The fate of the king of the fallen country is mostly terrible, either killed or humiliated, and few can end the curtain in a dignified way. However, there are exceptions to everything, such as the Han Xiandi Emperor Liu Xie and The Wei Yuan Emperor had a very good ending, not only surviving but also enjoying various preferential treatment, and the latter enjoyed more preferential treatment than the former. So, why did Emperor Yuan of Wei become a subjugated monarch? How did he end up?
Cao Huan,whose real name was Cao Huang (曹璜), was the grandson of Emperor Cao Cao of Wei and the son of Cao Yu the Prince of Yan, and was a cousin of the Wei Ming Emperor Cao Rui (曹叡), who was given the title of Duke of Changdaoxiang before his reign. Cao Huang originally did not have the opportunity to become emperor, and the reason why he was able to ascend to the throne was entirely due to the "death" of the Wei Emperor Cao Huan. In May of the fifth year of Ganlu (260), Cao Xian, dissatisfied with the arbitrariness of the powerful minister Sima Zhao, raised an army to fight, and was openly killed by the other side. Afterwards, Sima Zhao chose Cao Huang as emperor, made him an heir to Emperor Ming, and changed his name to Cao Huang.
Cao Huan was the king of the Wei Dynasty
Cao Huan sat on the emperor's throne for 5 years, and although nominally the Son of Heaven, he had no right to adjudicate on matters large and small inside and outside the imperial court, and was essentially just a puppet in the hands of Sima Zhao. However, unlike Cao Xian, who was flesh and bloody and reckless, Cao Huan saw the situation very thoroughly, and he knew very well that if he fought, he would eventually end up with a tragic death. Therefore, in order to save the leader, Cao Huan could only unconditionally cooperate with Sima Zhao's usurpation of the country, and there was nothing else to do.
Sima Zhao knew very well that although he had great power, after all, he was not in the right position and the people's hearts were not convinced, and if he did not establish a great feat, I was afraid that it would be difficult to sit firmly on the throne that he had seized. Therefore, in order to subdue the hearts of the people, Sima Zhao made a fuss about unifying the world and used this to enhance his own status. In the fourth year of Jing yuan (263), Sima Zhao sent Zhong Hui and Deng Ai to destroy shu Han, and early the next year, he forced Cao Yijin to make himself king of Jin. The situation has developed to this point, and even fools know that Sima Zhao will soon take the "ultimate step" and call himself the emperor and the founding of the country.
Sima Zhao attempted to usurp the throne, but died violently on the eve of proclaiming himself emperor
But what many people did not expect was that on the eve of Sima Zhao's usurpation of the throne, he suddenly fell seriously ill and died, and finally rubbed shoulders with the title of the founding prince. But although Sima Zhao died, the Sima family did what they should have done. On November 12, 265, only three months after Sima Zhao's death, Cao Yan was forced to "take the throne" to Sima Yan (Sima Zhao's eldest son), thus ending Cao Wei's 45-year state.
Although they all obtained the throne through the "Zen Dynasty", the Cao family actually seized the world with one sword and one gun, and before the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, they had actually become the "masters" of the Central Plains. Therefore, Cao Pi's replacement of Emperor Xian of Han did not have moral pressure, and it was a natural replacement between "national legal persons". However, the Sima family, through intrigue and a bloody coup d'état, stubbornly seized the Cao family's Jiangshan into their own hands, which obviously belonged to the improper position, and even if the people of the world did not dare to say it in their mouths, they were very unconvinced in their hearts.
Sima Yan declared himself empress dowager and treated Cao Huan with great preferential treatment
What's more, compared with Cao Pi, who was an all-rounder of literature and martial arts, Sima Yan was basically a clumsy disciple who coveted pleasure and had no great ambitions, so how could he make the people of the world support him and become the founding prince of the new dynasty? Fortunately, Sima Yan was self-aware and knew very well that his act of claiming the title of emperor was far from convincing the public, and unless he made a good job of treating Cao Yi well and letting the people of the world see the magnanimity of the new dynasty, he could not completely win the hearts of the people.
Therefore, the first thing Sima Yan did when he claimed the title of empress dowager was to demote Cao Huan to the title of King of Chen Liu, and at the same time treat him as a foreign monarch, and give him a series of preferential conditions, including: eating ten thousand households, using the Tianzi Banner, preparing a five-hour deputy car, walking in the Wei Dynasty Zhengshuo, the suburban worship of heaven and earth, and the system of ritual music were imitated by the Wei Dynasty system, and the petition was not called a subject, and the edict could not be worshipped, and so on.
After the abdication of Emperor Xian of Han, he enjoyed preferential treatment, but he was not as good as Cao Huan
Compared with the reality of living in the "third-tier" small city of Shanyang after the abdication of Emperor Xian of Han, Sima Yan also authorized Cao Yan to install the palace in the super-metropolis of Yicheng ("Emperor Fengwei as King Chen Liu, that is, Gong Yuyi." The gifts of honor are all imitations of the story of Wei Chu. See Zizhi Tongjian, vol. 79). It can be seen from this that in order to buy people's hearts, Sima Yan really made up enough "blood money". Because of this, among the kings of the fallen kingdoms, Cao Huan's status and treatment were undoubtedly the best.
After Cao Yi abdicated, he lived peacefully and carefreely in the feudal kingdom for 37 years, until the first year of the Jin Hui Emperor Tai'an (302) died, at the age of 58. After Cao Huan's death, Emperor Hui of Jin issued an edict to bury him and gave him the title of "Yuan", which later generations called Emperor Yuan of Wei ("Year 58, Emperor Yuan of Da'an, Emperor Yuan of Yuan.) See Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, Vol. 4, citing the Wei Shi genealogy).
Xiao Daocheng declared himself empress dowager, and issued an edict to abolish Chen Liuguo
After Cao Wan's death, the title of King Chen Liu was passed on by his heirs or clan relatives, and even after the Jin Dynasty moved south and the Southern Dynasty was established, it was still retained. It was not until Xiao Daocheng, a powerful minister of the Liu Song Dynasty, usurped the throne as emperor and established the Southern Qi regime (479) that he issued an edict to abolish Chen Liuguo, 214 years after the establishment of the Western Jin Dynasty. In other words, after the demise of the Wei Dynasty, it existed in the form of Chen Liuguo for more than 200 years, which is also a magical record.