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Alright, so I'm working on a quasi-serious TL (it'll never be a full written thing, but it will have maps and a general history) and something I was considering were the Eunuchs in China.

My basic idea is that the Ming Dynasty collapses (a decade ahead of OTL) and, after a Civil War (butterflies lead to the Manchu's developing differently and never trying to expand into China) the new Emperor, who was from a side-branch of the previous Imperial family, comes to power and begins several major changes and assumes more direct power himself.

The Emperor deeply distrusts Eunuchs and views them as responsible for the fall of the previous dynasty (and lots of other problems) and eventually comes to adhering to a set of beliefs that Eunuchs mere existence is a major violation of the natural order as it upsets the balance of energies (Yin and Yang, Male and Female) and thus orders that any remaining Eunuchs be stripped of any power and authority and that castration, except in cases of certain crimes, be forbidden, later declaring that anyone who is castrated shall be forbidden from serving in government/imperial service.


Now the questions I have are thus; assuming that the Ming eunuchs no longer have power (mixture of being killed in the war and not managing to gain the ear of the really important people of the new order), how long would it take to implement this policy and how effective would it be over the following few decades; secondly, assuming the policy is continued under the next Emperor, how long would it take for the idea of Eunuchs to die out/be accepted as negative by enough people that the practice would simply become unacceptable regardless of if the current emperor opposed it or not?
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