In ancient times, emperors had supreme power, they ruled the country, decided the rise and fall of dynasties, controlled the fate of all people in the territory, were objects of reverence, and were given a sacred and inviolable status.
All state affairs, including the promotion of ** and the command of the army, were decided by the emperor alone. "The supremacy of imperial power, self-respect" is a portrayal of the emperor's life. However, in the history of China, there was a dynasty that existed for one hundred and fifty-five years, but it did not have much ability.
There were a total of fifteen emperors in this dynasty, and except for the founding emperor, the remaining fourteen emperors were mediocre and incompetent. This dynasty is the Jin Dynasty during the Three Kingdoms period and the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
In the last years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the world was in turmoil, and the princes of various places rose up one after another, trying to compete for the right to rule the world, and the originally unified country was torn apart. After years of war, the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu were formed, among which Wei was the most powerful.
During Cao Cao's reign, he was crowned king and appointed Sima Yi to assist Cao Pi, hoping that he would win the battle for the throne. However, it seems that the heavens did not protect the Cao family, and several reigning emperors died early, leaving the young Cao Fang to succeed them.
After Cao Fang succeeded to the throne, he adopted a policy of exclusion of Sima Yi and demoted him to Taifu in the open. Sima Yi was thoughtful and low-key, and his years of forbearance had taught him to cultivate obscurity, however, Cao Shuang's move undoubtedly angered him and became the fuse for his eventual usurpation of power.
In the first ten years, Cao Fang and Cao Shuang left Luoyang together and went to Gaoping Mausoleum to worship their ancestors. However, it was during this worship that Sima Yi took the opportunity to mutiny, staged a mutiny, and quickly occupied Kyoto, thus seizing Cao Wei's military power.
may be because he worked too hard when he was young, Sima Yi was riddled with illness in his later years, and finally died of illness in Luoyang and was buried in Shouyang Mountain.
2. After Sima Yan succeeded to the throne in the Western Jin Dynasty, he adhered to his father's last wish, successfully seized the power of the Cao family, established the Jin Dynasty, and completed the unification of the Western Jin Dynasty with Luoyang as the capital, so he was called the Western Jin Dynasty.
Under his rule, a series of reforms, such as the abolition of the tuntian system and the strict prohibition of private tenants, led to a favorable economic situation, and he himself led by example and acted frugally.
In order to promote population growth, he issued the household survey. Therefore, in the early days of the Jin Dynasty, there was a rare prosperity scene in history, social stability, and the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, which was called "the rule of Taikang" by later generations.
Sima Yan laid the foundation for future generations, but unfortunately he deviated from the right track in middle age. The relatives of the Western Jin Dynasty were already wealthy"The rule of Taikang"It also brought political stability and unity, which led to a higher level of wealth accumulation.
After the life was stable, they indulged in pleasure, the powerful and powerful were immersed in a luxurious life, the entire court atmosphere was corrupted, Sima Yan forgot his original intention, the harem was large, the concubines were indulged excessively, the government was abandoned, the villain was in power, and even the princes were sealed, and the power of the clan increased greatly, which eventually led to the outbreak of the Eight Kings Rebellion.
Once there is power, people tend to be attracted to its sweetness and crave more. Therefore, in order to compete for the dragon chair, which symbolizes the highest power, the nobles of the clan did not hesitate to kill each other, which lasted for a full sixteen years.
After Sima Yan's death, his son Sima Zhen became the new emperor. However, in the later part of Sima Yan's reign, he was too addicted to pleasure and had no time to cultivate a Ming Jun.
Therefore, after Sima Zhen succeeded to the throne, he had no clue about the major affairs of the court. Fortunately, he has a smart and virtuous queen - Jia Nanfeng. Jia Nanfeng is Dazai's daughter, and although she is ugly, she has always been loyal to Sima and helped him through difficult times.
After Jia Nanfeng took power, she was addicted to the pleasure of power, and in order to stabilize her position, she eliminated the empress dowager, designed to kill the auxiliary minister, and even did not hesitate to get rid of the prime minister Sima Liang, who posed a threat to herself.
