Although Cao Wei was the first to establish a regime in the Three Kingdoms, but it was the first emperor in the Three Kingdoms to lose power, since Wei Ming Emperor Cao Rui, Cao Wei's young lord Cao Fang ascended the throne, the imperial power fell, after several battles, and finally fell into the hands of the Sima family, this year, Cao Wei was only thirty years after the founding of the country.
In the next ten years, the Sima clan further seized power, and finally completed the change of dynasty, it can be said that in the next ten years of Cao Wei, all the emperors were puppets, far inferior to the Shu Han and Sun Wu of the period.
Although Cao Wei was strong, he lost power the fastest
Why was Cao Wei's reign so short-lived? In fact, the foundation was not laid at the beginning, and in the final analysis, there were three: neither reusing the royal family, nor using relatives, and giving up the power of eunuchs.
Let's take a look at Cao Wei's basic plate first, Cao Pi had to cede some power to the gate lord clan in order to usurp the throne, and Cao Wei was naturally divided into two factions, that is, the military power controlled by distant relatives such as the Xiahou clan and the Cao clan, and the regime controlled by the gate lord clan.
Among them, Cao Wei particularly relied on distant relatives such as Xiahou and Cao, which was obviously abnormal.
After all, a normal regime is definitely not a family that governs the world, but a group of people.
Under the hereditary throne, the imperial power must be surrounded by a group of powerful families, these powerful families are generally the trusted generals who followed the founding emperor to fight the world, that is, the nobles, after the founding of the country, they will also have hereditary titles and have a certain status above the court.
In this way, as vested interests, they will inevitably support the imperial power absolutely, and they will combine with the elites who have come up through other means (such as the examination system and the imperial examination system) to form a more virtuous circle in the imperial court, so that the power can be stabilized.
But Cao Wei was different, they did not have such a stable group of nobles who could influence the imperial court.
The power of honors and nobles is an important support for consolidating imperial power
So someone asked, in addition to the Xiahou clan and the Cao clan, there are not other famous generals who follow Cao Cao to fight the world? For example, the five good generals.
However, the Cao family is a usurper after all, and it will inevitably guard against other generals to follow suit, and naturally have a lot of precautions against non-Xiahou and Cao generals.
Taking the five good generals as an example, their descendants are basically excluded from the core class of power.
For example, Zhang Liao, whose son Zhang Hu attacked the Marquis of Jinyang after the establishment of Cao Wei, his official position was only a partial general of the five grades, and Zhang Liao's grandson Zhang Tong was almost disappeared in the history books, and it was obvious that the Zhang family had been excluded from the decision-making level;
As for Yu Ban's son Yu Gui, the history books only record that he attacked the title, and there are no other deeds;
Although Zhang He had four sons, he did not even have a name in later generations;
Xu Huang's son Xu Gai, the history books record that he inherited the title and then died, but he did nothing;
A little mixed well is probably Lejin's son Le Lin, who once went to Yangzhou to assassinate history, but during the Three Kingdoms period, most of Yangzhou was occupied by Sun Wu, and Cao Wei only controlled the Huainan area, which belonged to the border guards, and then was killed when Zhuge rebelled.
Five good generals, most of the descendants are average
Then some people said that their ability is not good and they are not reused, but look at the official positions of the second generation of Shu Han.
Guan Yu's son, Guan Xing, served as a high-ranking official in the service and the middle supervision army, and his son Guan Tong also married Liu Chan's daughter;
Zhang Fei's son, Zhang Shao, served as Shangshu. Shang Shu's official position, and Zhang Bao's son Zhang Zun is also an official Shangshu;
Ma Chao's son Ma Cheng, whose daughter married Liu Bei's son Liu Li, was considered to be married to the royal family;
Zhao Yun's son, Zhao Tong, served as the general of the Tiger Ben Zhonglang, ranking third, and the other son, Zhao Guang, served as the tooth keeper, which used to be an official position held by Zhao Yun;
As for Huang Zhong, his son Huang Xu died early, and there is no way to do it.
To tell the truth, most of the meritorious second-generation abilities of Shu Han are average, but they can basically intermarry with the royal family, and even control part of the military power and decision-making power, but it only affects decision-making, after all, the real power is the general Jiang Wei, who is a general of Cao Wei with no background, but he stands out by his ability.
From this point of view, Shu Han's regime is a normal regime
From this point of view, Shu Han's regime is a normal regime, with trustworthy sons and daughters around him, and he can also absorb elites into the court.
But Cao Wei, no matter how much credit you have, you can't hold power, even if you have high merit, you will always be regarded as a hidden threat by Cao Wei, and you can neither marry with the royal family nor hold important positions.
But the problem is that the second and third generations of the Xiahou clan and the Cao clan are not all elites, the second generation such as Cao Zhen, Cao Xiu, and Xiahou Shang are short-lived, and the third generation such as Cao Shuang and others have very average abilities and cannot take on heavy responsibilities, and their qualifications are too shallow, which causes dissatisfaction among the gate lord clan.
In fact, in the case of the lack of ability of the distant relatives of the Xiahou clan and the Cao family, Cao Wei still has a remedy, which is to reuse the Cao family's close relatives of the royal family.
But obviously, due to the dispute between the sons of Cao Cao in the last years, Cao Pi was very distrustful of a group of brothers, Cao Zhang's death was unclear, Cao Zhi and Cao Biao were restricted all their lives, and the Cao clan king, who could have consolidated the imperial power, did nothing when Cao Wei was in crisis, and sat back and watched his own country being usurped, and cut off one arm of imperial power.
