Since the great chaos in the world at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the land of China has fallen into a state of warlord division and continuous war. It was not until Sima Shi usurped Wei, established the Jin state and unified the north and south that the world ushered in peace. But peace was short-lived. Due to the mistake of Sima Zheng, the Emperor of Jinwu, for the future events, after his death, the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" for power immediately broke out within the imperial court. The rebellion of the Eight Kings was endlessly poisonous, resulting in a sharp decline in the population of the Jin State, an emptiness in national strength, and the displacement of the people, and the surrounding ethnic minorities took advantage of the opportunity to rebel, slaughter the Han military and civilians, and establish a separatist regime. The northern warriors took refuge in the south. There were also some people of the Shi clan who took refuge in Xiliang and Liaodong. China thus entered a period of more than 100 years of chaos between the Sixteen Kingdoms. However, not all of China was in chaos during the Sixteen Kingdoms period. The small imperial court of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which occupies half of the country and is partial to the southeast, was in a relatively stable state for a long time, and even if there was a calamity, the local armed forces of the Eastern Jin Dynasty could be quickly pacified. This has a lot to do with Jiangnan's special door valve politics. What I want to talk about today is the representative Zhou clan of jiangdong, which has quelled the beginning and end of the jiangdong rebellion three times.
Since the end of the Han Dynasty, Jiangnan has gradually formed a political pattern in which the local Hao clan holds real power on one side. These local Hao clans form door valves as a family unit, they occupy a large area of good land, and many farmers gather around them, ranging from a few thousand to tens of thousands. These gate valves have their own family armed forces and their own administrative system, as if they were the state of China. When Sun Ce first divided Jiangdong, he received great assistance from the Jiangdong Gate Valve. In return, Zhang Zhao, the ruler of Jiangdong Gate, and others held high positions in the Eastern Wu regime. Even Sun Ce and Sun Quan, who are the masters of the people, must also look at the face of the door valve when making decisions. Later, the Jin State launched the Pingwu War, which lasted nearly a year, the Wu lord Sun Hao surrendered, and Eastern Wu came under the jurisdiction of the Jin State, but in fact, the special door valve politics at the grass-roots level of Eastern Wu did not change much. For the Jiangnan Gate Valve, the Eastern Jin Dynasty court was only a nominal administrator. Later, the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" broke out in the Jin Dynasty. Sima Rui went to Jianye to avoid trouble. It is reasonable to say that Sima Rui, as a member of the royal family, deserves to be treated with courtesy. However, the Hao clan in Jiangnan did not take Sima Rui seriously. After half a year, Sima Rui used a strategy to convince the clan that he was the future agent of imperial power in the south. Sima Rui was gradually embraced to a high position.
Sima Rui arrived in Jianye in 307 AD. When he first arrived in Jianye, Sima Rui had heard of two such things, the first of which occurred four years ago, in 303, when Zhang Chang, a Jin general between Jiang and Han, revolted in an attempt to take advantage of the chaos in the central government and establish himself as king of Jiangdong. Marshal Shi Bing of the rebel army led his troops to attack the east and occupied Jiang and Yang Prefectures. Zhou Xuan, a large landowner of the Yixing clan (present-day Yixing, Jiangsu), joined forces with the landlords and cooperated with the local Jin army to defeat Shi Bing. The second incident occurred two years ago, in 305, when the Generals of the Jin Dynasty tried to divide Jiangdong and dominate one side. This time it was the right general Chen Min, who quickly sent troops to occupy the land of Wuyue. Although the Western Jin Dynasty court sent troops to fight, the kings of the Sima clan were busy with the melee, and the crusade against Chen Min was only a formality. This time, it was Zhou Xuan, a large clan of the family, who came forward, and the other door valve armed forces jointly sent troops to quickly attack Chen Min. After destroying Chen Min, each door valve withdrew its troops separately, neither asking for credit nor competing for merit with each other, as if chen min's rebellion was not taken seriously at all, which showed the strength of the door valve. If these two things did not allow Sima Rui to experience the energy of the Jiangdong Gate Valve, then another thing that happened three years after he arrived in Jiangdong made Sima Rui deeply uneasy.
In 310, the Jin general Qian Xuan was ordered to aid Luoyang in the north, and marched to Guangling (廣陵, in present-day Yangzhou, Jiangsu) for fear of the enemy and did not dare to advance, so he simply killed the officials sent by the Jin Dynasty, claiming to be the general of Pingxi and the governor of eight prefectures, and led his troops to attack Yixing in the south, planning to divide Jiangnan. This time it was Zhou Xuan again, who entangled the landlords' armed forces and negotiated with the Jin general Guo Yi to pacify Qian Xuan. So far, the Zhou family has pacified Jiangnan three times in succession. Sima Rui saw the strength of the gate valve with his own eyes, so he felt suspicious and afraid, so he did not dare to reuse Zhou Xuan and other local Hao clans.
On the other hand, Zhou Xuan realized that he could not get Sima Rui's trust, and he was very angry that he had made great contributions to Wu but had not been entrusted with heavy responsibilities, so he planned to join forces with another large clan, Wang Hui, to launch a mutiny. As a result, the news leaked, and Zhou Xuan flinched, and in order to protect himself, he killed Wang Hui. If Zhou Xuan had made a desperate attempt to raise an army, perhaps it would have really scared Sima Rui. But Zhou Xuan killed Wang Hui and let Sima Rui see through his psychological bottom line. Sima Rui was sure that Zhou Xuan would not dare to openly rebel, so he boldly teased Zhou Xuan.
Sima Rui pretended not to know that Zhou Xuan had killed Wang Hui, and ordered zhou xuan to be recruited into Jiankang (Emperor Huan called the empress dowager renamed jianye to avoid it), and appointed Sima Zhendong, and halfway through, he was also given the title of jianwu general and nanjun taishou .) When Zhou Xuan arrived at Wuhu, Sima Ruifu ordered him to return to Jiankang and serve as a military priest. Zhou Xuan finally understood that Sima Rui was deliberately teasing him, and died of grief. Before dying, he told his son Zhou Xun that he had been killed by a powerful northerner and demanded that Zhou Xun avenge him. In this way, the patriarch of the family who had quelled half of the Chinese rebellion three times was actually angry to death because he was teased by Sima Rui.