China’s chaotic era between the fall of the Han Dynasty in the early 200s and the
rise of the Sui and Tang is widely known for the Three Kingdoms period. However, it wasn’t
the only period of strife during those deadly centuries of division. A generation after
the exploits of Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Ce, politics in the Wei Empire set events into
motion which would eventually lead to another series of devastating wars - the so-called
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After their establishment and solidification in the early third century with such battles
as Guandu and Red Cliffs, the three kingdoms of Shu, Wu and Wei gradually began an inexorable
decline. The kingdoms fought against each other and external foes, but the most damaging
was the internal strife and political corruption. The labyrinthine intrigues and maneuverings
were occurring in the Wei Kingdom, which was the most powerful of China’s three kingdoms
in the early 200s. By the third decade of the third century, tension was beginning to
mount between the Imperial Cao clan and the aristocratic Sima clan, which had been one
of the great land-owning noble families of the old Han Empire. In 249, Sima Yi - one
of Wei’s leading generals, statesmen and regent to the emperor, launched a coup against
his co-regent and gained control over the Wei. Sima influence continued to increase
over the puppet Cao emperors for a decade, with Yi passing away in 251 to be replaced
as regent by his eldest son Sima Shi. When he then suddenly died in 255, a younger brother
known as Sima Zhao took the position. In 260 the Wei emperor Cao Mao launched a counter-coup,
but this attempt was crushed and he was killed.
While another puppet emperor was installed in the aftermath, Zhao’s generals Deng Ai
and Zhong Hui conquered the Shu kingdom and, in 264 Zhao was granted the title ‘King
of Jin’. The regent passed away on September 6th 265 and was succeeded by his own eldest
son Sima Yan, who unceremoniously took the final steps to replace the Wei Dynasty with
his own, just as the Wei had essentially replaced the Han. The final Emperor of Wei - Cao Huan,
was forced to abdicate the throne in 266, to was succeeded by Yan himself, who was crowned
as Emperor of Jin, but would be best known as his posthumous title of Emperor Wu. Compared
to his predecessors in this turbulent age, the almost quarter-century long reign of Wu
was a stable and much needed one. However, it was a reign which seeded problems which
would in time topple his new Jin Dynasty. We need to go into differences in how the
different dynasties managed their imperial family members, and how this impacted the
future events. Han and Wei Emperors had mostly kept their relatives away from power, giving
them empty title and sending them away. This stopped the impudent relatives from challenging
authority, but also isolated emperors from their natural allies. This meant that if the
ruler was a child or was otherwise incapable of ruling, a power vacuum would open for an
outsider to fill. During Wei, this system had caused the vacuum which had allowed the
Sima to seize power and so Wu decided to extensively involve his family in running the empire.
27 of his male family members were given the title of ‘prince’ and appointed to rule
over provincial territories as nominal vassals and now they had actual authority over their
new lands. Wu gave them some say in appointments to their fiefs, the right to have a guard,
and permission to collect taxes and stay in the capital of Luoyang if they wanted. The
princes being in the capital and having influence there gave them influence over the imperial
throne, and therefore potentially immense political power over the state. The emperor
began to grant his princely relatives important commissions at court and even appointed them
to command armies in the field. Wu believed this policy of empowering his family members
would provide stability for his domain. There was also the succession to consider. Emperor
Wu had nine sons which survived to adulthood, the two most important were Sima Zhong - born
in 259 and Sima Jian in 262 to Empress Yang Yan. However, the empress died in 274 and
was replaced as the emperor’s consort by Yang Zhi - a daughter of an influential advisor
Yang Jun.
In order to stick with tradition Emperor Wu chose his eldest son - Sima Zhong, who was
probably developmentally disabled, a fact which was to have destructive consequences.
Imperial advisors worriedly counseled the emperor against this action, but Wu initially
ignored this advice, and prepared his son for the imperial throne by arranging his son’s
marriage to Jia Nanfeng, a member of a family which had played a key role in bringing the
Sima clan to power. Her reputation as a scheming, petty and ruthless woman is probably propaganda
and it’s more probable that Nanfeng was simply a formidable woman from an incredibly
important family, and because of this she managed to get away with murder. Nevertheless,
the emperor eventually began to express concern about Sima Zhong’s disabilities, and often
wrote to his son in order to test his responses. It was actually Nanfeng who responded in place
of her husband, impersonating the handicapped heir and impressing the emperor, who was now
reassured.
As Emperor Wu declined in health by 289, he began to consider who ought to act as regent
to his heir after he died, and eventually selected two men to act as co-regents. These
men were the aforementioned Yang Jun and one of the Sima princes Liang - the Prince of
Runan. However, this joint appointment only served to force each man to start plotting.
The Prince of Runan was due to leave the capital in order to take up his appointment as military
governor in Xuchang when the Emperor made his decision, and the ailing emperor sent
orders for him not to leave. Unfortunately, these orders never reached the prince, as
they were intercepted by Yang Ju, and he departed the city. Because of this, Sima Liang never
realised that he was to become the co-regent, and Yang Jun also tampered with the late Emperor’s
will to exclude him.
