Feng Bao was a famous eunuch in the Ming Dynasty. He went through the Jiajing, Longqing and Wanli dynasties, and his power reached its peak in the Wanli dynasty. Zhang Juzheng, the chief minister of the Wanli Dynasty, was a famous politician and reformer in history. The series of reforms he made during the Wanli Dynasty restored the national power of the Ming Dynasty and made the people live a happy life.
One is the eunuch of the inner garden, and the other is the chief minister of the dynasty. The two people should not have any intersection, but they started to contact each other during the Wanli Dynasty. To talk about the relationship between Feng Bao and Zhang Juzheng, the most appropriate definition should be political partners or political alliances.
The reason why Zhang Juzheng was able to become the chief minister of the cabinet, and even said that his work could be carried out normally after becoming the chief minister, was all because of Feng Bao's unswerving support. Although Feng Bao has become the eunuch of the Chief of Ceremonies and is quite powerful because of his affiliation with the Ming Shenzong, he still cannot do without Zhang Juzheng's support. Looking at later, after Zhang Juzheng's death, Feng Bao was quickly involved in the performance, and then demoted and questioned by Ming Shenzong, we can know that Feng Bao was also inseparable from Zhang Juzheng's support.
Feng Bao and Zhang Juzheng, both inside and outside, supported each other and formed the strangest political partnership in history. Only then did they have the perfect ending of a whipping method for later generations, and also made Zhang Juzheng the eternal leader. The reputation of one phase.
The alliance between these two people should have originated from their frustration. During the Jiajing Dynasty, Feng Bao became the eunuch Bingbi, the Superintendent of Ceremonies, because of his outstanding calligraphy. During the Longqing Dynasty, because Emperor Muzong of the Ming Dynasty was displeased, he was unable to become the superior eunuch, despite having sufficient qualifications. Of course, there is another reason, and that is the repeated obstruction by the high arch.
And what about Zhang Juzheng? During the Longqing Dynasty, Gao Gong was in power in the cabinet, so Zhang Juzheng basically had no place to play and pretended to be a grandson in the cabinet. So later, when Emperor Wanli came to power, Feng Bao and Zhang Juzheng hit it off. Feng Bao pushed Gao Gong down and supported Zhang Juzheng to ascend to the throne. From this, the two supported each other internally and externally.
Feng Bao later accepted bribes on a large scale. Why should I ally with Zhang Juzheng? Why not take him down? Feng Bao was backed by the Queen Mother. Zhang Juzheng needed the Queen Mother's support to implement his reforms, so of course he could not attack Feng Bao. According to Feng Bao's power at the time, Zhang Juzheng not only could not attack him, but also needed to please Feng Bao everywhere and let him say good things to him. Therefore, during every New Year and holiday, Zhang Juzheng would give Feng Bao a large amount of money to maintain a solid relationship with Feng Bao. Historical records record that Zhang Juzheng gave Feng Bao seven famous harps, nine luminous pearls, five pairs of pearl curtains, thirty thousand taels of gold, and two hundred thousand taels of silver.
In history, there have been endless treacherous eunuchs, especially in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, such as Liu Jin and Wei Zhongxian. Feng Bao was also a eunuch in the Ming Dynasty, but he was different from these brightly colored eunuchs. We cannot give Feng Bao a definition of whether he is a good person or a bad person, because he has a strong two-sided character.
He supported Zhang Juzheng's reforms politically and implemented a whip law, which increased national fiscal revenue, cut redundant personnel, and reduced expenditures, which enabled the Ming Dynasty regime to recover for a time. When Ming Shenzong was young, he supervised Ming Shenzong everywhere to ensure that he could become a virtuous emperor.
When the emperor was young, Zhang Juzheng wanted to get some good things to please the emperor. At that time, there were white lotus flowers in the cabinet and double white swallows in the Hanlin Academy, so Zhang Juzheng gave both items to Ming Shenzong. After Feng Bao learned about this, he thought it was not beneficial to the emperor's growth, so he sent someone to tell Zhang Juzheng: The emperor is young and should not use these strange things to make the emperor playful.
To say that he is a good person is not necessarily true. Feng Bao has the same problem that many eunuchs have, which is greed for money. At that time, he relied on his own power to amass money, and even Zhang Juzheng wanted to give him a large amount of money. All of this money was used to build his own house and make a living. It is said that the houses Feng Bao built far exceeded the specifications he should have had, and were ranked alongside princes. Shengkuan refers to a pre-built tomb before death.
Feng Bao also paid great attention to his posthumous affairs and also spent a huge amount of property. And all this money came from his corruption and bribery.
Therefore, Feng Bao cannot be generally defined as a good person or a bad person. He is both a good guy and a bad guy, just like he is both a eunuch and a politician.