HISTORY OF EUNUCHS IN CHINA - CHINESE EUNUCHS DOCUMENTARY

During most of Chinese history, eunuchs were a pivotal component of the imperial court. In this documentary, I’ll explain the Chinese eunuch system throughout: its functions, prominent members, and demise. I expose the castration process, their service in the palace and particularly in the forbidden city, infamous eunuchs such as Liu Jin and Wei Zhongxian, all the way to Sun Yaoting, the last eunuch in Chinese history.

Many thanks!

♫ MUSIC ♫
Total War Three Kingdoms - Oath of the Peach Garden
Total War Three Kingdoms - Besieged
Civilization V - Wu Zetian Peace Theme
Civilization V - Wu Zetian War Theme
Mongol Court Music
Ming dynasty buddhist music - Chui si Diao
Total War Three Kingdoms - Eternal Peace
Total War Three Kingdoms - Bitter Winds
Total War Three Kingdoms - A Noble Legacy
Total War Three Kingdoms - The Calm Before the Storm
Qing dynasty court music
The Loyalist - Lotus Lane

🎬 VIDEO CREDITS 🎬
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1994)
Total War Three Kingdoms - Trailer
The Plough Department of Song Dynasty (2019)
Zheng He's voyages (2011)
Ming Dynasty (2019)
China's forbidden city (2007)
Royal Higness (2018)
The Great Eunuch and the Little Carpenter (1993)
Brotherhood of Blades II: The Infernal Battlefield (2017)
Young Son of Heaven (2002)
The Lady in the Portrait (2017)
The Empress Dowager (1975)
The Last Emperor (1987)
Lai Shi, China's Last Eunuch (1988)

📜 MAIN SOURCES 📜
Chinese Eunuchs (1970), Taisuke Mitamura
The Eunuchs in the Ming dynasty (1996), Henry Shih-shan Tsai
How an army of eunuchs ran the Forbidden City (2018), Marcelo Duhalde

🏷️ TAGS 🏷️
chinese eunuchs documentary
forbidden city eunuchs
imperial eunuchs
eight tigers
liu jin
wei zhongxian
li lianying
sun yaoting

Introduction: (0:00)
Origins: (00:36)
The First Eunuch Era: (02:08)
The Second Eunuch Era: (04:01)
From Song to Yuan: (06:55)
Emperor Yongle: (09:39)
Castration process: (13:06)
Palace service: (14:27)
Eight Tigers: (15:40)
Wei Zhongxian: (18:03)
The Qing dynasty: (19:55)
Cixi's eunuchs: (23:45)
The end of an era: (25:40)
Conclusion: (29:02)

[ranulfdoswell]

So refreshing to come across a channel that talks about Chinese history and can actually pronounce Chinese names correctly. Interesting content too, I'll be checking out the rest of your channel.

[Itriedtakennames]

There was an old phrase of “stinking like a Eunuch, ” which either referred to the fact that many Eunuchs had some urinary incontinence or “dribbling, ” or that Eunuchs would wear heavy perfume to cover this, and so smelled strongly of perfume. Just another difficulty in the whole difficult process.

[mattumodi]

I love how he pronounced those names so fluently and at the same time narrating the story in English so nicely.

[BrazenBard]

"It takes balls to take down the Chinese empire."
"History says otherwise, in surprising specificity..."

[dashoverton]

Kind of sad knowing countless numbers of poor young boys were castrated for the role. Many, if not all, of these children had no say as they were castrated.

[Kittykat]

I’m so beyond happy I found this channel. It’s so hard to find people who make Chinese history easier to understand, let alone make it interesting too!!

[leileijoker]

There was a very powerful eunuch before the Han dynasty. The name is Zhaogao赵高 of Qin dynasty. He was very close to the first emperor of China. And he managed to rigged the final imperial edict. Choosing the younger prince Huhai胡亥 as the next emperor and purged elder prince Fusu复苏 with his supporters. Later on Zhaogao purged prime minister Lisi李斯, became the practical ruler of the Qin dynasty. He was so powerful if he say "a deer is a hourse" no one in the court would dare to oppose him.

[userwsyz]

I finally find a channel that's probably most accurate about Chinese history, and presented it in a chronological and clear way with the dates and names of the persons and locations. Good research work !

[donettamckenzie]

Also what a delight that the narrator can speak the language fluently, a delight to the ear.

[Replicaate]

Me, in pain recovering from surgery:
Youtube: wanna hear about chinese castrated civil servants?
Me: Sure, hearing about someone else's horrible pain might distract me.

[wonhome]

Learning Chinese History can take more than a lifetime. You make Chinese history so fascinating.

[flemishnationalist-prayfor]

What's interesting is how many different roles eunuchs played. Some were merely house keepers, while others were given control over entire armies and provinces.

[tealittle]

in case someone wants to know, Ruan An, the Vietnamese eunuch was not the designer of the forbidden city, but a supervisor of construction in the last phrase of the whole program. He was too young to be the designer when the forbidden city started to be constructed. He was just a little boy when he was trafficked to Beijing as a eunuch.The design of such a huge program usually takes more than imaginable amount of intellectuals, scholars and time to do, letting along a young foreign eunuch.

[edwardsiu]

It was to my shame that as a British born Chinese I didn't know much of my own history and culture. So I started on the Tang Dynasty 500 poems, read the top five Chinese classics and had tuition on the dizi and erhu. This series on Chinese history will go a long way to fill in the vast gaps in my knowledge. Thank you.

[Mr_M_History]

Honestly, this channel is so helpful. You deserve the subscriber base of the big history channels.

[jagvillani]

I've always been interested in the topic of how eunuchs were able to adopt children to make a surrogate family and thus a legacy, such as Cao Cao who had a eunuch "grandfather."

[G]

There's a simple and 100% effective solution to all Eunach related problems: NOT deliberately creating them.

[namjoonsbonsai]

Holy shit finally a Chinese history video with properly pronounced names! Saw you replying to another comment that you weren't Chinese, that makes it even more impressive!

[Hyoungje]

I love the narrator’s voice…the way he pronounces English and Chinese.

[Otter-Destruction]

"Beware of ballless men." - Machiavelli