The founder of the Jin Dynasty died in 290 at the age of 55 and was succeeded by crown
prince Sima Zhong, who ascended to the dragon throne as Hui of Jin. However, tensions between
the two rivals still hadn’t abated, and Liang therefore refused to attend the mourning
ceremonies in fear of Yang Jun. Eventually, fearing for his life, the Prince of Runan
fled to Xuchang, leaving the control to Yang Jun. The regent and his daughter - the empress
dowager, now had a great influence on Emperor Hui and governed in a severe manner, alienating
the court. Naturally, Empress Jia wasn’t enthusiastic about her relatively powerless
state either and she began to conspire with others against Jun. The plotters first went
to Xuchang in order to ask Liang for assistance, but he was still too afraid and refused. After
this, they went to seek help from powerful Prince of Chun - Sima Wei. He was the fifth
son of Emperor Wu, viewed as a brave warrior. On April 5th 291, Wei was entered the capital
with his army.
The empress had her disabled husband firmly under control and she had him issue an edict
accusing Yang Jun of treason and ordered Sima Wei crushed regent’s forces with ease, Jun
was killed and his clan massacred, with the death toll reaching several thousand. Empress
was now the real rule and Sima Liang was summoned to Luoyang in order to serve as joint regent,
owing to his keen understanding of governance. This could’ve been the end of it, but the
Prince of Ruan began to alienate his fellow nobles by distributing overly extravagant
rewards for Yang Jun’s execution and even began to monopolise the power. He was warned
against this course of action, but ignored the counsel. Liang finally overstepped his
bounds when he tried to remove the Prince of Chu’s military authority, citing Wei’s
violent character. Wei subsequently allied with Empress Jia, who forged an imperial edict
accusing Liang of treason and soon Sima Jiang was execution.
It was now Sima Wei’s turn to become a target of the empress, who was worried that the prince
would use his power to usurp the throne. She commanded that a message be sent out to the
various armies nominally under Wei’s command, accusing him of forging the edict which had
led to Sima Liang’s execution, and warning them that they should no longer obey his orders.
The soldiers all immediately cast down their weapons and deserted the Prince of Chu. Wei
was captured, handed over and finally executed on July 26th 291. Jia’s manipulations had
worked wonders so far and the path to complete control was almost open, but there was a further
obstacle - Sima Yu, who was the son of Emperor Hui and a concubine. This would have been
bad enough, but Yu was also the heir of the empire due to the fact that Empress Jia had
been unable to bear a son.
In order to get Yu out of the way, Jia summoned him to the palace and then refused to see
him, instead having a servant girl bring the crown prince three liters of wine to drink.
Yu naturally declined this offer and stated that it would be impossible to drink all of
the given wine. The servant then revealed that this wine was a gift from Emperor Hui,
saying that refusing such a gift would be a breach of Confucian principles. With little
other choice, Yu forced himself to drink all of the wine, and predictably became incredibly
drunk as a result. The heir was then coerced into copying a treasonous letter in his own
words, essentially insinuating that he was about to overthrow his father and the court.
Because of his paralytic state, Yu did not realise what it was he was writing. In a somewhat
amusing revelation, it seems that he was so drunk that many of the letters were incomplete,
and empress Jia had to complete them herself before showing Emperor Hui the document. The
additions by Jia had made it rather obvious the letter was a forgery, but nobody dared
to speak out against. However, Emperor Hui refused to kill his son and instead had him
demoted to the status of commoner.
Another of the Eight Princes emerge at this point - Sima Lun, or the ‘Prince of Zhao’,
who had formerly been one of the empress’ close confidants and was also General of the
Right Army. The deposition of Crown Prince Yu engendered a significant amount of anger
at court and yet another conspiracy began to emerge around Sima Lun, who was advised
that the crown prince might despise him even if Lun assisted his return to imperial status.
So he suggested to the empress that Yu still posed a threat to her authority and might
even expose her if left alone. On his advice, the empress killed her stepson by sending
assassins after him. However, she was then finally betrayed in turn by the Prince of
Zhao, who accused her of treason and murder for the act. When agents were sent to arrest
the empress, she asked who was responsible. She was told, and responded that “When binding
a dog, you must bind it by the neck. If you bind it by the tail, what else could happen
but this?” She was eventually forced to kill herself. The Empress’ family and supporters
were all killed and the Emperor was even placed under house arrest. In 301, Sima Lun declared
himself the emperor, leading to an intermittent civil war among the remaining princes.
Because the Jin princes were busy ripping their own empire to pieces, they needed soldiers
to fight their wars, and turned to the many nomadic peoples of the eastern steppe to provide
the manpower in order to do so. According to the Chines sources, they were apparently
treated ‘like slaves’ by the Jin Dynasty and, because of this treatment, in addition
to the ever-decreasing Chinese strength due to civil war, the various nomadic peoples
began to revolt in the northern regions and form their own states, essentially splitting
the Jin’s northern territory away by 311. In the same year, the people known as the
Wu Hu managed to sack the Jin capital of Luoyang, kill the Jin crown price, a score of valuable
officials and around 30,000 civilians. This moment is seen as the final nail in the coffin
of the Greater Western Jin Dynasty, and the beginning of the Eastern Jin. In a wider sense,
the chaos in northern China led to mass migrations of Han Chinese south of the Huai River and
an era of fragmentation which lasted for almost another century.
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