01
Before Wang Xianzhi died, people around him asked him: Do you have regrets?
Wang Xianzhi answered: There is nothing else, the only regret is to divorce his cousin Xi Daomao.
Why did Wang Xianzhi marry his cousin, why did he divorce after marriage, and why did he regret it after divorce?
This matter has to start with the long way.
▲ Tang Yin's "Wang Xianzhi Xiu Xi Daomao Remarries Princess Xin'an", now in the Walters Museum of Art, USA
02
After the Jin dynasty was crowned south, Sima Rui declared himself emperor in Jianye and established the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and Sima Rui was the Jin Yuan Emperor.
Sima Rui came from the north, had no roots in Jiangnan, and lacked strength, so he could only rely on the family clan, especially the Langya Wang clan headed by Wang Dao and Wang Dun's brothers.
The Wang Dao brothers did indeed live up to their expectations, and with their help, Sima Rui gradually took root in the south. But the price paid by Sima Rui was also huge, and the power of the Wang Dao brothers also swelled dramatically, and their strength even surpassed that of the Sima family.
The world calls it: King and horse share the world.
At that time, Wang Dun supported troops outside, Wang Dao dominated the imperial government, one inside and one outside, Sima Rui was basically in a state of being erected.
Sima Rui naturally would not sit still, and cultivating his own power became the only option. He used Liu Kui, Diao Xie, Dai Yuan and others as henchmen, intending to resist Wang Dun.
Wang Dun, the governor of Jingjiangguang and other six states of the military, the army is strong and strong, directly in the name of "the side of the Qing monarch", sent troops to build health, all the way like a broken bamboo. The final result was that those around Sima Rui who opposed Wang Dun were either killed or fled, Sima Rui was placed under house arrest in disguise, Wang Dun was in charge of the dynasty, and Qian Gang was arbitrary.
Wang Dun set a precedent that after the Eastern Jin Dynasty, most of the military commanders who held real power in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River would go down the river and march to the capital.
After Wang Dun took office, he planned to change the dynasty.
Director Wang acquiesced to Wang Dun's attack on the capital, which is why Director Wang said: Although I did not kill Boren, Boren died because of me. But Wang Dun wants to stand on his own, and Director Wang will never agree.
Why Director Wang did not agree to Wang Dun's change of dynasty was only clear to him. I think there are no more than two reasons: one is that Director Wang considers himself a famous man, and he is unwilling to bear the eternal infamy of conspiracy; The second is that he is under one person, above ten thousand people, Wang Dun became the emperor, and he still maintains his current status at most, and may even be inferior to now. So why take that risk?
The newly succeeded Emperor Ming of Jin learned of Wang Dun's plan and immediately made arrangements, with Wang Dao as the commander-in-chief, to resist Wang Dun. Among them, there is one person who has been put in an important position, that is, Xi Jian. Emperor Ming of Jin took Xi Jian as a general and commanded the subordinate army.
▲ The king and the horse share the world
03
During the second attack on Jiankang, Wang Dun was already seriously ill. If he is unharmed and personally leads the troops, I believe that those Qin King's troops will not be able to make a few moves here. But Wang Dun not only fell ill, but also died, and his rebellion was naturally quickly put down.
Xi Jian was richly rewarded for his merits in countering the rebellion, entered the decision-making level of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and became one of the figures who influenced the situation.
At this time, the situation changed significantly, the young Emperor Jin Ming died, and the 5-year-old Emperor Jin Cheng ascended the throne. The emperor was too young, and the empress dowager Yu Wenjun was in charge of the government. Although Emperor Jin Ming arranged a group of people (Sima Yi, Wang Dao, Bian Tang, Xi Jian, Yu Liang, Lu Ye, Wen Jiao) to assist the little emperor before his death, it was Wang Dao and Yu Liang who really assisted him.
The woman of the Yu family is the empress, which is nothing for the Wang family, and in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Wang family produced 8 empresses. But at this time, it was different, the empress became the empress dowager, and what was worse was that she also obeyed the government and held real power.
Yu Liang is the elder brother of the Empress Dowager and the uncle of the Little Emperor, which is why he is able to be on an equal footing with Wang Dao.
One mountain does not allow two tigers, and the contradiction between Yu Liang and Wang Dao gradually became more and more intense.
But at this time, something happened again, and Su Jun rebelled.
When the Jin Dynasty crossed south, many displaced people also followed south, and they were stationed between Jianghuai and Huai, forming an important force, and Su Jun was an important leader of them. During the Wang Dun Rebellion, the imperial court summoned Su Jun to calm the chaos, and Su Jun came in response to the order.
After the success of the counterinsurgency, these teams of displaced people were a huge hidden danger in the eyes of the imperial court, and Yu Liang adopted one of the most commonly used methods: ascending and secretly surrendering, transferring Su Jun to the central government as an official, and relieving him of his military power.
Su Jun said a very famous sentence: I would rather see the court on the top of the mountain than look at the mountain in the court (I would rather look at the head of the mountain and look at the captain of the court, I can't look at the head of the mountain), so I led the army to rebel.
