Norman Kutcher has written an erudite, ground-breaking and richly documented study that walks us through the community of eunuchs in Beijing as they moved in and out of the Forbidden City, princely households, and the Old Summer Palace in the 17th and 18th centuries. Eunuchs were castrated male servants of the ruler and his family from the Shang (1700–1045 BCE) to the Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, when they wielded fluctuating levels of political and military powers acquired through irregular appointments as army supervisors, tax collectors, military commanders, political envoys, and special commissioners. The Ming eunuchs, 100,000 in number, reached the height of abuse in the 1620s when a eunuch cabal, emboldened with the emperor's indulgence, colluded with most of central and provincial officials and delivered a reign of terror to the state and society.
There was no shortage of diatribes hurled against eunuchs through the dynasties. According to Kutcher, the Qing rhetoric and discourse on eunuch management singled out the writings of Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692), Gu Yanwu (1613–1682), and Wan Sitong (1638–1702) to set the premise for managing the eunuchs and controlling their excesses. These three scholars, whose relatives and acquaintances had been victimized by Ming eunuchs, urged the emperor's court to hire fewer eunuchs and to adopt a strict management system that separated them from the outer court officials, distanced them from political and military men, and kept their literacy low so as not to be in a position to edit or forge edicts.
Traditional and recent scholarship concur that the Qing eunuchs were indeed reduced to several thousands and their duties were limited to serving food, cutting hair, announcing visitors, and receiving and transmitting edicts. Using archival sources in Beijing and Taipei, Kutcher tracks the course of eunuch management under the Shunzhi (r. 1644–1661), Kangxi (r. 1661–1722), Yongzheng (r. 1722–1735), and Qianlong (r. 1736–1796) emperors. Through the process he reconstructs individual lives in the world of eunuchs, as they sorted out social and legal entanglements, some to amass more wealth or build Buddhist temples, but others merely to survive life as eunuchs. Drawing evidence from the Imperial Household communications, palace memorials, expenditure records, veritable records, and tombstone inscriptions, Kutcher argues with clarity that under each of the four emperors a wide gap existed between rhetoric and reality in a porous management system, where the written regulations against eunuchs were actually applied with various degrees of leniency and flexibility.
Shunzhi at first set out clear orders to restrict eunuch influence, but in the latter decade of his reign, departed from the Qing management of eunuchs by creating thirteen eunuch-controlled directorates. By allowing some eunuchs to take up official duties and others to get involved in palace constructions, he empowered eunuchs and reinforced the residual influence of the Ming eunuchs on social and financial networks.
After Shunzhi died, eunuchs were administered by a Manchu-managed department of eunuch affairs, itself under the jurisdiction of the Manchu-controlled Imperial Household. Kangxi was strict with the rank-and-file eunuchs, kept them out of powerful positions, and replaced eunuch confidants with Manchu bondservants. His 1689 edict prescribed penalties from flogging to execution, to keep eunuchs in line and to deter them from consorting with palace women, gambling, brawling, drinking, and murder. Kutcher informs us that despite the firm rhetoric, Kangxi was lenient and could not control the influence of a circle of literate and loyal eunuch companions who later amassed wealth and got involved in succession politics.
Eunuchs played a role in Yongzheng's enthronement by backing different contenders for power and flaming rumors of murder and usurpation. Kutcher explains that Yongzheng was arrogant and unbending in rhetoric against eunuchs, but his actual treatment of eunuchs was lenient, especially in creating a ranking system that encouraged eunuchs to aim for promotion. He also improved their working environment and donated land for a temple and cemetery to provide for their life after retirement from the palaces.
Qianlong opposed Yongzheng's system of ranks and promotions and felt that his father had given eunuchs too generous a salary, thus reducing it from four to six taels per month to two taels. Kutcher argues that despite the strict rhetoric, Qianlong's eunuch management, especially in his last decade, became more flexible when he needed more eunuchs to build temples and the Old Summer Palace at a time when there was a shortage of eunuch recruits. Qianlong hired more eunuchs than any other Qing emperor, but by not including the eunuchs working at the Old Summer Palace, he insisted that his number did not exceed theirs. He paid lip service to a strict management system, but poor oversight opened up opportunities for eunuchs to make money and influence temple building. The Imperial Household's inadequate records made it lucrative for eunuchs to run away and re-enter palace or princely service several times.
In sum, as long as eunuchs did not meddle in politics or in the military, the rhetoric and discourse of the Ming writers and the Qing emperors about eunuch management was much harsher on paper than in practice. Generalists and specialists will discover in Kutcher's study many other fascinating topics, and these include the personalities of the Qing emperors, the physiology of eunuchs, medical history of castration, and the poignant narratives of eunuch survival and suicide.
