Ten Attendants

The Ten Attendants (also known as the Ten Eunuchs) (Traditional Chinese: 十常侍, pinyin: shí chángshì) were a group of eunuchs from the Eunuch Faction of the Han Imperial Court in China. Due to their position of power owed to their proximity to the emperor, ambitious eunuchs had a tendency to become powerful individuals.

In 189, they arose to a place of power and corruption by misusing widowed Empresses and gaining support from Emperors for power. When Han Ling Di passed away, He Jin maneuvered, sometimes hesitantly, with Yuan Shao plotting to kill all the eunuchs but the Empress Dowager rejected their proposal. Yuan Shao sent Zhang Jin to advise He Jin. Zhang Jin told He Jin, The Yellow Gates and Ten Attendants usurped power for a long time and are the great scourge of our time, their prestige being known throughout the world. Empress Dowager Yongle was corrupt and interloped with them. He should shake up the world and destroy this source of trouble. He Jin agreed that it was so, then he began conspiring with Yuan Shao.

The eunuchs, now without a military power base of their own, relied on the support of Empress Dowager He and He Miao. Yuan Shao further advised He Jin to summon Dong Zhuo and the various warlords into the capital to threaten the Empress Dowager. Upon the urging of Yuan Shao, He Jin summoned the frontier general Dong Zhuo to the outskirts of Luoyang, in an attempt to force the Empress Dowager to back down. On knowing that, the Chang Shi and Huang Men sensed an impending threat to their life and both came to apologize to He Jin for their "misdeeds".

Yuan Shao advised He Jin to seize the opportunity to kill them but He Jin rejected his advice. Subsequently, He Jin appointed Yuan Shao to monitor and direct the martial and civil officials of Luoyang to investigate the dealings of the eunuchs in the capital. Another order was given to Yuan Shu, to select two hundred good-natured ‘Rapid As Tigers’ (Hu Ben) officers to enter the Forbidden Palace and replace the arms-bearing ‘Yellow Gates’ eunuch guards and to guard the inner palace.

Finally, in the ninth month of that year He Jin entered the palace to request the Empress Dowager to agree to the execution of the eunuchs. The conversation was overheard and relayed to Zhang Rang, the eunuch placed in charge after the death of Jian Shuo. Not long after, Duan Gui (the eunuch holding the appointment of Zhong Chang Shi), influential members Zhang Rang and Zhao Zhong, with some of the eunuchs lured He Jin to meet with them (by forging the Empress Dowager’s decree), beheaded He Jin (Empress He's brother) in the palace garden after his plan was discovered. As a result, the palace was thrown into disorder. In the past, Dou Wu planned to put them to death but was assassinated himself. It was solely because word had leaked out from the officers of the five regiments. The five regiments formed the Northern Army, the professional standing army normally stationed at the capital.

Yuan Shu ordered his tiger troops to burn the Green Lock Gate (Qing Suo Men) of the Southern Jia De Palace in the Southern Palace in his bid to force Duan Gui and gang out of their hiding place. Instead of surrendering, Duan Gui kidnapped the Han Emperor Shao of Han and King of Chen Liu (Liu Xie) and fled in the direction of Xiao Ping Jin. Yuan Shao beheaded Xu Xiang. At the same time, Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu, followers of He Jin, both with significant control of military forces within the capital, stormed the palace and massacred the rest of the eunuchs in the capital. The soldiers were directed to apprehend all eunuchs and to kill them all without regard of age. There were even those who were wrongfully killed whilst others had to show their bodies to escape death. Those benevolent eunuchs who had refused to be contaminated by evil influences were likewise slaughtered. They killed some two-thousand people, in addition to those killed by mistake.

Yuan Shao further sent his troops to pursue Duan Gui. Seeing that he was about to be captured, Duan Gui ended his life by throwing himself into the river. The remaining of the Ten Attendants initially took the young emperor and Prince Xie hostage, but eventually were forced to commit suicide when the enemy closed in on them. The Emperor was then able to return to the palace.

The ten regular attendants are listed in a chapter of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" as follows:
#Zhang Rang
#Zhao Zhong
#Feng Xu
#Duan Gui
#Cao Jie
#Hou Lan
#Jian Shuo
#Cheng Kuang
#Xia Yun
#Guo Sheng

Modern references

In "Dynasty Warriors 5: Xtreme Legends" there is a stage dedicated to this event.

ources

* [http://kongming.net/novel/sgz/yuanshao.php Sanguozhi biography of Yuan Shao]
* [http://kongming.net/novel/sgz/yuanshao-2.php Sanguozhi biography of Yuan Shao]
*"Xu Han shu" [‘Epilogue of Han’]