Su Jun's rebellion was successful, taking the capital and controlling Emperor Cheng of Jin. The Eastern Jin Dynasty has rebelled and it is not too difficult to take the capital, which also shows the weakness of the strength of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. When Su Jun won a great military victory, there was a dramatic scene, he wanted to show his personal martial arts, and after drinking, only a few retinues rushed into the enemy position and was killed.
▲Map of the late Eastern Jin Dynasty (Jiankang because of its geographical location, the country often suffered from military pressure from the local magistrates of Jingzhou, and Xuzhou north of Jiankang is also very important)
04
Su Jun's defeat was Yu Liang's victory, and it also further strengthened his authority, and by this time, Yu Liang was going to wrestle with Wang Dao.
Since the founding of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there have been three emperors, and this is the first time that someone has issued a real challenge to the Langya Wang clan.
Director Wang will not sit still, he needs foreign aid, and the person who can rely on it now is Xi Jian. Wang Dao was in power at the central government and had power, but he needed strong military supporters, which was missing after Wang Dun's death.
Xi Jian was actually the commander of the displaced people, and he also contributed to the imperial court in the Wang Dun Rebellion and Su Jun Rebellion. Since Yu Liang was wary of the displaced people, then Director Wang naturally had to make good use of it. When Xi Jian went to serve in Jingkou, Director Wang did not go to the upper dynasty, but went to see Xi Jian off.
Xi Jian became a strong supporter of Wang Dao, and later, Tao Kan, a powerful figure in Jingzhou, wanted to abolish Wang Dao, and Yu Liang wanted to get rid of Wang Dao, both sought Xi Jian's support, and Xi Jian should not do anything.
Xi Jian's support was rewarded, and he wrote to Wang Dao that he had a daughter and asked to marry the Wang family.
At the beginning, Han Xin wrote to Liu Bang, wanting to be the acting king of Qi, and Liu Bang replied: remove the word "dai" and directly become the king of Qi. For the object that he must rely on, he is not afraid that he has requirements, and most afraid that he has no requirements. And when the other party asks, what is given must greatly exceed his expectations.
Director Wang was naturally well versed in this way, and replied to Xi Jian: "Our children of the Wang family, you can choose at will.
Since the founding of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Xi Jian was the first person who dared to arbitrarily choose a son-in-law among the Langyue Wang clan. This is actually a sign of the decline of Wang's power.
As we all know, the Eastern Jin Dynasty is a gatekeeper politics, and the family family is the real decision-maker. To enter this circle, intermarriage is the most important sign. Xi and Wang intermarried, making the Xi family a family family, and Wang Dun had military foreign aid, which was also mutually beneficial.
Xi Jian had a good eye and chose a young man named Wang Xizhi to become his son-in-law of the East Bed (this idiom comes from this matter).
▲Wang Xianzhi's calligraphy "Dihuang Soup Sticker", collection of the Taito Ward Calligraphy Museum, Tokyo, Japan
05
Speaking of which, we can let the protagonist of this article, Wang Xianzhi, appear.
Xi and Wang intermarried, naturally there will not be only one marriage, Wang Xizhi's son Wang Xian came to marry Xi Daomao of the Xi family. Wang Xizhi's wife is Xi Daomao's aunt, so Xi Daomao is Wang Xianzhi's cousin.
The relationship between Wang Xianzhi and Xi Daomao after marriage is good, otherwise Wang Xianzhi would not have forgotten it until death. The two had a daughter, but unfortunately died.
The glory of the Xi family only lasted for two generations, at this time, Xi Jian had long died, Xi Jian's son Xi Tan, and the Xi family began to fall.
However, the marriage between the two only lasted for a short time, because Princess Xin'an insisted on marrying Wang Xianzhi, Wang Xianzhi had to divorce Xi Daomao and marry Princess Xin'an.
Wang Xianzhi's marriage to Xi Daomao was essentially a political marriage, and when the political pattern changed, their marriage became a victim. Here, it is not a question of whether Wang Xianzhi wants to divorce or not, he thinks, he also has to leave; He didn't want to, he still had to leave.
Princess Xin'an was actually a victim of political marriage, and she married Huanji, the son of the powerful minister Huan Wen, for the first time, and after Huanji was demoted, Princess Xin'an divorced him.
In that era, the emperor's daughter was no more than an appendage of politics.
The benefits of divorce to Wang Xianzhi were enormous, and he had a daughter after marriage with Princess Xin'an: the famous king Shenai. Wang Shen'ai later became the empress of the Jin An Emperor, and Wang Xianzhi became the governor of the state.
And Wang Xianzhi's divorce from Xi Daomao actually meant that the Xi family declined and withdrew from the ranks of the family.
The marriage between the Xi family and Wang Xizhi entered the ranks of the family, and they withdrew due to Wang Xianzhi's divorce.
True to that saying: its prosperity is also prosperous, and its death is also sudden.
And even the most powerful Langyue Wang Clan and Chen Jun Xie Clan of the Eastern Jin Dynasty were just passing eyes, and they were only in a hurry for decades, and then dissipated in the vast time years.
As Du Mu said: In the old days, Wang Xie Tang Qianyan flew into the ordinary homes of the people.
I wanted to use a short article, using Wang Xianzhi's divorce from Xi Daomao as an introduction, to connect the current situation in the early Eastern Jin Dynasty and describe it clearly. From the point of view of completion, it is still quite difficult.