Every founding emperor in history is wise and martial, and choosing an heir is generally not too bad, but Sima Yan, the founding emperor of the Western Jin Dynasty, is an exception, knowing that Sima Yan is a fool and choosing to be a prince, why?
The Sima family usurped power externally to gain the world, and the position was not right, and there was also a problem of inheritance within its family.
As the first head of the Sima family, Sima Yi should have passed his throne to his eldest son Sima Shi after killing Cao Shuang to take power, and Sima Shi was calm and talented, and he was the only candidate for heir, but Sima Shi's only drawback was that he had no sons and only five daughters. For the sake of family inheritance, the second brother Sima Zhao passed his son Sima Yu to Sima Shi to continue the incense of the eldest son.
It may have been retribution, or Sima Yi exhausted the life span of the Sima family, who died in 251 AD at the age of 73. Four years later, in 255, Sima Shi, the second head of the family, also died of illness at the age of 48. At this time, according to tradition, it should be the successor of the stepson Sima Yu, but because Sima Yu was only 10 years old at that time, the power of the Sima family was naturally taken by the actual biological father and titular uncle Sima Zhao.
Sima Zhao became the third generation head of the Sima family, and when he first took power, Sima Zhao said in public that he would pass on the position of head of the family to him when Sima Yu grew up.
However, when Sima Zhao died in 265 (at the age of 55), he passed the throne to his nominal son Sima Yan.
In the ancient Chinese patriarchal system, the stepson could no longer be said to be his own son, and this could not be broken.
After Sima Yan took over as head of the family, he learned Cao Pi's drama and declared himself emperor to establish the Jin Dynasty. However, there was a problem in choosing an heir here by Sima Yan, Sima Yan's eldest son Sima Zhuo died at the age of two, and the throne could only pass to his second son, Sima Xin, who was a fool in the annals of history. Some ministers called Sima Yan "holy as ever" in front of him, which caused Sima Yan to be furious. The meaning of the words at the time was that the child was always the same, as if it had just been born. In other words, the IQ has always been in kindergarten.
In fact, Sima Yan, who could barely be called a wise and divine martial artist, also knew the situation of his son Sima Chen, and also predicted that he might not be able to sit on the ground, so he connived at foreign forces, and at the same time divided the kings and gave them huge rights, in order to be able to protect his stupid son Sima Xin in the future. In the end, things backfired, and huge rights led to huge ambitions, causing the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, which eventually led to the chaos of the Five Hu and the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty.
There is a question, Sima Yan has twenty-six sons, why not choose one of them?
This is what was said at the beginning of this article, the Sima family is not in the right position, and the inheritance within the family is also incorrect. The Sima family should have been in the line of Sima Shi, but Sima Zhao took the original oath as a fart and did not pass the throne to Sima Yu, but passed the throne to Sima Yan, on the grounds that he was standing up for the elder, which means that Sima Zhao's lineage was confirmed from the beginning to be inherited by the bloodline patriarchal law. If Sima Yan did not establish Sima Xin, but changed to other sons, he would change from Liyan to become a virtuous.
At that time, Sima Yu, Sima Shi's son, was notoriously intelligent, and Sima Yi praised Sima Yu when he was alive. Therefore, once Sima Yan gave up Sima Yan, only Sima Yu was the most suitable candidate, which meant that the imperial throne of the Jin Dynasty would be returned to Sima Shi, and in Sima Yan's later years, many ministers asked Sima Yu to succeed him.
Therefore, in order to keep the imperial throne in his own vein, Sima Yan could only choose his stupid son Sima Xin as his heir. In order to protect the stability of Sima Xin's throne, a system of division and sealing was established, betting on the future of a country's future that the Sima family clan would work together to escort Sima Xin. As a result, the year after Sima Yan's death (291), the Rebellion of the Eight Kings broke out, leading to the Five Hu Chaos and the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty, as well as nearly three hundred years of turmoil in the world, which almost wiped out the Han nation in this turmoil.