1. The stifling Emperor Ming of Jin
Sima Shao, the eldest son of Emperor Sima Rui of the Jin Dynasty and the Ming Emperor, was undoubtedly the best emperor in the history of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
In the leap month of the first year of Yongchang (322 AD), Sima Shao, 24 years old, ascended the throne. At that time, the Eastern Jin Dynasty was really full of crises and storms: the internal Wang Dun Rebellion had not yet ended, and although Wang Dun himself had returned to Wuchang, he still had great power, with his brother Wang Dao as Shang Shu Ling, and his brother Wang Han as the Jingzhou Assassin (Wang Han was soon ill and died of illness), and the remote control of the government; externally, the Western Chengguo and the Northern Later Zhao both took the opportunity to attack frequently, and the Eastern Jin Dynasty lost ground and retreated. In addition, floods, droughts, frosts, earthquakes, etc. are continuous. Shi Zai: "At that time, the soldiers were fierce and hungry, more than half of them died of epidemics, and the shortcomings were even worse, and things were extremely difficult. (Jin Shu Ming Emperor Ji) Can this young emperor, who has just ascended the throne, clean up this mess?
Sima Shao (299–325)
Wang Dun's purpose was to usurp the throne and establish himself, but because the time was not yet ripe, he temporarily retained the Sima royal family; if Emperor Ming wanted to stabilize the situation in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, he had to eliminate Wang Dun's rebel clique. It was difficult for Wang Dun and the Jin court to coexist, and sima Shao and Wang Dun knew this very well in their hearts. When Wang Dunchuke was building Kang, he was quite jealous of sima shao, the crown prince who was "a god of martial arts" and was deeply popular, and prepared to falsely accuse him of "filial piety" and depose him, but due to the opposition of Wen Zhao and other ministers, he failed to succeed. When the news of Emperor Yuan's death and Emperor Ming's establishment reached Wuchang, Wang Dun sent his henchmen to persuade Emperor Ming to enlist him as an auxiliary government. He originally thought that Emperor Ming would not dare to expropriate himself, so his henchmen could force Emperor Ming to obey in many ways, and even raise troops again and go down the river to achieve the purpose of usurping the throne. Who knew that Emperor Ming calmly "commanded the conquest by hand", and this time, Wang Dun, who was pregnant with a ghost fetus, was "heartbroken and did not dare to enter" (Wang Fuzhi's "Reading Through the Commentary", vol. 13).
In April of the first year of Taining (323 AD), Wang Dun moved the town of Guyi (present-day Dangtu, Anhui) to Huhu. Gu Yi was close to the Beijing Division, an important ferry port of the Yangtze River, and was the gateway to the southwest of Jiankang. Wang Dun took charge of Yangzhou Mu himself, with Wang Han as the governor of Yangzhou and Jiangxi, his brothers Wang Shu, Wang Bin, and Wang Yi as the assassins of Jingzhou, Jiangzhou, and Xuzhou respectively, Qian Feng and Shen Chong as the masterminds, Deng Yue and Zhou Fu as their minions, "building ships and ships, and the royal family of soldiers", ready to "raise troops inward" and destroy the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
Nanjing is close to Chang'an or close to the sun, Sima Shao, the emperor of the Jin Dynasty, replied...
In this situation where the enemy was strong and we were weak, Emperor Ming was not afraid, decided to eliminate wang Dun's rebel clique, and made full preparations. In order to grasp the enemy's situation, Emperor Ming personally took a small suit on horseback and went to Yuhu more than a hundred miles away to secretly inspect the virtual reality in Wang Dun's army. The Book of Jin and the Chronicle of the Ming Emperor records that:
"There are sergeants who suspect that the emperor is very human. And (the king) Dun Zheng slept in the day, and surrounded the city in his dreams, and exclaimed, "This will be yellow-bearded and humble slaves." 'Emperor Mother Xun, Yan Dairen, Emperor-like Waishi, Xu Huang, (Wang) Dun is therefore called Emperor Yun. ”
Here it is said that Wang Dun found that Emperor Ming came to check on the false reality in the army: one was that some soldiers became suspicious of Emperor Ming, and the other was that Wang Dun dreamed of the sun surrounding his city of Tunjun when he was napping. The latter theory is clearly far-fetched, with the aim of putting a sacred cloak on the emperor. However, it shows that the emperor's beard is yellow and looks like a "foreign family", that is, the so-called foreigner, but it is not out of thin air: since Emperor Ming's mother Xun Shi was born in the northern Yan and Dai regions, it is likely to have a Xianbei bloodline, so what is strange about Emperor Ming's appearance of a bit like a Xianbei person? Since Emperor Ming had this physiognomy, the sergeant described it to Wang Dunyi, and Wang Dun naturally immediately judged the identity of the person. Next, Wang Dun urgently ordered the five knights to come out and arrest them, and Emperor Ming flew away, and the five riders followed closely behind. When Emperor Ming passed by an inn, he gave the old woman who sold food on the side of the road a seven-treasure whip, instructed her to show it to the chasers behind, and poured cold water on the horse dung. After a while the chase arrived, and sure enough, he asked the old woman. The old woman said, "It's long gone." "And take out the Shippo Whip." The five people took turns to play and watch, delayed a lot of time, and saw that the horse dung was cold, only the Daoming Emperor had really gone far, so he no longer chased. Emperor Ming finally escaped safely.
