This was not done out of love for the emperor, but because Shih Heng hoped that under the rule of the completely incompetent Ying Tsung he could best carry out a plan of his own, to set up his own dynasty.  It is not so easy, however, to carry a conspiracy to success when there are several rival parties, each of which is ready to betray any of the others.  Shih Heng’s plan became known before long, and he himself was beheaded (1460).

The next forty years were filled with struggles between cliques, which steadily grew in ferocity, particularly since a special office, a sort of secret police headquarters, was set up in the palace, with functions which it extended beyond the palace, with the result that many people were arrested and disappeared.  This office was set up by the eunuchs and the clique at their back, and was the first dictatorial organ created in the course of a development towards despotism that made steady progress in these years.

In 1505 Wu Tsung came to the throne, an inexperienced youth of fifteen who was entirely controlled by the eunuchs who had brought him up.  The leader of the eunuchs was Liu Chin, who had the support of a group of people of the gentry and the middle class.  Liu Chin succeeded within a year in getting rid of the eunuchs at court who belonged to other cliques and were working against him.  After that he proceeded to establish his power.  He secured in entirely official form the emperor’s permission for him to issue all commands himself; the emperor devoted himself only to his pleasures, and care was taken that they should keep him sufficiently occupied to have no chance to notice what was going on in the country.  The first important decree issued by Liu Chin resulted in the removal from office or the punishment or murder of over three hundred prominent persons, the leaders of the cliques opposed to him.  He filled their posts with his own supporters, until all the higher posts in every department were in the hands of members of his group.  He collected large sums of money which he quite openly extracted from the provinces as a special tax for his own benefit.  When later his house was searched there were found 240,000 bars and 57,800 pieces of gold (a bar was equivalent of ten pieces), 791,800 ounces and 5,000,000 bars of silver (a bar was five ounces), three bushels of precious stones, two gold cuirasses, 3,000 gold rings, and much else—­of a total value exceeding the annual budget of the state!  The treasure was to have been used to finance a revolt planned by Liu Chin and his supporters.

Among the people whom Liu Chin had punished were several members of the former clique of the Yang, and also the philosopher Wang Yang-ming, who later became so famous, a member of the Wang family which was allied to the Yang.  In 1510 the Yang won over one of the eunuchs in the palace and so became acquainted with Liu Chin’s plans.  When a revolt broke out in western China, this eunuch (whose political