked in cold water. They were then made to walk around for two or three hours with the help of the assistants. They were permitted no food or drink for three days, after which the plug was removed. If some urine ran out, the patient would live, and his wounds would heal completely in about three months. If not, he would suffer a lingering death.
Those who survived made sure to keep their organs in a pouch or jar, both because they had to be presented at the time of promotion and because they hoped to be restored to wholeness in the afterlife. For those who lost track of their bǎo (宝), or ‘treasure’, there was a business in renting or buying parts from others.
Oddly, having climbed their way to wealth through the opportunities for graft provided by being in imperial service, but feeling very much the disdain of other men, some married court ladies, thus achieving solace. On retirement, the richer ones constructed temples and large mansions for themselves, particularly to the west and northwest of the city. Guides to Běijīng from the 1930s describe a cemetery for eunuchs to the north of Bā Bǎo Shān and a temple for them, both now long disappeared, although a eunuch cemetery with a small museum near Píngguǒ Yuán has now opened to the public (see Tiányì Mù).
The man generally labelled the last eunuch was the hapless Sūn Yàotíng
(孙耀庭). Born in 1902, he was castrated by his own father at the age of 10, after the 1912 abdication of the Qīng, news of which did not reach his village outside Tiānjīn until a month later. Nevertheless, he went on to serve the last empress and later Pǔyí himself, one of a handful still employed after the mass banishment of eunuchs in 1923.
Largely indigent after 1949, he died only in 1996, just before his 94th birthday.
See also:
Return to The Palace Museum or ‘Forbidden City’
See other Forbidden City stories:
Monumental Mismanagement
The Two Palace Museums
Where are They Now?
A Storm in a Coffee Cup
The End of the Emperors
The Last Occupant of the Forbidden City
Pride and a Fall
Links below to more stories, to neighbouring sights around the Imperial City and Tiān’ān Mén Square. Or see Main Index to A Better Guide to Běijīng.