After Emperor Ming roughly understood the falsehood of Wang Dun's army, he quickly deployed and used a large number of loyal and loyal ministers such as Xi (音xī) Jian and Wen Jiao to take advantage of Wang Dun's serious illness and issued an edict in June of the second year of Taining (324 AD) to fight the rebels. Because Wang Dun was "feared by material conditions", Emperor Ming cleverly only pointed the spearhead of the edict at Qian Feng, falsely saying that Wang Dun was dead, which greatly boosted the hearts of the army. When Wang Dun saw the edict, he was furious and ordered Wang Han to be a marshal, and together with Qian Feng, Deng Yue, and Zhou Fu, he led an army directly to Jiankang.
Emperor Ming personally commanded and calmly responded to the battle, and on the other hand, he did a lot of work in order to divide and disintegrate and isolate the enemy army to the greatest extent. Wang Dao was the founding hero of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, but he was sleek and "good at self-reliance" (Records of Murong Liao of the Book of Jin), and Emperor Ming knew that he could not contribute much to the imperial family, but still gave him the official title of "Governor of Dadu, False Festival, and History of Leading Yangzhou" to stabilize him and some people who were swaying left and right. In the edict of the crusade, Emperor Ming clearly pointed out: "The sin is stopped (Qian Feng) alone, and the punishment is not indiscriminate"; even Wang Han, Shen Chong, and other dead parties sent people to advise them, knowing that they would be righteous and allowed to be officials; those who were entrusted by Wang Dun with hundreds of civil and military officials would not be prosecuted; as for the soldiers who were coerced by Wang Dun, the only son was sent home and "never reconciled", and the rest were given three years of leave, and after the leave was completed, they were treated the same as the guards.
These correct measures of the Jin Ming Emperor played a great role, and the rebels gradually lost the hearts of the people and disintegrated. On the first day of July, Wang Dun made a desperate bet and ordered Wang Han, Qian Feng, and others to lead an army of more than 50,000 people on land and water to the south bank of the Qinhuai River. Emperor Ming personally led the Sixth Army to meet the enemy. Late at night on the second day of the first month, Emperor Ming selected more than a thousand brave men and quietly crossed the water to attack the enemy and kill his forward general He Kang. The rebels were caught off guard, and there was a great chaos, and Wen Yu and others took the opportunity to hit the water. The rebels were defeated and killed. Wang Dun received the report of defeat and died in anger. The rebel army collapsed, Wang Han, Shen Chong, and others stubbornly resisted to the end, and Qian Feng were killed one after another; Wang Shu, Deng Yue, Zhou Fu, and some of them counterattacked and made meritorious contributions, and some were pardoned afterwards, and finally they all became meritorious ministers of the Jin court. By the end of July, the three-year Wang Dun Rebellion had finally been completely put down.
The Eastern Jin Dynasty's ability to use the weak to suppress the rebellion of Wang Dun was inseparable from the determination of the Jin Ming Emperor to dare to fight and win, a series of correct policies and measures, and outstanding command ability. It is said that when he was young, he sat in front of his father's knee, and when the emissaries of Chang'an came to see him, Sima Rui asked him: "Which distance do you say is Chang'an and the sun?" Sima Shao replied, "The sun is far away." The messenger came from Chang'an, and he did not hear of anyone coming from the sun, but he knew it. Sima Rui was astonished. The next day, Sima Rui feasted on his subordinates and asked him this question again, but Sima Shao replied, "The sun is near." Sima Rui lost his color and asked, "Why is it different from what I answered yesterday?" Sima Shao did not hesitate to say: "You can see the sun when you raise your eyes, but you can't see Chang'an." So Sima Rui was even more surprised.
Emperor Ming was also a famous painter, who was both good at writing and martial arts, and was good at caring for soldiers. Unfortunately, such an all-rounder emperor, who reigned for less than 3 years, died of illness in the leap august of the third year of Taining (325 AD), at the age of 27.
Since the founding of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the contradiction between the overseas Chinese clan in the north and the Wu clan in the south has always been sharp, and the Wu clan was often excluded and suppressed. In order to stabilize the Eastern Jin Dynasty, emperor Ming also issued an edict a month before his death: "Wu Shi will be known as a sage, have the ability to cultivate family training, be loyal to filial piety and benevolence, be quiet and keep to the truth, and do not listen to the times, and the prefectures and counties are in urgent need of fame, and do not leave anything behind." "Trying to mediate this contradiction with a view to breaking down clan boundaries and selecting talents for the country." In his last words, he asked his ministers to "be simple" and not to be extravagant when he was mourning. The only regret he felt was that he had not been able to inherit the legacy of his father and ancestors, clear the Central Plains, and use the shame of the captivity of Xue Huan and The Second Emperor Huai to become a great cause of unifying China. Wang Fuzhi of the Qing Dynasty said with emotion: "Emperor Ming is not dying, and zhongyuan is restored!" Although Wang Fuzhi's words can no longer be verified, people still have reason to believe that if the day is a holiday, another civil unrest that broke out shortly after him, the Su Jun Rebellion, may be avoided; even if it happens, it will not be able to break through the capital, cause such a huge loss to the country, and cause such a huge disaster to the people, right?
Even if history cannot assume that the untimely death of emperor Ming of Jin cannot but make people sigh!
The Jin Ming Emperor had two sons and four daughters. Both sons were born to Empress Yu: the eldest son Sima Yan and the second son Sima Yue, both of whom later became emperors. The mother of the four daughters did not know who it was, but only that one was named Princess Luling and married to Danyang Yin Liu Zhao (pronounced tán); one was made a princess of Nanjun and married to her secretary Lang Yangben; one was made a princess of Nanping and married to Liu Chisong, the Taishou of Yixing; and another princess of Nankang was married to the famous Sima Huanwen. According to the biography of the Book of Jin, Liu Yi lived to be 36 years old. The "Book of Jin and Li Zhizhong" also states that "in the first year of Shengping, Princess Luling of (Mu) Emperor Gululing was not buried". The first year of Shengping was 357 AD, when Emperor Ming was only 58 years old if he was alive; then, Princess Luling was only about 40 years old at most. However, the couple's relationship seems to be good, and the "Twenty-fifth Pai Tune of the New Language of the World" records such a story: one day, Liu Wei's friend Yuan Yang came to visit, and Liu Yi was still sleeping in the inner room and had not yet gotten up. Yuan Yang then wrote a poem to ridicule him: "The horn pillow is Wenyin, and the brocade is rotten and long." It uses the allusion of "The Horn Pillow is Rotten, the Brocade is Rotten; Yu Mei Dies Here, Who and Du Dan" in the "Book of Poetry, Ge Sheng", which means that the horn pillow is beautiful, the brocade is splendid, and the lover has left, who accompanies me to dawn. After Princess Luling saw this poem, she said indignantly: "That Yuan Yang is the descendant of the ancient madman!" There are few records of the Princess of Nangun, only that her husband Yang Ben "died early"; and the princess herself was called "mourner". From the five words "Princess Of the Southern Counties", people can probably guess her unfortunate fate, right? Princess Nankang, on the other hand, died of illness shortly after the defeat of Huan Wen Fangtou in 369 AD. Huan Wen died of illness in 373 AD, living for 62 years, so it is estimated that Princess Nankang probably lived for fifty or sixty years, which is relatively lucky. What she was even more "fortunate" was that Huan Wen intended to force Emperor Chan of Jin to give way and stand on his own, but he "died before he was rewarded"; his son Huan Xuan was quite able to inherit his father's legacy, establish himself as emperor, change the name of the country to "Chu", first posthumously honor Huan Wen as "King of Chu", and posthumously honor Princess Nankang as "Queen of Chu"; later posthumously honor Huan Wen as "Emperor Xuanwu" and posthumously honor Princess Nankang as "Empress Xuan"—although Princess Nankang was only his concubine and not his birth mother. However, Huan Xuan's dream of emperor did not take more than half a year, and he was defeated and killed, and "Empress Xuan" naturally reverted to the status of Princess Nankang.
Princess Nam Kang
Regarding this princess of Nankang, there is also a story recorded in ancient books such as "The New Language of the World": after Huan Wen invaded Shu land and destroyed the Cheng Han kingdom, he took the sister of Li Shi, the lord of the Han state, as a concubine, and was very fond of her. Because his wife Princess Nankang was "fierce", he kept her secret and let Li Mei live in the secret room behind the study. Later, Princess Nankang finally knew, and suddenly her jealousy was burning, so she brought dozens of maids with knives to fight, and Princess Nankang walked in the front, ready to cut the "slut" with a knife. When she arrived at Li Mei's residence, Li Mei was combing her hair in front of the window, but when she saw her hair, her posture was clear, her hair was slowly knotted, her face did not change color, and she said to Princess Nankang with her hand: "The country is broken and the family is dead, and she has been dragging on to this day without any heart." If you can see the killing, you have to thank it for the fulfillment. "The words are sad and the look is calm. Princess Nankang threw the knife, went forward to hug her, and said emotionally: "Sister, I have seen you and have pity, not to mention the old slave!" Sure enough, they got along like sisters later. In fact, the so-called "old slave" Huan Wen, who destroyed the Cheng Han Kingdom, was only 37 years old at the time.
(Cold in the Heights: The Emperor and His Descendants, Series No. 122)