Sima Yao, the emperor of Jin Xiaowu, this is really an emperor who refreshes my cognition, holding a good deck of cards but playing rarely, and the way of death is even more strange, and he was actually killed by his own noble concubine because of a joke, this way of death is really nobody.
He was the ninth emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the sixth son of Emperor Jianwen, and his mother was Li Lingrong.
Sima Yao was made Prince of Huiji at the age of four, and at the age of 11 he was made crown prince and succeeded to the throne. When he succeeded to the throne, he had a powerful subordinate Huan Wen internally, and a powerful Former Qin outside, which can be said to be an internal and external trouble, and it was in danger.
Under the soft and hard efforts of the gate ministers Wang Tanzhi, Xie An and others, Huan Wen's ambitions were curbed, and Huan Wen was finally consumed. In the first year of the Taiyuan Dynasty (376), he was pro-government, and the real power was held by the Chen Commandery Xie clan represented by Xie An. In the eighth year of the Taiyuan Dynasty (383), with the assistance of Xie An and others, he defeated the Former Qin army, won the Battle of Shuishui, and preserved the national fortunes of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
He began to seize power during the Battle of Shuishui, promoting his younger brother Sima Daozi the Prince of Langya to share Xie An's power, and after the victory, Xie An was even more pressing, Xie An was unwilling to fight the emperor, surrendered power, and died in 385.
At the age of 24, he defeated strong enemies externally, seized power from within, and became the most powerful monarch since the founding of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Then he began to act arbitrarily, delaying pleasure, indulging in wine, and competing with Sima Daozi for power, forming a situation of "lord holding each other", causing the dynasty to become increasingly dark.
Sima Yao had two problems, one was that he loved to drink, and the other was talking indiscriminately. His empress Wang Fahui also loved to drink, and finally died at the age of 21 because of drinking, and after Wang Fahui's death, he did not stand up again, and often went to spoil Ji Zhang Guiren.
In 396, Sima Yao drank with Zhang Guiren in the Qingxia Hall of the harem. When he drank high, he joked to Zhang Guiren: "You are nearly thirty years old, your beauty is not as good as before, and you have not given birth to children, and you occupy the position of a nobleman in vain, tomorrow I will abolish you and find another young and beautiful girl." Zhang Guiren was jealous in his heart after hearing this, and the drunken Emperor Xiaowu did not notice it, and the joke became more and more intense, and Zhang Guiren became murderous. She first let the eunuchs around Emperor Xiaowu also get drunk, and when Emperor Xiaowu and the eunuchs fell asleep drunk, she summoned her henchmen and palace maidens, and while Emperor Xiaowu was asleep, she covered the sleeping Emperor Xiaowu alive with a quilt.
A generation of emperors died of such suffocation because of jokes, as the old saying goes, woe comes from the mouth, this is a living example.
After Sima Yao's death, Zhang Guiren falsely claimed that the emperor had "collapsed" in his sleep. Zhongshu ordered Wang Guobao to come late at night, knocked on the gate of the forbidden palace, intending to go in to write an edict for the emperor, but was stopped by Wang Gong's brother Wang Shuang. At that time, Sima Daozi (who had been granted the title of Prince of Huiji) was also a dog and horse all day long, and his son Sima Yuanxian was ruling, and the father and son were originally on the opposite side of Emperor Xiaowu, and they were suppressed by Emperor Xiaowu's side in the stalemate between the lords, and they could not ask for the death of Emperor Xiaowu, so Zhang Guiren was not prosecuted.
The accession of the crown prince Sima Dezong was for the Jin An Emperor, and the Jin An Emperor was more mentally disabled than the Jin Hui Emperor, and naturally he would not pursue the death of his father. The historian Lü Simian suspects that Emperor Xiaowu's murder by Zhang Guiren for his drunken jokes was a rumor spread by the real murderer, but there is no doubt that he was killed by the palace people, thus suggesting that Emperor Xiaowu's death was probably a conspiracy planned by Sima Daozi's father and son, his henchman Wang Guobao and others.
Sima Yao was only thirty-five years old when he died. After his death, the temple name Liezong, nicknamed Emperor Xiaowu, was buried in Longping Mausoleum.
He was the longest-reigning emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, but he could be said to have gone high and low, and the good situation was ruined by him, and after his death, the Eastern Jin Dynasty plummeted.
In 420, the general Liu Yu usurped the throne and established the Liu Song Dynasty, and the Eastern Jin Dynasty officially perished.