China and the Manchus by Herbert A. Giles — Read

It is almost a conventionalism to attribute the fall of a Chinese dynasty to the malign influence of eunuchs. The Imperial court was undoubtedly at this date entirely in the hands of eunuchs, who occupied all kinds of lucrative posts for which they were quite unfitted, and even accompanied the army, nominally as officials, but really as spies upon the generals in command. One of the most notorious of these was Wei Chung-hsien, whose career may be taken as typical of his class. He was a native of Su-ning in Chihli, of profligate character, who made himself a eunuch, and changed his name to Li Chin-chung. Entering the palace, he managed by bribery to get into the service of the mother of the future Emperor, posthumously canonised as Hsi Tsung, and became the paramour of that weak monarch's wet-nurse. The pair gained the Emperor's affection to an extraordinary degree, and Wei, an ignorant brute, was the real ruler of China during the reign of Hsi Tsung. He always took care to present memorials and other State papers when his Majesty was engrossed in carpentry, and the Emperor would pretend to know all about the question, and tell Wei to deal with it. Aided by unworthy censors, a body of officials who are supposed to be the "eyes and ears" of the monarch, and privileged to censure him for misgovernment, he gradually drove all loyal men from office, and put his opponents to cruel and ignominious deaths. He persuaded Hsi Tsung to enrol a division of eunuch troops, ten thousand strong, armed with muskets; while, by causing the Empress to have a miscarriage, his paramour cleared his way to the throne. Many officials espoused his cause, and the infatuated sovereign never wearied of loading him with favours.

In 1626, temples were erected to him in all the provinces except Fuhkien, his image received Imperial honours, and he was styled Nine Thousand Years, i.e. only one thousand less than the Emperor himself, the Chinese term in the latter case being _wan sui_, which has been adopted by the Japanese as _banzai_. All successes were ascribed to his influence, a Grand Secretary declaring that his virtue had actually caused the appearance of a "unicorn" in Shantung. In 1627, he was likened in a memorial to Confucius, and it was decreed that he should be worshipped with the Sage in the Imperial Academy. His hopes were overthrown by the death of Hsi Tsung, whose successor promptly dismissed him. He hanged himself to escape trial, and his corpse was disembowelled. His paramour was executed, and in 1629, nearly three hundred persons were convicted and sentenced to varying penalties for being connected with his schemes.