Yesterday wrote an article about the marriage of Cao Wei and his children during the Three Kingdoms period.
When he chooses a marriage partner for his children, he can choose surrendered generals like Zhang Xiu and Zhang Lu, or opponents like the Sun family in Jiangdong. However, he rarely chooses entrepreneurial veterans and close ministers who have close relationships around him, and rarely chooses gentry.
Among Cao Cao's children, those who marry close ministers or gentry are mainly two sons and two daughters. One daughter married the son of Xiahou Dun, one daughter married the son of Xun Yu, one son Cao Pi, the daughter of Wuji Zhen, and one son Cao Zhi, the niece of Cui Yan.
Compared with Cao Cao's total number of children, nearly twenty of them can adulthood, it is too rare.
is not just Cao Cao. After the official founding of Cao Wei, Cao Pi and Cao Rui and other emperors of Wei also adhered to the attitude of not marrying close ministers and gentry.
In the harem of the two emperors, there were very few women from close ministers and gentry origins. For example, Cao Pi married Zhen before becoming Cao Cao's heir. After becoming emperor, the women in the harem abandoned the women from close ministers and gentry families.
Sima Yi is known as one of Cao Pi "Four Friends" . He is so close to Cao Pi, and Cao Pi never thought of marrying him. Then, Sima Yi's eldest son Sima Shi first married a daughter of Xiahou family Xiahou Hui , and could barely get a little kinship with the Cao family.
This is actually a rare thing.
Shu Han and Dongwu's attitude towards marriage with entrepreneurial veterans and close ministers is completely different from that of Cao Wei.
For example, Liu Chan married two wife in a row and were both Zhang Fei's wife. The princess chosen for the prince Liu Yu is Fei Yi's daughter. Liu Chan has three daughters, one married the son of Zhuge Liang , one married the grandson of Guan Yu , and the other married the son of Fei Yi.
Another example is Sun Quan. In his harem, there is a daughter of the Buzhi family. The princess who was chosen for the first prince was the daughter of Zhou Yu . The wife who was chosen for the second prince Sun and is the granddaughter of Zhuge Jin . The eldest daughter first married Zhou Yu's son, and later remarried to Quancong .
From the political ecology and social environment of the Three Kingdoms period, the attitudes of the two monarchs of Shu Han and Eastern Wu are normal operations.
Why do the monarchs of Cao Wei want to be independent and unique? Keep a deliberate distance from close ministers and gentry on marriage?
First: The Cao family may have the same confusion as later generations Tang Dynasty Li's royal family was at the beginning of the founding of the country
Tang Dynasty during the Zhenguan period, Tang Taizong Li Shimin liked to marry close ministers and big families of the five surnames the most, hoping that all his children would marry them to bring them closer to the royal family.
The close ministers around Li Shimin are positive about this. Basically, as long as Li Shimin proposes to marry a daughter, they will contribute a son to marry.
But the five-subject family's attitude towards this is very subtle. They are not willing to marry the Li royal family and do not look down on the Li family very much. They think that the Li family's bloodline is impure.
The gentry during the Three Kingdoms period looked at the Cao family, probably the same was true for one reason. Cao Cao's father was adopted by eunuch Cao Teng as his son. After the founding of Cao Wei, Cao Teng was posthumously named " Gao Emperor " .
Simply put, the Cao Wei royal family is nominally descended from eunuchs. Perhaps, for the gentry who have high self-esteem, even if the Cao family became a royal family, they were not qualified to marry them, just like the five-subject family in the early Tang Dynasty who saw the Li royal family's vision.
Second: Several helmsmen of Cao Wei intend to distance themselves from their close ministers and gentry in terms of marriage
Cao Cao himself doesn't like to serve his women who have a relationship with their close ministers and gentry. His original wife Mrs. Ding After he divorced him, he was even willing to help his concubines from Mrs. Bian (biological mother of Cao Pi and Cao Zhi) A concubine from a happy girl who was born as a legitimate wife, and he never thought of marrying a big family again.
Cao Pi and Cao Rui, the emperors who were more capable and controlled the political and military power of Cao Wei, probably inherited Cao Cao's behavior and ideas.
The reason may be related to the political chaos in the Han Dynasty in the late Eastern Han Dynasty.
During the Three Kingdoms period, when people criticized the disadvantages of the Eastern Han Dynasty, they could not avoid two groups, one was eunuch and the other was foreign relatives.
It is precisely because of the power struggle between the power of the foreign relatives and general He Jin, who was in power after the death of Emperor Ling of Han, and the eunuch group, , "Ten Constellations" , which led to the entry of , " Ten Constellations of " and Dong Zhuo into the capital.
The complete decline of the imperial power of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the subsequent chaos in the world arose.
Cao Cao was one of the Royal Army's eight lieutenants ". He was in the capital and was a witness of all incidents and witnessed the chaos caused by the struggle between relatives and eunuchs.
Later, in the process of establishing the foundation, Cao Cao was also hostile and attacked by relatives such as the wife of Emperor Xian of Han, , the father of Queen Fu, , and the concubines, , the father of Concubine Dong, , the father of Concubine Dong, , Dong Cheng, .
Dong Cheng also joined hands with Emperor Xian of Han to create a " garment and robbing ", fooling a lot of people to help resist Cao Cao, including Liu Bei .
These relatives are in trouble. Many people are willing to believe and follow because of their close identities with the emperor, and to a certain extent, they can represent the emperor.
These are Cao Cao's personal experiences along the way. Through these experiences, he understood that the use of foreign relatives is a sharp sword, but if they lose control, it will be a disaster.
Especially when the family of the relatives has a certain reputation and power, the harm to the monarch is probably greater than the benefits, such as Huo Guang and Wang Mang.
Therefore, Cao Cao was cautious about supporting his relatives, although he also became a relative by marrying his three daughters to Emperor Xian of Han.
Cao Cao was not willing to marry his close ministers and gentry to prevent them from becoming families of relatives. In addition, the reputation and power he had had would have an impact on the power of the monarch.
Cao Cao's experience will definitely be passed on to his children and grandchildren. After Cao Pi founded the Wei Kingdom, he used Cao Cao's experience and learned from the lessons of the demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty to exclude eunuchs and relatives. Neither relatives must be left alone, but he will not let the emperor's close ministers and powerful gentry become relatives.
After Cao Wei established the country, no eunuchs could participate in the government affairs, and no foreign relatives could deeply interfere in the government affairs. This is the foundation laid by generations of the Cao family.
3: Conclusion
or above is the reason why the imperial power of Cao Wei was unwilling to marry his close ministers and gentry during the Three Kingdoms period.
This kind of political behavior has both advantages and disadvantages. As mentioned earlier, if there is no strong foreign relatives interfering in the government affairs, there is no need to worry that foreign relatives will be harmful to the imperial power and can also receive praise from the gentry.
The disadvantage is that in the Eastern Han Dynasty, eunuchs and relatives were buffers between the emperor and officials and gentry. Without these two groups, when the imperial power conflicted with the officials and gentry, the imperial power could only pull up his sleeves and go into battle with bare shirt.
The above analysis is personal opinion, or there may be any errors and omissions. Readers are welcome to leave a message in the comment area to discuss.