However, Sima Zhen, who has no understanding of power and politics, is unaware of this. During his reign, famine was rampant, and the people had no food to eat, so they had to dig grass roots and gnaw tree bark to satisfy their hunger.
The streets were filled with people who were dying of hunger. When the minister reported these things to him, he expressed confusion and asked: "If there is no rice, why not eat porridge?" This is the story of "why not eat minced meat"**.
Under the rule of such a mediocre Sima Zhen, Jia Nanfeng's power swelled day by day, and he dared to let go of it. The talented people in the court were killed one by one, and the princes and kings everywhere rebelled one after another, and history refers to this period as the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings".
After the outbreak of the Eight Kings Rebellion, the elite of the Western Jin Dynasty army was almost completely wiped out, agricultural production was also severely hit, and the whole country fell into chaos. Sima Zhen himself remained in captivity until the end of his life.
After Sima Chi ascended the throne, he was keen to make friends and had a keen interest in historical books, and his talent was widely praised at the time. However, there was already an undercurrent within the Jin Dynasty, and before he could show his talents, he was killed by Liu Cong.
After Sima Chi passed away, he was succeeded by Sima Ye. In the face of a state affair full of holes, Sima Ye, like Sima Chi, hoped to revive the Jin Dynasty and immediately gather military forces from Youzhou, Bingzhou and other places to jointly resist the threat of Former Zhao.
However, the general trend has gone, people are panicking, and they have no intention of fighting, no matter how hard he tries, he can't change the status quo. After several encounters, the army ran out of food, the army was routed, and Chang'an finally fell.
Sima Ye, who was only eighteen years old, drank Liu Cong's poisonous wine and died.
3. Eastern Jin Dynasty - After Sima Rui ascended the throne, he intended to achieve his life goal of going north. He moved to the town to build Ye, set up the "Eastern Jin Dynasty", and with the help of the clan's cronies, he managed it with his heart.
Although he has great ambitions, but his ability is limited, he is an ideological giant, but he seems to be unable to do it in practice. He didn't know anyone, he reused Wang Dao, Wang Dun and others, but lacked a deep understanding of the importance of centralization, and pursued victory in the war too much.
Although he was aggressive, he failed to achieve his goal in the end, and was instead seized power by Wang Dao, and finally died of depression.
Sima Shao, the son of Sima Rui, showed extraordinary wisdom after succeeding to the throne. He witnessed first-hand the turmoil of the royal family from a young age, which gave him a deep understanding of the complexities and uncertainties of politics.
Learning from his father's failures, he quickly quelled the rebellion and learned the importance of restraining his ministers, successfully consolidating the power of the Sima family. Although his reign was short-lived, he succeeded in stabilizing the Eastern Jin Dynasty and allowing the people to live and work in peace and contentment.
However, there were unforeseen circumstances, and only a few years later, Sima Shao died of a serious illness at the age of twenty-seven.
The Sima family seems to have suffered a curse, and since Sima Xin, every emperor who has inherited the throne has died in a hurry. After Sima Shao's death, the young eldest son, Sima Yan, took over the throne, but he was too young to understand how to govern the country, so power fell into the hands of his mother.
However, Sima Yan faced a rebellion as soon as he succeeded to the throne, and he died shortly afterwards at the age of twenty-two.
After Sima Yan, Sima Yue took over the throne, but he failed to break this strange circle, and died after a short reign. Sima Dan and Sima Yue were equally inactive, and the two emperors died shortly after their re-election.
After Sima Dan's death, Sima Pi may have had a premonition of his fate, and spent his days in fear, ignoring politics, focusing only on finding a way to live a long life, indulging in alchemy and taking medicine.
Most of the ancient pills contained mercury sulfide, also known as mercury, which is a very toxic substance. As a result of long-term use, he walked to Huangquan Road at the age of twenty-four.
Sima Yi ascended the throne and became the seventh emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, after he held the position of general and did not know much about the affairs of the imperial court. His reign lasted only six years, during which time the power of the court remained in the hands of his relative, Huan Wen, and he was eventually deposed.
