During the Tang Dynasty, a group of envoys and scholarly monks from the Tang Dynasty came to Japan from the west. After witnessing the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty, these advanced people decided to promote reforms in their own countries and make Japan the second Datang . In the later period of time, Japan became the "imitator" of Datang, copying almost the entire culture of Datang.
Why do you say "almost" instead of "all"?
Because the Japanese did not accept the eunuch system and imperial examination system of Datang.
Why is this?
Many history lovers regard this question as an unsolved mystery in Japanese history. In fact, the problem is not that complicated, so I might as well analyze it a little bit.
does not adopt these two systems, but there are two possibilities:
one is "do not want" to adopt;
second is "unnecessary" to adopt.
If it is the former, it means that the Japanese at that time already had a value judgment that surpassed the Tang people and had experienced a more prosperous culture. That’s why they felt that Datang’s imperial examinations and eunuchs were morbid products, so I didn’t want to adopt it. Obviously this is impossible. Judging from the Datang empire 's disdain for the national power of the world at that time, and the response of the Japanese to push forward the reforms, the "ceiling" of the Japanese value judgment at that time should be the Datang dynasty.
At that time, where was there a more prosperous culture than Datang? You know, although Japan ended its separatist regime at that time, it didn't even have native scripts. A country that has transformed from a tribal system to a centralized system will not have a perfect political system. China developed to the Tang Dynasty, and since Qin Dynasty unified the Central Plains has a history of nearly a thousand years, and its political system is far more complete than Japan. This shows that the Japanese did not "want" to adopt the two new things, the imperial examination system and the eunuch system.
First we must figure out one thing,That is, what is the meaning of the birth of the eunuch system? This is a deformed product of a patriarchal society, and eunuchs are a special group that serves patriarchal rule. In feudal history, with the exception of a few cases of firm-mindedness, the vast majority of men would not be satisfied with monogamy. This is a common feature of ancient men. Being a prince or emperor, holding the power of life and death in the world, and having the capital to satisfy any desires of oneself, it is inevitable that he would want to "possess" and "monopolize" many wives and concubines.
In order to achieve the purpose of "exclusive" and prevent himself from being cuckold, the emperor must reduce the chance of his concubine coming into contact with other men, so as to avoid fire in the backyard. Therefore, all the emperor's forbiddens were locked in the deep palace and under close surveillance. The emperor’s wives are countless, and their daily lives have become a big problem. If only the maids were to serve the concubines, it would inevitably cause the emperor to be confused between the concubines and the maids. Moreover, the maids were delicate women and could not do heavy physical work.
Obviously, it is impossible to have no male labor in the palace. Let a man serve the harem, who can guarantee that the concubine will not confuse with them? Didn't this cause the opposite effect that the emperor could not monopolize the concubine? In order to prevent this from happening, the ancient emperor had to solve the problem from the “root cause”, so that the men who served the harem were incapacitated, so that they could only sigh at the beauty of the three thousand hopes. Therefore, in our country's thousands of years of feudal rule, there will be so many castrated eunuchs.
and above is the origin of the eunuch system.
Now that we understand the cause of the eunuch system and the connection between the patriarchal society and the eunuch system, we might as well take a look at Japanese historical materials.
From the time the thirty-third emperor of Japan pushed the ancient ascended to the throne, until the forty-eighth emperor said his virtue died, in this one hundred and seventy-eight years, a total of eight emperors were women. At the beginning of the Dahua Reformation, although Takatoku, who served as the emperor, was a man, his predecessor and successor were both women. Since there was no patriarchal supremacy in Japan at the time, the emperor did not need to guard the palace. According to the records of Japanese history, we can see that most of the male and female emperors of this period obeyed the principle of monogamy . Naturally, there is no need for eunuchs to serve the palace.
In fact, in addition to "unnecessary",There is also some "technical reasons" for not introducing the eunuch system in Japan. In ancient Japan, animal husbandry was backward, and it was hard to see large animals such as tigers, leopards, cattle and horses in Japan at that time. Until Japan was knocked on by the United States, the Japanese seldom ate meat. If you want to establish a system of eunuchs, you have to have a " knife maker " who is good at castration. Castration is simple to say. "Knifesmiths" seem to be able to make eunuchs just by raising the knife with their hands. However, only the insiders know how much technical content is contained in this "hands up and down".
Castration is sloppy, and a little carelessness can kill the castrated. To master excellent surgical techniques, animal experiments are indispensable. At that time, cattle and sheep were rare in Japan. Where did the experimental environment come from? It wasn't until the eighteenth century, when horses were introduced to Japan, that they mastered the technique of steering. The Japanese only mastered the technique of castration in the eighteenth century. It can be seen that there was no “castration” technique in Japan in the seventh century.
Reference materials:
["Tong Jian", "Japanese Eunuch List"]
.
