Sima Yi had many sons, but he personally cultivated and focused on cultivating as the head of the family, in fact, there was only one person, that is, Sima Shi, and Sima Zhao was not among them. For example, before the gaopingling change, Sima Yi secretly let Sima Shiyin store dead soldiers to prepare for the coup, which Sima Zhao did not know.
When Sima Shi was young, he was also like Xiahou Xuan and Zhuge Shi, who were all famous scholars at that time. Therefore, early on, under the personal care of Sima Yi, he entered the army as the heir of the family, and they were all Qingxian and beautiful officials, and there were not many things, but they were very famous. This was the normal operation of the family clan at that time, and each large family would focus on cultivating one person as the successor.
However, Sima Yi was not the successor of his father Sima Fang's key training, Sima Fang's early key training object was Sima Yi's eldest brother Sima Lang, Sima Fang recommended Cao Cao in his early years, Cao Cao later repaid Li with peach, and recommended Sima Lang, so Sima Lang entered the Han Dynasty very early. Sima Yi was different, sima Yi was a person of Cao Cao's conquest, and from the beginning he was a subordinate of Cao Cao's Xiangfu.
It's just that Sima Lang died relatively early, so Sima Yi inherited the power of the Sima family, of course, can not help but admit that compared with Sima Lang, Sima Yi's ability and comprehensive quality are much higher, Sima Lang is more like a Confucian scholar cultivated in a traditional way by a family clan at the end of the Han Dynasty, this kind of person is of course not as popular as Sima Yi in the era from the end of the Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms.
Sima Shi was the eldest son of Sima Yi, so he was established as the head of the family for a long time to focus on training. For example, his marriage is a typical political marriage, which fully serves the needs of the family's political interests, and he married Xiahou Xuan's sister earlier, who was related to Cao Wei's peripheral clan, and later Xiahou Hui's death was also because she discovered that the Sima family was engaged in a big conspiracy, so she was killed.
Sima Yi's status rose rapidly during the Cao Pi period, and by the time of Cao Rui, he had become an important minister that the imperial court was uneasy about but could not use, and eventually became Cao Rui's dying chancellor with Cao Shuang. During the period of Cao Shuang's dictatorship, although Sima Yi was suppressed, every concession made by Sima Yi was a political transaction with requirements, and this kind of transaction was basically based on Sima Shi's position as the main asking price.
For example, Xiahou Xuan was originally in charge of the selection of military talents, and later Cao Shuang sent Xiahou Xuan as a general of Zhenxi, and it was Sima Shi who replaced Xiahou Xuan. Because Sima Yi at this time was the representative of The Elder Cao Wei, his advance and retreat were related to the political interests of the entire Elder Clique. Cao Shuang's approach was to give Sima Yi personal benefits politically and to cut him off from the elder clique.
Therefore, for Sima Zhao, during Sima Yi's lifetime, Sima Shi's position was very stable, and Sima Zhao had no capital at all to compete with Sima Shi. On the contrary, the period when Sima Zhao's status rose relatively quickly was during the reign of Sima Shi. The reason why Sima Shi reused Sima Zhao was also very simple, because he himself had no biological son, only a successor son, Sima You, who was still Sima Zhao's son.
Even by the time of Sima Shi's death, Sima Zhao had not yet been recognized as the heir of the Sima family, which was why some people at that time advocated that Sima Yi's younger brother Sima Fu or Sima Shi's heir son Sima You should inherit Sima Shi's position. It was only because Sima Fu was already relatively old at that time and Sima You was too young that he temporarily pushed Sima Zhao up.
Therefore, Sima Zhao would later openly tell people that the world belonged to Sima Shi, and that he was only temporarily in charge, and that he would return it to Sima Shi in the future, that is, to let Sima You succeed to the throne. Of course, this was just talk, and later Sima Zhao did not choose Sima You as his heir, but chose his eldest son Sima Yan, who was later Emperor Wu of Jin.