The concept of an "orthodox" dynasty derives from Confucius's Spring and Autumn. After king Ping of Zhou moved east to Luoyi, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty was weakening day by day, from "ordering the world to be ordered by the world" in Western Zhou to "the tiger fell to Pingyang and was bullied by dogs", and King Huan of Tangtang Zhou was actually shot by Zheng Zhuanggong's army. But Confucius's attitude has always been "respectful of the Zhou", with the Zhou Dynasty as the orthodox.
What is orthodoxy? It is nothing more than having "legitimacy", or "justification". This involves an ancient concept of "name".
Strictly speaking, the word "orthodox" needs to be interpreted separately. In the Western Zhou Dynasty, the ancients had a concept, "The gentleman is in the right place, and the king is unified", which means that the gentleman values the "rightness" of the body and position, and the king values the unity of the world. For the king, both are equally important and indispensable. In short, the king wants to have a name that is universally recognized by the world, otherwise it is not orthodox.
Whether the Qin Dynasty, which replaced the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, was "orthodox" was disputed by later generations. Not to mention that after the Eastern Han Dynasty, from the Three Kingdoms to the Two Jin Dynasties, the world was divided for four hundred years, and the self-proclaimed emperors appeared in an endless stream. Exactly who is orthodox and who is "arrogant", there are many opinions, and there is no consensus.
Take the early period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, both the Northern Wei and Eastern Jin Dynasties claimed to be the orthodox dynasty, and the other side did not have legitimacy. Later generations of historians also insisted on this. According to the Spring and Autumn Period, the Western Jin Dynasty is orthodox, but neither the Northern Wei Nor the Eastern Jin Dynasty is orthodox.
The Eastern Jin Dynasty was inherited from the Western Jin Dynasty, so why was the Western Jin Dynasty orthodox and the Eastern Jin Dynasty not? There are two main reasons.
I. The question of imperial succession
First of all, we must start with the Western Jin Dynasty. Some people say that the Western Jin Dynasty usurped cao Wei's power, why is it orthodox?
If we look at the context of imperial power inheritance, the world of the Western Jin Dynasty was taken from Cao Wei, while Cao Wei was taken from the Eastern Han Dynasty, Han was taken from Qin, and Qin was taken from Zhou. Since both Han dynasties were orthodox, Cao Wei forced Emperor Xian of Han to "Zen Concession" and obtained the most "righteous" imperial power. Although Cao Wei failed to unify the world, the Western Jin Dynasty did.
Since the Qin Dynasty replaced the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the change of imperial power has lost the "great justice and great righteousness" advocated by the Spring and Autumn Period, and has always been rotated by strong means or skillfully, and has been passed down to the Western Jin Dynasty. Therefore, although the Western Jin Dynasty was short-lived, its orthodox status was generally recognized. Of course, during the Cao Wei and Western Jin Dynasties, it was inevitable that many dignified scholars opposed their orthodox status. Just as the Zhou Dynasty replaced the Shang Dynasty, Bo Yi and Shu Qi would rather starve to death than recognize the legitimacy of the Zhou Dynasty. This is a different matter.
The national fortunes of the Western Jin Dynasty lasted only fifty years, and there were four emperors. The third emperor, Sima Chi, and the fourth emperor, Sima Yi, both died in the catastrophe of the "Wuhu Chaohua". Sima Chi was the son of Sima Yan, and after his death, Sima Yi, the Emperor of Jin, who was enthroned in Chang'an, was his nephew and not the status of crown prince. However, in that kind of precarious war, the Establishment of the Jin Emperor was beyond reproach.
The Eastern Jin Dynasty was different. After the Southern Crossing of the Jin Dynasty, the famous clan led by the Langya Wang clan supported Sima Yan's nephew Sima Rui as emperor. However, Sima Rui, the Emperor of Jin Yuan, was clearly not the designated heir of the Western Jin Dynasty. Although the name of the Eastern Jin Dynasty remained unchanged, it was nothing more than a regime established after the compromise between the powerful forces in Jiangnan and the northern forces in Nandu.
Moreover, the emperors of the Eastern Jin Dynasty were suppressed by the powerful ministers from beginning to end, which can be called the weakest dynasty. The Eastern Jin Dynasty not only could not unify the world, but also had no intention of the Northern Expedition, but only shouted slogans or made a show, until the rise of Liu Yu, a generation of male lords of the Southern Song Dynasty, really decided to go north. Therefore, the Eastern Jin Dynasty was neither "righteous" nor "unified."
Some people say that the Ping King moved east, and the Eastern Zhou Dynasty was still orthodox, so why was the Jin Dynasty moving south not orthodox? This question is easy to answer.
King Ping of Zhou was the legal heir of Western Zhou, and when he moved the capital to Luoyang, he was still the identity of Zhou Tianzi, and the princely states under the heavens also recognized the status of Zhou Tianzi. In addition to Zheng Zhuanggong taking the lead in challenging the authority of the Zhou royal family, the Spring and Autumn overlords Qi Huangong and Jin Wengong and others pursued the principle of "honoring the king and maintaining the stability of the world". The eastern Zhou Dynasty was decades into extinction and was replaced by the unified Qin Dynasty, which was an inevitable trend of historical development.
The Jin Yuan Emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty did not have the identity of a legitimate heir, and we have already said that there is no need to repeat it. There is also a geographical factor, which is also the reason why the Eastern Jin Dynasty cannot be called "orthodox".
Second, the issue of the establishment of the Eastern Jin Dynasty in Jiangnan
Here is also a comparison with the eastward migration of the King of Zhou Ping. At that time, the capital of the Western Zhou Dynasty was Hojing, located in Xi'an, Shaanxi. As early as the time of King Cheng of Zhou, the Duke of Zhou built Luoyi. The Zhou Dynasty divided the princes of the world, and the royal family itself also enjoyed the territory of "Bangqi Qianli". Luoyi was originally a companion capital, still in the Zhou royal family's own territory. Therefore, although King Ping moved east to avoid war, the people moved the capital within the royal territory.
The Eastern Jin Dynasty was established in Jiankang (Nanjing), thousands of miles away from Luoyang, after the complete fall of the Western Jin Dynasty. Of course, this was different from the nature of the peaceful king's eastward migration, and at first even the powerful forces in Jiangnan did not recognize the newborn Eastern Jin Dynasty. Strictly speaking, there was no essential difference between the eastern Jin dynasty and the separatist regimes in the north, and no one could say that it was an orthodox dynasty.
So who is the next orthodox dynasty? Of course, it was the Great Sui Dynasty that ended the confrontation between the North and the South.
However, from the perspective of the Central Plains culture, people generally prefer the Eastern Jin Dynasty, after all, it continues the fire of the Central Plains culture. Therefore, in the "Zizhi Tongjian" edited by Sima Guang, after the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty, the era of the Eastern Jin Dynasty is still used. As for the question of the Yuan dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, the situation is different and is not within the scope of this article.
Finally, this is just the author's words, if you do not agree with the views of this article, I hope Haihan.
Reference: Book of Jin