In 249, Sima Yi, the 70-year-old Cao Wei taifu, suddenly launched the Gaopingling Rebellion, killed Cao Shuang's party, and usurped state politics. In fact, this earth-shattering coup was already laid down 11 years ago.
Sima Yi was born in the Sima clan of Hanoi, and since childhood he was full of economics and had a superior strategy of kingship. Sima Yi knew that Cao Cao was suspicious, so he closed the door in the name of recuperation. In order to get Sima Yi out of the army, Cao Cao directly forced him to be taken into prison, and finally succeeded in forcing Sima Yi to become his own literary master.
At Cao Cao's side, although Sima Yi worked conscientiously and conscientiously every day, he still showed his disobedience from time to time. According to historical records:
"Emperor Wei Wucha had great ambitions, smelled of wolves, and wanted to test them. He summons the messenger forward, and makes him look back, facing backwards and not moving. And he tasted the dream of three horses eating the same trough, very evil. Because the prince Pi said: "Sima Yi is not a human subject, but will predict ru family affairs."
The simple translation is that Cao Cao perceived that Sima Yi had the ambition of Haojie and the appearance of a wolf. Once, Sima Yi reported to Cao Cao that he had finished his work, and when he was finished, he turned and left. On a whim, Cao Cao called out to Sima Yi. When Sima Yi heard this, he quickly turned his head and looked back, but his body was still forward, and indeed he was like a wolf.
In terms of appearance, the wolf's appearance represents fierceness, cunning and ambition, as stated in the "Great Endowment of Humanity":
"The wolf caretaker is said to turn around and not turn around, is cruel, and always has the heart to kill people and harm things."
The ancients all paid attention to their faces, and seeing Sima Yi's fierce face, Cao Cao felt very uneasy, and that night he also had a dream of "three horses (Sima Yi, Sima Shi, Sima Zhao) food trough (Cao)". So the next day, Cao Cao warned Cao Pi, "Sima Yi is by no means a human subject, and will inevitably interfere in your family affairs."
However, Cao Cao would never kill Sima Yi because of his face. On the one hand, the world has not yet been unified, and Sima Yi's talent is indispensable; on the other hand, Sima Yi was born in a high gate, and he recognized his heirs with Xun Yu and Chen Qun, not only for the enemy, but also for his own soldiers. After the End of the Battle of Liaodong, the time has entered the middle of winter. As we all know, the winter in Liaoning is extremely cold. The soldiers froze to death, so they asked Sima Yi for cotton jackets. All the generals believed: "Emperor Wei Ming gave us a warehouse of winter clothes, which can be distributed to the soldiers. However, Sima Yi said coldly:
"The officials and goods of the people, the people and the subjects selflessly give."
That is to say, the cotton jacket is the property of the official family, how can a person who is a subject give it to the soldiers privately? As the main general in the front, Sima Yi originally had exclusive rights over these cotton jackets, and the reason why the emperor sent these cotton jackets was to distribute them to the soldiers. The reason why Sima Yi does not distinguish between cotton jackets is actually a kind of self-defilement technique and a technique of obscurity.
In the court of Cao Wei at that time, Sima Yi had the greatest merit and the highest prestige, and now the pacification of Liaodong was unmatched. Emperor Wei Ming was a highly suspicious monarch. Sima Yi held the military power, and he naturally did not want to see him use official property to privately marry the army. Therefore, Sima Yi preferred to bear the insult of abusing the soldiers, but also to prove his loyalty to the king. Sima Yi's slaughter of the city in Liaodong actually showed the imperial court that he had no ambitions.
By the time Sima Yi withdrew, Emperor Ming of Wei was terminally ill. As a result, Emperor Ming of Wei summoned Sima Yi to Luoyang. In front of his sickbed, Emperor Wei Ming, with tears in his eyes, entrusted the 8-year-old prince to Sima Yi, and even asked the prince to hold Sima Yi's neck.
Obviously, in the heart of Emperor Wei Ming, Sima Yizhen was regarded as a pure vassal of Zhuge Liang, worthy of his national trust. Sima Yi's step-by-step battalion eventually conquered the Lord of Xiongchai. At that time, people were also deceived like Emperor Ming of Wei, and even referred to Sima Yi and Zhuge Liang as "two phases". In fact, if Sima Yi had died before the gaopingling change, it was really possible to become a well-known and loyal vassal who was not inferior to Zhuge Liang.
But unlike Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi's loyalty was all pretended. In 249, 11 years after the End of the Battle of Liaodong, Sima Yi, the "Great Loyal Minister", with the support of Jiang Ji and other old ministers, launched the Gaopingling Rebellion against the general Cao Shuang, and finally usurped the supreme state.
At this time, Sima Yi finally removed all his disguises and revealed his sharp fangs. In the pool of blood of Cao Shuang and others, Jiang Ji and others were surprised to find that Sima Yi's initiation of the Gaopingling Rebellion was not to rectify the country and kill the national thieves, but to usurp Cao's power and realize his ambitions.
Sima Yi played the role of a loyal subject for decades, and Taoguang cultivated obscurity for decades, and finally succeeded in deceiving everyone, and his viciousness and insidiousness can be described as unparalleled in the world. As Chen Yinke pointed out: "Sima Yi's stoicism and viciousness are far beyond the incompetence of the Confucians at the end of the Han Dynasty. And his descendant, Emperor Ming of Jin, after hearing Sima Yi's deeds, even threw himself on the bed in tears: "Now that it is vicious, it is no wonder that the state of jin is not long!" ”