However, the development of eunuchs does not depend on Zhu Yuanzhang's personal will. Eunuch is the product of highly centralized feudal absolutism. As long as feudal absolutism exists, the emperor will continue to engage in oligarchy of personal dictatorship, and sooner or later he will embark on the road of reusing eunuchs and making people who are left behind in punishment run politics. Of course, this is a backward road to repeat the same mistakes. This was the case with Zhu Yuanzhang, especially when he abolished the system of "Zhongshu Province" and "Prime Minister", and became an unprecedented feudal autocrat. He was suspicious of the heroes, including his own nephew and nephew, and was determined to catch the gang and kill them all. It is obviously expected that the eunuchs with * * * as confidants will seize the day. If Zhu Yuanzhang was on strict guard against eunuchs in the early years of Hongwu, and eunuchs mainly served the court life, it was difficult for them to go beyond the strict palace wall, then in the middle and late period of Zhu Yuanzhang's administration, especially in his later years, eunuchs re-entered the political arena and played various roles of interfering in state affairs. For example, in May of the eighth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang sent Zhao Cheng, an eunuch, to Hezhou City.
Zhu Yuanzhang knew that Xifan had always produced horses and sent people to buy them, but because of the different currencies used, few horses were bought. This time, he asked Zhao Cheng to bring a lot of Luo Qi silk and Sichuan tea to change horses, and ordered Hezhou Shoujiang to comfort the people to help each other, so as to buy more horses gradually. In March of the tenth year of Hongwu, the Ministry of Housing invited one eunuch, one son of the State and one official of the ministries and commissions to go to 178 places where the tax department was not as good as the amount, to verify and establish the quota, and Zhu Yuanzhang followed it. This is a clear evidence that eunuchs participate in taxation. In September of the sixteenth year of Hongwu, Liang Min, the eunuch who went to Ryukyu to buy horses, returned to Beijing and bought 983 horses. In February of the 25th year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang sent eunuchs who were still catering, while Nie and Si Li eunuchs Qing Tong went to Shaanxi, Hezhou and other Wei's, and made a proclamation to their clan, ordering them to sell horses and give tea. As a result, more than 0/0340 horses were won this time, and more than 300,000 Jin of tea was exchanged. These horses were later distributed to knights in Henan, Shanxi and Shaanxi health centers. All these clearly show that as early as Hongwu, eunuchs had been entrusted with important tasks, such as going to the frontier to engage in tea-horse trade, which was crucial to the national defense of the Ming Dynasty.
Moreover, eunuchs were constantly sent by Zhu Yuanzhang as special envoys to participate in some major political activities at home and abroad. For example, in March of the 12th year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang sent eunuch Chen Jing and a captain to read the imperial edict to Zhu Shouqian, the king of Jingjiang, warning him that his father Zhu Wenzheng had indulged himself in Jiangxi that year, treating people like grass and trees and committing crimes endlessly. He is very unkind, stealing people's wives, killing people's husbands, destroying people's sons, harming people's fathers and extorting people's money. If you feel something, you will not listen to it. A few days later, he tried to go to the enemy country, but he felt that he was imprisoned, and then he died [,asking him to take a break from playing with a villain, making the same mistake as his father, and arrested some unscrupulous people around Zhu Shouqian on the spot. In February of the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu, a major case of aquamarine rebellion occurred. In March, Zhu Yuanzhang sent eunuchs Nie and Xu Mayin to Shanxi, and sent a message to Zhu, the king of Jin, saying, "Make peace with the king, and chop up the three princes, family members, fire fighters and adult men."
The rich man and the palace. Women, the palace sent an envoy to relieve them. I admire this. [thus, the eunuch has been involved in how important political secrets! As for letting eunuchs cross the ocean and serve foreign countries, it is not uncommon for them to become diplomatic dignitaries. For example, as early as April of the second year of Hongwu, eunuchs were sent to send people living in Korea back to China; In the first month of the eleventh year of Hongwu, Chen Neng, a eunuch, was sent to Annanguo to mourn the death of King Chen Zhi. In the first month of the sixteenth year of Hongwu, he sent eunuchs Liang Min and others to Ryukyu, and gave Zhongshan King Chadu a gold-plated silver seal. In December of the 28th year of Hongwu, eunuchs Zhao Da and Zhu Fu were sent to Siam to welcome the country to pay homage to the late king, and four horses of Wen Qi, the new king of Dabao, were given as congratulations. Such and so on, are clearly recorded in "A Record of Ming Taizu", which is an indisputable fact. All these clearly show that on the issue of eunuchs, it was not others but Zhu Yuanzhang himself who broke Zhu Yuanzhang's various prohibitions.
Only in this way, the number of eunuchs in Hongwu period increased obviously. In October of the 15th year of Hongwu, 360 envoys were added at a time, but in the 24th year of Hongwu, as many as 200 eunuchs were asked from Korea, and An Nanguo also paid tribute to Zhu Yuanzhang, with dozens of eunuchs every time. Although there is no exact figure, the total number is certainly considerable. Zhu Yuanzhang also personally told King Annan that it was wrong for him not to allow eunuchs who paid tribute to Annan to return to China, and suggested that those who wanted to return to their hometown in the future should be allowed to return to Annan. It is precisely because of the increasing number of eunuchs that management needs to be strengthened. In the seventeenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang specially set the posts of the internal officials' warehouses and bureaus, and set up nine prisons, two warehouses and six bureaus, namely, the internal officials' prisons, the Jingu prison, the Shangbao prison, the Shangshan prison, the company's prison, the Shili prison, the Imperial Horse prison and the Zhidian prison. Internal carrier library and key library; Towel and hat bureau, needle work bureau, weaving and dyeing bureau, pigment bureau, garden bureau and animal husbandry bureau, and other officials are set up. This laid the foundation for the twenty-four yamen, a huge organization that later managed eunuchs-twelve prisons, four divisions and eight bureaus.
When Zhu Di was the ancestor of Ming Dynasty, eunuchs became more and more important and powerful.