In order to stabilize the situation in the previous dynasty, Huan Wen was forced to appoint Sima Yu as emperor. Sima Yu had a strong personality and understood that he was just a pawn, so he died after a short reign.
After Sima Yu's death, Sima Yao ascended the throne, and he also became a pawn in Huan Wen's hands. However, Huan Wen was very old, and after his death, Sima Yao was able to achieve some military achievements, hoping to revive the glory of the Sima family.
However, although his ambition was great, he made a mistake because of wine, and he spent his days looking for pleasure, and finally died in the concubine's bed at the age of thirty-five.
Sima Dezong, the tenth emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, has few records in the history books. Compared to several other emperors, he was particularly inferior, and his basic cognitive abilities were quite lacking.
Growing up, he couldn't speak, was ignorant, and couldn't even distinguish the changes in the cold and heat. During his reign, the power of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was weakening, and Liu Yu found an opportunity to send someone to strangle him to death, and he died at the age of thirty-seven.
After Sima Dezong's death, his younger brother Sima Dewen ascended the throne as emperor and became a puppet under Liu Yu's control, and the Eastern Jin Dynasty also entered its final chapter. Liu Yu followed the example of Sima Zhao, the ancestor of Sima, and in just one year forced Sima Dezong to give him the throne, and Sima Dezong did not escape the fate of being killed.
In this way, after fifteen emperors, the Jin Dynasty finally fell into the hands of the Liu family, realizing a complete transition from Sima to Liu.
4. Conclusion The emperors of the Jin Dynasty changed frequently, starting from the founding emperor Sima Yan, none of the 14 emperors except him had outstanding talents. In the 155-year history, the average emperor reigned for only ten years, and soon passed away, and none of them escaped a short life.
Historically, the Jin Dynasty has been evaluated in an extremely negative manner, and it is rarely mentioned in textbooks, and even if there is, it is only a few words. It must be known that the Jin Dynasty established by the Sima family is the only country in Chinese history that was destroyed by foreign peoples, and the common feature of the emperors of all dynasties is that although they have their thrones, they have no power, live a luxurious and wasteful life, and cannot change the dark fate of the Jin Dynasty, which has led to many times, the country is divided, and it has only been more than a hundred years for the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Western Jin Dynasty.
As the first dynasty in Chinese history to lose power in the Central Plains, the Jin Dynasty had a far-reaching and wide-ranging influence. The Central Plains had long been the core ruling region of China, but the Jin Dynasty was reduced to establishing power in the region south of the Yangtze River, ceding the Central Plains to others.
The impact of this event was very significant, because both during the Spring and Autumn Period and after Qin Shi Huang unified China, the Central Plains was always firmly occupied, leaving the barbarians with little chance of invasion.
However, after the Jin Dynasty achieved great unification, it lost control of the Central Plains.
After the loss of the Central Plains, the five Hu tribes invaded, and the north fell into a bloody sea, and a large number of Han people were brutally killed, and humanity was lost. The Jin army was disheartened and unable to resist, Luoyang was captured, burning, killing and looting.
After Sima was poisoned, the Han and Zhao regimes controlled most of the Central Plains. In troubled times, famines, plagues, natural disasters, etc., led to the death of millions of people, and the race was almost extinct. The dynasty had no wise rulers, and the internal strife was serious, which damaged the vitality of the Chinese nation.
However, it is undeniable that the Jin Dynasty inherited the past and the future in history, ended the chaos of the Three Kingdoms period, promoted cultural exchanges, created conditions for the establishment of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and affected the development of the Tang and Song dynasties.
Governing the country is like guarding the country, not only the pride of fighting the country, but also the wisdom of guarding the country. To stabilize the political power and defend the country, the quality of the decisions made by those in power is of paramount importance.
Someone secretly kills relatives and friends out of jealousy; Some people completely eliminate meritorious heroes because they are afraid of high merit; There are attempts to control the mind, suppress the intellectuals, and implement the culture.
Do these practices really contribute to national development? The lessons of history tell us that only by learning from history and recognizing the importance of being prepared for danger in times of peace, and that those in power need to be open-minded, flexible in strategy, diligent in governance, and self-disciplined in life, can they truly benefit the prosperity of the country. "