Ten Attendants

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The Ten Attendants (also known as the Ten Eunuchs) (Traditional Chinese: 十常侍, pinyin: shí chángshì) were a group of eunuchs from the Eunuch Faction of the Han Imperial Court in China. Due to their position of power and prominence in Chinese society, ambitious eunuchs had a tendency to become powerful individuals.

They arose to a place of power and corruption by misusing widowed Empresses and gaining support from Emperors for power. When Han Ling Di passed away, He Jin maneuvered, sometimes hesitantly, with Yuan Shao plotting to kill all the eunuchs but the Empress Dowager rejected their proposal. The eunuchs, now without a military power base of their own, relied on the support of Empress Dowager He and He Miao. Yuan Shao further advised He Jin to summon Dong Zhuo and the various warlords into the capital to threaten the Empress Dowager. Upon the urging of Yuan Shao, He Jin summoned the frontier general Dong Zhuo to the outskirts of Luoyang, in an attempt to force the Empress Dowager to back down. On knowing that, the Chang Shi and Huang Men sensed an impending threat to their life and both came to apologies to He Jin for their "misdeeds". Yuan Shao advised He Jin to seize the opportunity to kill them but He Jin rejected his advice. Subsequently, He Jin appointed Yuan Shao to monitor the eunuchs in the capital and Yuan Shu to lead 200 tiger troops (Hu Ben) to guard the inner palace. Finally, in the ninth month of that year He Jin entered the palace to request the Empress Dowager to agree to the execution of the eunuchs. The conversation was overheard and relayed to Zhang Rang, the eunuch placed in charge after the death of Jian Shuo. Not long after, Duan Gui (the eunuch holding the appointment of Zhong Chang Shi), influential members Zhang Rang and Zhao Zhong, with some of the eunuchs lured He Jin to meet with them (by forging the Empress Dowager’s decree), beheaded He Jin (Empress He's brother) in the palace garden after his plan was discovered. As a result, the palace was thrown into disorder. Yuan Shu ordered his tiger troops to burn the Green Lock Gate (Qing Suo Men) of the Southern Jia De Palace in his bid to force Duan Gui and gang out of their hiding place. Instead of surrendering, Duan Gui kidnapped the Han Emperor (Shao Di) and King of Chen Liu (Liu Xie) and fled in the direction of Xiao Ping Jin. At the same time, Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu, followers of He Jin, both with significant control of military forces within the capital, stormed the palace and massacred the rest of the eunuchs in the capital killing any eunuch they set their eyes on, including some 2,000 people, in addition to those killed by mistake. Yuan Shao further sent his troops to pursue Duan Gui. Seeing that he was about to be captured, Duan Gui ended his life by throwing himself into the river. The remaining of the Ten Attendants initially took the young emperor and Prince Xie hostage, but eventually were forced to commit suicide when the enemy closed in on them.

The ten regular attendants listed in chapter one of Romance of the Three Kingdoms: