The Power of the Three Kingdoms at the End of the Han Dynasty and the Imperial Power of the Han Dyna

Chapter 159 Lifting Party Imprisonment
On the seventh day of March, Emperor Banzhao issued a general amnesty to all members of the Party, ordering the refugees from all over the country to return to their places of origin without any further investigation. Only the Zhang Jiao brothers were not pardoned.

However, if the emperor were to provide money for military affairs, even if he was wealthy, he would still feel pain.So the emperor issued an edict, asking the ministers to contribute horses and weapons, and to recommend the children of generals or officials and common people with military talents to jointly fight the Yellow Turban rebellion.

The emperor finally compromised with the nobles.

If Emperor Huan had not died, the gentry group and the imperial power would have returned to balance again after the first party prison disaster dealt with more than 200 people, and the broken car of the Eastern Han Dynasty might have been able to persist for another few decades.

However, after his death, the gentry group was overall defeated in the battle for imperial power. The eunuchs' children and various related households began to be decentralized to the local governments. The "local official administration" on which the Eastern Han Dynasty relied for financial survival completely collapsed.

More and more eunuchs began to turn into demons and ghosts and were sent to local places, and then began to expropriate and plunder people from all walks of life.

At the end of every dynasty, there will be a phenomenon, which is large-scale corruption.

This corruption problem will even form a set of hidden rules with explicit price tags.

Since the gentry group was completely overthrown by the eunuch group due to the party's imprisonment, the classic car of the Eastern Han Dynasty was completely finished.

Because, not only did the eunuchs' children begin to run rampant across the world, but more importantly, money became the only criterion for evaluating progress.

When the gentry group existed, all bureaucracies were complicated but well-organized.The entire bureaucracy will conduct a very comprehensive evaluation and ranking. Generally speaking, because the gentry group has a family and a future, it will tend to be more disciplined and will not fish in the lake.On the contrary, anyone who dares to break the rules of the gentry group will be rejected by the entire gentry circle, their career will be in doubt, they will be ostracized when they return to their hometown, and they may even be kicked out of the circle.

But when it comes to eunuchs, the rules change.The eunuchs had little hope in terms of seniority in the future, so they did not pay attention to the unspoken rules in the officialdom. In addition, since they were by the emperor's side every day, they were surrounded by extremely insidious and vicious "ex-partners", so Eunuchs are generally "short-sighted".

After the disaster of party imprisonment, the noble family has begun to transform back into the wealthy family.

Because official career and the stable local dividends brought by official career no longer exist.

The gentry in various places have begun to use their ancestral accumulation and strong economic strength to start hoarding land and absorbing the population.

However, because the gentry suddenly lost social resources and monopoly status, those who regained power at the central and local levels were often unfriendly to them, so they were always vigilant and on guard, so the process progressed very slowly.

However, the Yellow Turban Rebellion gave the gentry an opportunity to return to the central government, because the chaos caused chaos in supervision and order in various places. The Yellow Turban Army's scourge in various places also objectively forced the gentry and powerful people in various places to organize their armies to defend themselves. The gentry and powerful clans in various places began to quickly The evolution of self-rich aristocracy.

The central government can no longer restrict the local area!
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"My dear sirs, do you have any candidates to counter the rebellion?"

Everyone, look at me, and I look at you.

In fact, everyone has an excellent candidate for counterinsurgency-Hejian King Liu Han.

But as the party's imprisonment was lifted and the nobles returned to the central government, their momentum was at its peak, everyone selectively ignored him. If anyone spoke, he would become the enemy of all the nobles.

In the eyes of the nobles, the Yellow Turban Thief meant that he could return to the court and have the right to speak through military exploits. How could he allow his clan members to get involved?

The aristocratic families actually turned a blind eye to the Yellow Turban Army, and the Yellow Turban Army knew this very well and tacitly understood each other because they all had the same purpose - to challenge the imperial power.However, Zhang Jiao wanted to overthrow the Han Dynasty, while the gentry wanted to lift the shackles of the party and restore their former glory.

As the emperor, Liu Hong could certainly guess what was going on with them, but the situation no longer allowed him to make any other choice. He could only break the pot and throw it away, "After I die, I won't care about the flood!"

To be honest, the royal family is the largest noble family, but once it becomes the largest, it will have a natural and absolute conflict of interest with other noble families.

Emperors Huan and Ling launched party bans because the "Qingliu scholar-bureaucrats" and others monopolized the personnel power of the empire and posed a huge threat to the imperial power.

The most important way to select officials in the Han Dynasty was through inspection, which mainly examined the moral performance of talents and their understanding of classics.On the one hand, aristocratic families have enough resources to make their children perform exaggerated filial and honest behaviors, and then spread them to everyone; on the other hand, aristocratic families can provide their children with excellent educational resources.

Some wealthy families even monopolized the right to interpret a certain classic. For example, the Yuan family of Runan specialized in "Mengshi Yi", and the Yang family of Hongnong controlled the interpretation rights of "Shangshu".Coupled with the tricky nature of human relationships, I recommend your children and you recommend my children, forming an unbreakable vested interest group.Although official positions above the title are not hereditary, they are actually monopolized by certain families.

Not only did they have a monopoly on personnel power, these elite celebrities also began to take pride in opposing the emperor, and used their opposition to imperial power to show off their status and win a lot of applause.The official reputation of many officials depended on elite celebrities, and they were coerced into raising their status by offending the emperor.This made the emperor very disgusted.

Another point is that the so-called "Qingliu scholar-bureaucrats" monopolized the empire's financial power.

At that time, Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu wanted to check the household registration and land in the world, but as soon as the officials were sent out, they would encounter bandits and bandits, and ultimately nothing happened.

Behind this is the aristocratic family causing trouble.

The agricultural economy of the Eastern Han Dynasty was more developed than that of the Western Han Dynasty, but as the wealthy families hid their hukou, the imperial finances were often stretched.

When the frontiers were tight, it was difficult for the Eastern Han government to mobilize the country's financial and material resources to launch a war like it could during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

In addition to government financial constraints, the emperor's personal expenses were also curtailed.

The national salt and iron revenue should have gone to the Shaofu and became the emperor's internal funds.But after the third emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the imperial power slumped and even the national salt and iron monopoly could no longer be maintained. (The Eastern Han Dynasty lasted for 196 years and had 14 emperors. However, only the first three emperors after the founding of the People's Republic of China were able to control their own affairs; the emperors of later generations were either dissolute and immoral, controlled by others, or died young.)
These benefits were also taken away by aristocratic families and local powerful men.These people obtained financial resources by poaching the corners of the empire, which they used to attract refugees, spread kindness, organize private armed forces, and form Wubao to defend themselves, becoming like little local emperors.

In order to regain human rights and financial rights, the emperor had no choice but to reuse eunuchs, attack scholars, and sell officials to gain titles.

The reason why eunuchs are reused is because in the emperor's view, they are bound to his own interests, are trustworthy, and can take the blame for the emperor.

There are two ways to attack the scholars. One is to block their official career through party supervision; the other is to allow the eunuch relatives to run rampant in the place, rob the land and population of the wealthy family, and then share the dividends with the emperor.

Selling one's official position is naturally another way to regain personnel and financial rights.

However, this is tantamount to drinking poison to quench thirst.

(Well, I have an exam on the 26th. After the exam, I will update the next three chapters. These two chapters are mainly analysis of the current situation. I am ready to let go completely in terms of the content of the following chapters. Comrades who like Liu Bei and Sun Quan, you can out.)
(End of this chapter)