Generally speaking, the founding emperors were either brilliant and ambitious, or scheming, and in short, very good politicians. However, there is a dynasty that is more special, his founding emperor is not only incompetent, but also very snug, has been manipulated by the powerful ministers, and after the failure of the rebellion against the powerful ministers, he was humiliated, and finally he was actually killed alive! So who is this founding emperor who is arguably the most nested in Chinese history?
He was Sima Rui, the founding prince of the Eastern Jin Dynasty! Sima Rui was a great-grandson of Sima Yi and inherited the title of King of Langya from his father in 290. It is reasonable to say that Sima Rui had no chance to become emperor, because he was relatively distant from the Western Jin dynasty. However, in the last years of the Western Jin Dynasty, great turmoil broke out, first the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, followed by the Wuhu Chaos, and the rule of the Western Jin Dynasty was crumbling. At this time, Sima Rui, the king of Langya, was appointed as the general of Andong and sat in Xia Pi.
After that, Sima Rui took Wang Dao's advice and crossed the river to Jianye. After that, Sima Rui recruited talents and actively co-opted the Jiangdong Shi clan to expand his strength. In 316, Chang'an fell, the Jin Emperor surrendered, and the Western Jin Dynasty fell. The news reached Jiangnan, and Sima Rui, as the emperor of the Western Jin Dynasty, first undertook the reform of the Yuan, proclaimed himself the King of Jin, and then officially ascended the throne the following year, becoming the founding emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
On the day of ascending the throne, Sima Rui actually pulled Wang Dao and asked him to sit on the dragon chair with him to receive the courtesy of the hundred officials. Wang Dao strongly refused, "As for the third and fourth." As the saying goes, "There is no two days in the sky, and there is no two kings in the country", why did Sima Rui do this? It turned out that although Sima Rui was a prince, he was alone, and without the support of the Langya Wang clan headed by Wang Dao and Wang Dun, he would not be able to take the throne at all, so in the early years of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, a situation of "the king and the horse shared the world" was formed.
At that time, Wang Dao served in the middle of the dynasty as a grand general of the Hussars, Yi Tongsansi, Shizhong, Sikong, False Festival, Lu Shangshu, and Lingzhong Shujian, but he was regarded as the prime minister of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, while Wang Dun served in other places, serving as a military officer in shizhong, a general, a pastor of Jiangzhou, and the military of the six prefectures of Jiangyang Jingxiang. The Langya Wang clan, led by the Wang brothers, held the military and political power of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the Jin Yuan Emperor Sima Rui was like a puppet emperor.
However, Sima Rui was not willing to be a puppet, so he began to take various measures to strengthen the imperial power, such as appointing his own close associates Liu Kui, Dai Yuan, and others to alienate Wang Dao, and at the same time clamp down on Wang Dun in other places, and since then the Langya Wang clan and Sima Rui have a rift. In 322, Wang Dun raised an army at Wuchang and launched a rebellion in the name of revenge against Liu Kui. Sima Rui decided to tear his face off with the Wang clan of Langya, so he arrested Wang Dao and declared Wang Dun a rebel.
However, the army of the Eastern Jin court was not at all an opponent of Wang Dun, and Wang Dun won successive victories, and the army reached Jiankang. After entering the city, Wang Dun did not go to see Sima Rui, but deliberately sent troops to plunder everywhere and rushed to the palace. Sima Rui watched as the rebels robbed the palace in front of his eyes, but he had no choice, he said helplessly: "If you want to get me, you should speak early!" Why harm the people! (If you want to be the emperor, why do you want to kill the people so much?) ）
At the same time, Sima Rui also sent people to say to Wang Dun: "If the gong does not forget the dynasty and stops his troops here, then the world can still be at peace; if not, he will return to Langya to avoid the xian road." "This means that Wang Dun still doesn't stop, and I will abdicate and give way to Xian." Wang Dun did not usurp the throne, but became a powerful vassal, "the four parties contributed more into his palace, and XiangYue Mu was out of his door." Sima Rui could do nothing about this, he was humiliated, angry, and killed alive, at the age of 47.
References: 1. Book of Jin, 2. Zizhi Tongjian