十常侍 / Ten Attendants (late Han)
Hanji 915 adds the network-abuse layer immediately before the Hanji 916 regrouping scene. The episode shows 王甫 and 曹节 at a power peak where relatives and retainers occupy offices, public wealth is seized, and local officials such as 王吉 can become violent extensions of court protection.
This is still before the named Ten Attendants crisis hardens, but it explains why anti-eunuch politics could begin as a prosecution against Wang Fu’s household and then recoil once 阳球 turns toward Cao Jie.
Hanji 916 adds a pre-Hanji-918 regrouping layer before the named Ten Attendants faction hardens. The episode centers 曹节, 王甫, 阳球, and 朱瑀 at the moment when Wang Fu’s public corpse humiliation helps Cao Jie rebuild eunuch solidarity and regain court leverage through 尚书台近侍权力.
Hanji 918 adds an earlier eunuch-power layer before the named Ten Attendants faction hardens. The episode centers 曹节, 王甫, and 程璜 around the exposure of 刘郃’s anti-eunuch plot, showing palace-side surveillance and accusation capacity before later sources develop 赵忠, 张让, and the full 189 crisis.
Hanji 921 adds a pre-Ten-Attendants layer before the named faction hardens in the later succession crisis. The episode does not yet present the full bloc, but 曹节’s death, 赵忠’s succession as acting dachangqiu, and eunuch pleading that protects 何皇后 / 何太后 after 王美人’s poisoning show the palace channel already shaping personnel, family survival, and imperial interpretation.
This makes the later Ten Attendants page less abrupt. By the time Hanji 934-946 show favorite slander, dowager dependence, and mutual destruction, the source has already placed eunuch power inside an inherited office line and a saved-debt relationship with the He household.
Hanji 934 adds an earlier favorite-slander branch before the later Liu Tao, He Jin, and succession-crisis material. The source does not yet present the full Ten Attendants bloc, but it names 张让 and 赵忠 as imperial favorites whose claims against 皇甫嵩 lead to his recall, loss of seal, and fief reduction.
This makes eunuch power visible as punitive access before open palace violence. The court can still use Huangfu Song against the frontier crisis, but cannot protect him once the ruler’s favored interpretive channel turns refused bribery and anti-corruption reporting into accusations.
Hanji 935 adds an earlier accusation-filtering branch before the succession and He Jin crisis. The eunuch side learns that 刘陶 / 刘桃’s memorial points many of the realm’s failures toward palace corruption, then reframes the memorial for 汉灵帝 as dark exaggeration, suspicious knowledge, and possible rebel contact.
This is not yet the hardening faction of Hanji 943-946, but it shows the same structural advantage in softer form. Before the eunuch bloc kills or is killed, it can already control how a warning reaches the ruler, turning crisis feedback into a case for arrest.
Hanji 943 adds the pre-Hanji-944 fracture inside the broader eunuch field. 蹇硕 tries to rally 赵忠 and other palace attendants against 何进, but 郭胜 rejects the proposal and hands the letter to He Jin.
This source therefore keeps the eunuch bloc from looking mechanically unified. Eunuch access and proximity are still dangerous, but factional debts and He-family ties can split the channel before Hanji 944-946 show the later Ten Attendants crisis hardening into mutual destruction.
Hanji 944 backfills the faction’s protection before the later dismissal and counterattack. The source says 何太后 relies on eunuchs for palace affairs and remembers their earlier protection after the 王美人 poisoning crisis, while 武阳君 and 何苗 are tied to eunuch benefits.
The group is therefore not protected only by office. It sits inside a palace and family-interest network that makes 何进’s partial anti-eunuch proposal hard to execute and makes leaked intent dangerous before Hanji 945 shows the faction being dismissed and then reentering.
Hanji 945 backfills the Ten Attendants before their Hanji 946 counterattack. 何进 and 袁绍 use outside-force pressure and jiajie authority to force 何太后 to dismiss many regular palace attendants and lesser eunuchs, but He Jin does not execute them when they come to submit.
The episode shows the group as endangered but still connected. 张让 uses family and palace channels through 武阳君 to obtain reentry, so dismissal does not end the faction’s access. This makes Hanji 945 the access-recovery prelude to Hanji 946’s 宫廷政变暴力级联.
十常侍 / Ten Attendants (late Han) enters the wiki through Hanji 946 as the palace eunuch bloc targeted by 何进 after 汉灵帝’s death. The episode does not give a full institutional history; it uses the group as the organized inner-court faction around 张让, 段珪, and 赵忠.
The group matters because palace access lets it move faster than its outside enemies. Zhang Rang and Duan Gui learn He Jin’s plan, lure him under a claimed 何太后 order, kill him, and briefly attempt to reset offices through forged appointments. The same access fails once armed retaliation begins: Yuan-family and He-family troops storm the palace, eunuchs are killed indiscriminately, and the surviving inner-court actors flee toward 小平津 with 刘辩 / 弘农王 and Liu Xie / 汉献帝.
The source treats the Ten Attendants’ end as a mutual-destruction prelude rather than a clean restoration. Killing the eunuchs does not restore court order; it creates the vacuum that 董卓 exploits in Hanji 947.
Connections
- Hanji 915, 王甫, 曹节, 王吉, 杨彪, and 阳球 - network-abuse and prosecution layer before the eunuch regrouping.
- Hanji 916, 曹节, 王甫, 阳球, 朱瑀, and 尚书台近侍权力 - pre-faction regrouping and access recovery after Wang Fu’s public corpse humiliation.
- Hanji 918, 曹节, 王甫, 程璜, 刘郃, and 致命计划泄露风险 - pre-faction eunuch-power and plan-leakage layer.
- Hanji 921, 曹节, 赵忠, 王美人, and 何太后 - pre-faction office continuity and palace debt network.
- Hanji 934, 张让, 赵忠, 皇甫嵩, and 汉灵帝 - earlier favorite-slander branch before the later factional crisis.
- Hanji 935, 刘陶 / 刘桃, 汉灵帝, 宫廷接触垄断, and 君臣反馈失灵 - earlier accusation-filtering branch before the succession crisis.
- Hanji 943, 蹇硕, 赵忠, 郭胜, and 何进 - pre-Hanji-944 eunuch-channel fracture around Jian Shuo’s failed appeal.
- Hanji 944, 何太后, 何苗, 武阳君, 何进, and 致命计划泄露风险 - pre-dismissal interest network and exposed anti-eunuch planning.
- Hanji 945, 何进, 袁绍, 张让, 武阳君, and 外兵入京升级风险 - dismissal, spared submission, and reentry before the killing.
- 张让, 段珪, and 赵忠 - named figures in the source’s eunuch bloc.
- 何进 and 何太后 - outside powerholder and queen mother around whom the conflict turns.
- 宫廷接触垄断, 死斗局优柔寡断风险, and 宫廷政变暴力级联 - concepts sharpened by the episode.
- 刘辩 / 弘农王, 汉献帝, 闵贡, and 小平津 - imperial flight and eunuch collapse.
- 董卓 - beneficiary of the power vacuum.