Of course, in addition to this arm, Cao Pi cut off two more arms, which are eunuchs and relatives.
Although the eunuchs and relatives have a bad reputation, they are indeed a good helper to defend the imperial power, don't look at the Eastern Han Dynasty has been controlled by relatives and eunuchs for a long time, but in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the imperial power was not completely lost until the period of Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty.
Obviously, although the eunuchs and relatives are powerful, the imperial power is difficult to be replaced, let's see how Cao Wei's predecessors in the Eastern Han Dynasty used their relatives and eunuchs.
When did the relatives of the Eastern Han Dynasty come to power? It was the fourth emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Han and Emperor were only ten years old when they ascended the throne, and the power of the court and government was held by his relatives Dou Xian.
Eunuch of the Eastern Han Dynasty
Then the same is true of Emperor Han An, Emperor Han An is also the young lord on the throne, and the power of the court is held by the Empress Dowager Deng, and the Emperor of Han An has endured until the death of the Empress Dowager Deng, and then the joint eunuchs and his trusted relatives destroyed the Deng family, and the imperial power returned to the hands of the emperor again.
Of course, these relatives are still small compared to Liang's relatives, and Liang's relatives can be said to be one of the most powerful relatives in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
In the entire Liang group, there were seven marquises, three queens, six nobles, two generals, and another fifty-seven people held important positions, and even poisoned the Han Emperor.
In order to seize power, Emperor Huan of Han thought of the eunuchs again, and then asked the eunuchs to contact a group of courtiers who were dissatisfied with the Liang family's autocratic power and wiped out the Liang family.
This is a microcosm of the struggle between the relatives and eunuchs of the Eastern Han regime, and of course this is a characteristic of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
After all, since Emperor Zhang of the Han Dynasty, the Eastern Han Dynasty has frequently produced small emperors, and can only let the Queen Mother come to the dynasty to call the system, and the Queen Mother will inevitably let her brothers or relatives become officials in the previous dynasty and rely on it to help, so the power of foreign relatives will inevitably swell, and even affect the government.
But there will always be an end to the system of the dynasty, and the adult emperor will inevitably seize power, at this time, the power of the court and government is in the hands of relatives, and the emperor can only rely on a group of eunuchs and relatives around him, so a new round of struggle has begun.
The emperor relied on the eunuchs and relatives around him to destroy the old relatives, and in order to consolidate the imperial power, he would reuse the eunuchs and relatives he trusted, and the Eastern Han Dynasty regime has been repeated for more than 100 years.
The Eastern Han Dynasty was rich in small emperors, but the imperial power was never lost
Don't look at the Eastern Han Dynasty's relatives and eunuchs who frequently came to power and had a very bad reputation, but the imperial power was always held by the emperor, which was the balance of power.
However, Cao Cao and Cao Pi believed that relatives and eunuchs were the main reasons for the demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and in order to avoid the situation of the dictatorship of relatives and the chaos of eunuchs, Cao Pi said that the emperor strictly restricted eunuchs and relatives, which led to the emperor having no support.
Cao Pi and Cao Rui can hold great power, but they are both short-lived, and the successor Cao Fang is only eight years old, and can only be assisted by ministers.
However, because he couldn't rely on his relatives and eunuchs, Cao Rui could only choose Cao Shuang and Sima Yi, and in this way, Cao Wei's regime fell into the hands of Cao Shuang and Sima Yi.
In a sense, the imperial power was transferred to Cao Shuang and Sima Yi, of which Cao Shuang was the first auxiliary minister and had the same power as the emperor, but there was no one to check and balance.
What if Cao Fang wants to seize power in the future? There are no eunuchs around him who can be trusted, no relatives with real power, and no noble forces that can be relied on, not even his own clansmen, the government is controlled by Cao Shuang, and most of the courtiers are attached to them, which leads to the emperor not even having an ally around him.
Choosing and choosing, it seems that there is only the gate lord clan, but the question is that for the gate lord clan, what is the difference between the Cao clan being the emperor and the Sima clan being the emperor?
Besides, Cao Shuang's ability is so poor, many important ministers such as Jiang Ji, Gao Rou, Chen Tai, etc. all support Sima Yi's seizure of power, and then they just didn't expect Sima Yi to do things so desperately.
In fact, at that time, it was the consensus of many people to depose Cao Shuang, even the Queen Mother and Cao Fang, after all, the deposition of Cao Shuang could take back power, but I didn't expect that there was a wolf in front and a tiger in the back, driving Cao Shuang away, but it led to the ambitious Sima Yi.
Wei Zongwan version of Sima Yi
In this way, the power of the court and government was in the hands of the Sima family, Cao Fang wanted to seize power, and united with Zhongshu Ling Li Feng and his relative Zhang Ji to try to abolish Sima Shi and take power, but because the strength was too weak, nothing happened, but Cao Fang was deposed.
The emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty could rely on eunuchs and relatives, but Cao Wei did not, not that relatives and eunuchs were good things, but they were the objects that the emperor could rely on to seize power, and it was also a means of checks and balances.
But none of these Cao Wei, without the Cao royal family in power, without the power of foreign relatives, without reliable eunuchs, and without relying on the noble forces, naturally there is no way to restrain the powerful ministers, so the emperor can only be a puppet.
Cao Fang can't, and neither can the emperors behind him, so he can only continue to be the puppet emperor of the Sima clan until the day of the change of dynasty.