Text/Comrade Guevara
As we all know, the second emperor of the Jin Dynasty, Sima Zheng, the Hui Emperor, was a real idiot emperor, who was not only mediocre and incompetent during his reign, but also nailed to the pile of shame in history because of a series of stupid remarks. In fact, in terms of intelligence level, the Jin Dynasty also had an even more stupid emperor than Sima Zheng, who was not only mediocre and incompetent, but also did not even understand cold, warm, and hungry, which was really idiotic. This person was Sima Dezong, the Emperor of Jin'an.
Sima Yao, Emperor Xiaowu of the Eastern Jin Dynasty
Sima Dezong was the 15th emperor of the Jin Dynasty (the tenth emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty), the sixth grandson of Sima Yi, the emperor of Jin, the eldest son of Emperor Xiaowu Sima Yao (Zi Changming), and his biological mother was Shuyi Chen Guinu (Empress Dowager Ande), who was crown prince in August of the twelfth year of Taiyuan (387), when he was only 6 years old. In September of the 21st year of the Taiyuan Dynasty (396), Emperor Xiaowu was killed by Zhang Guiren after getting drunk, and sima Dezong, who was only 15 years old, succeeded him as emperor as Emperor An of Jin.
According to the historical records, Emperor An was an idiot emperor, so stupid that he could not even distinguish between winter and summer, cold and warm, and hunger and fullness, and if there was no one to take care of his food, clothing, and living, he could not take care of himself at all, which was simply worse than emperor Hui of Jin ("The emperor is not hui, he is small and long, and his mouth cannot speak, although the change of cold and summer, there is no way to argue."). Whatever moves and stops is not out of their own hands. See Book of Jin, Vol. 10). Such an idiotic emperor naturally could not govern the country, and during his reign, the Jin Dynasty gradually went to the "road of no return" of the country.
Emperor An of Jin
At the beginning of the reign of Emperor An of Jin, the power of government was held by his uncle Sima Daozi, but Sima Daozi was so drunk that he often abandoned political affairs, so his son Sima Yuanxian stole the military and political power and became the de facto "family". During the reign of Sima Daozi's father and son, he trusted the traitor Wang Guobao (Xie An's son-in-law and Sima Daozi's brother-in-law) and worshipped him as a servant of Shangshu. Relying on the trust of Sima Daozi's father and son, Wang Guobao wantonly excluded dissidents inside and outside the imperial court, which aroused the dissatisfaction of many people.
In the first year of Long'an (397), The Yanzhou Assassin Shi Wang Gong and the Yuzhou Assassin Shi Yu Kai raised an army to attack Wang Guobao, all the way to Jingkou near Jiankang. Sima Daozi lost consecutive battles, and had no choice but to hunt down and kill Wang Guobao in exchange for the withdrawal of Wang Gong and others. However, Wang Gong tasted the "sweetness" from the rebellion, and in the following year, together with Yu Kai, Jingzhou Assassin Shi Yin Zhongkan, and Guangzhou Assassin Shi Huanxuan (Huan Wen's son), raised an army to rebel and once again fought near Jiankang. This time, however, the rebels suffered a crushing defeat, Wang Gong was arrested and killed, and Huan Xuan and others fled.
Huan Xuan once usurped the throne
Although the rebellion of Wang Gong and others was put down, the hidden dangers that threatened the safety of the empire still existed, especially Huan Xuan's attack on Jingzhou and control of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River soon after, which made it difficult for Sima Daozi's father and son to sleep and eat. In the first month of the first year of Yuan Xing (402), Sima Yuanxian led an army to attack Huan Xuan, but the forward general Liu Gaozhi defected in front of the battle, resulting in a major defeat of the imperial army and the loss of Jiankang. After Huan Xuan entered the capital division, he hunted down Sima Daozi's father and son and his henchmen, and then forced Emperor An of Jin to worship him as a chancellor, thus controlling the government.
Huan Xuan had only been in power for more than a year, and he thought that the time was ripe for a change of dynasty, so he forced Emperor An of Jin to "take the throne" in December of the first year of the Tycoon (403), and the founding of the country was Chu. After Huan Xuan usurped the throne, he did not kill Emperor An of Jin, but moved him to Xunyang for confinement. What the world did not expect was that shortly after Huan Xuan usurped the throne and became emperor, the general Liu Yu raised an army at Jingkou to "rebel", and through a series of battles with few victories and more battles, he was finally able to kill Huan Xuan and restore the Jin Dynasty, which was a miracle.
Portrait of Liu Yu, Emperor Wu of song
Although Emperor Jin was reinstated with the help of Liu Yu, the real character did not change at all, and he was still just a puppet. In the following ten years, after completing the work of purging political enemies, Liu Yu successively destroyed the regimes of Shu Shu, Southern Yan, Later Qin, and Qiu Chi, thus achieving brilliant military achievements and winning the support of the military and the people. As his fame grew, Liu Yu developed the intention of usurping the throne, for which he constantly eroded the remaining authority of the imperial family, and coerced Emperor An of Jin to add officials to him, and eventually became xiangguo and song duke, becoming the de facto emperor.
According to the inherent "routine" of usurping the throne by the powerful ministers, Liu Yu should force Emperor An of Jin to "take the throne" and then establish the state as emperor. However, liu Yu, in view of the popular saying that "there are two emperors after Changming", sent people to poison Emperor An in order to reconcile with him, and then made his brother Sima Dewen emperor (Emperor Gong of Jin), in December of the fifteenth year of Yixi (418). Emperor Gong of Jin reigned for only a little more than a year (420), and was forced by Liu Yu to "take the throne", and the Jin Dynasty collapsed in 155 years.
Liu Yu deposed Emperor Gong of Jin and then usurped the throne to establish the state
Looking back at the life of Emperor An of Jin, due to his intellectual defects, the government was successively stolen by Sima Daozi's father and son, Huan Xuan, Liu Yu and others, and the struggle between these powerful subjects also directly caused great turmoil within the Jin Dynasty and accelerated its demise. In the short period of 155 years of the Jin Dynasty, there were two idiot emperors, and because of these two people, they suffered the fate of the country twice, and tens of millions of people were reduced to "cannon fodder", which could not help but sigh in the hands of future generations.
Historical sources: "Book of Jin", "Zizhi Tongjian"