After the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the former Han Dynasty split into three regimes, which are known as the Three Kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu, from the twenty-fifth year of Jian'an (220), Cao Pi replaced the Han Dynasty to establish the State of Wei to the sixth year of Xianning in the Western Jin Dynasty (280), and the Western Jin Dynasty destroyed Eastern Wu. For a total of 60 years, the three countries attacked each other and alternately fought each other.
Until the Sima family gained power, through the management of Sima Yi, Sima Shi, and Sima Zhao, three generations of Sima family rulers, the Sima family gradually controlled the Cao Wei regime. During Sima Zhao's reign, Cao Wei eliminated the Shu Han regime, and the Three Kingdoms era began to come to an end. When his son Sima Yan became the King of Jin (Sima Jia was knighted), the Sima family officially replaced Cao Wei and established the Western Jin Dynasty. And 14 years later (279), the Western Jin Dynasty launched a war to destroy Wu, ending a 60-year-long scuffle.
However, such a powerful Western Jin Dynasty went from strong to chaotic and eventually to its demise in just 36 years after unifying the country. This dramatic transformation can't help but make us question,
Why ended the Western Jin Dynasty in the Three Kingdoms Scuffle. Will it perish in just 36 years?
The author believes that there are two reasons for this:
On the one hand, there were problems with the Western Jin Dynasty's own system at the beginning of its establishment, which laid hidden dangers for the dynasty to move toward chaos.
Due to the implementation of the Nine Pins Zhongzheng system in Wei and Jin, the power of the clan gradually grew, especially in various places, its influence and status even exceeded that of the central emperor, and the reason why the Sima family was able to replace Cao Wei was closely related to this system and situation.
After replacing Cao Wei, The Emperor Sima Yan of the Jin Dynasty, in order to avoid the imitation of other clans and powerful subjects, he wantonly divided up his clan disciples and let them go to various places as kings as a force to maintain the imperial family at the local level. In addition, the occupation system and the shading system were implemented to limit the land area and number of the clan and the number of diners they could have, so as to limit the power of the clan.
However, after reunification, Sima Yan reigned for only ten years, and the policy did not play a great role. Coupled with Sima Yan's previous wanton division of the clan, it caused the growth of the imperial family's power and became another local separatist force. After the death of Sima Yan, the emperor of the Jin Dynasty, the local imperial power soon set off the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, and the Jin Dynasty turned from prosperity to decline.
On the other hand, since the Eastern Han Dynasty, a large number of ethnic minorities in the north have moved south to the Central Plains, becoming another separatist force, laying the groundwork for the later Wuhu Chaohua.
Since the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the imperial court has often instigated or coerced the nomadic peoples in the north to move inland. The aim is to facilitate the monitoring of the various ethnic groups and to increase the number of soldiers and the labour force. During the Wei and Jin dynasties, no effort was spared to move the Xiongnu, Xian, Qiang, Xianbei and other ethnic minorities inland, so that later, the number of people who moved in was similar to that of the Jin people in the Guanzhong area, forming a very threatening separatist force.
During the reign of Emperor Hui of Jin, the Rebellion of Qi Wannian broke out. During the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, taking advantage of the opportunity of the Sima family's clans to attack each other, the Xiongnu Liu Yuan's army, which had originally submitted to the Jin Dynasty, divided the Han dynasty and established the Han state. Ethnic minority leaders in the eastern Hebei region, such as Shi Le and Wang Mi, also rebelled against the Jin Dynasty, and declared themselves dependent on the Han State and granted official positions to the Han Dynasty, making the Han State a military force that seriously threatened the rule of the Jin Dynasty.
In the fifth year of Yongjia (311), after Liu Yuan's son Liu Cong succeeded to the throne, he sent the general Hu Yanyan to lead an army to attack Luoyang, destroying The Decay along the way, and in June, Wang Mi and Liu Yao, who had come to reinforcements, met and attacked luoyang, the capital of the Jin state, and captured The Jin Huai Emperor, who was planning to leave Chang'an in the west, burned and plundered the Luoyang Palace, and returned to the dynasty with Yuxi and some Jin dynasty ministers. This is what the history books call the "Yongjia Rebellion." Soon after this, the Western Jin Dynasty went to extinction.
Therefore, the Western Jin Dynasty, which was once powerful, was actually under the combined effect of the internal clan strife and the rebellion of the ethnic minorities who migrated south, and quickly moved from strong to chaotic, and finally to extinction.