Emperor Xiaowu of the Eastern Jin Dynasty

Emperor Xiaowu of the late Eastern Jin Dynasty was not well known. But if you talk about the events of his contemporaries, I believe that everyone will remember him.

The first event, in 383 AD, the Battle of Shuishui, which is a famous battle in history to win more with less, people familiar with history know that the commanders of the two sides: former Qin on the one hand was Qin Wang Jianjian, the Eastern Jin side was Xie Shi and Xie Xuan, and the eastern Jin Dynasty behind the scenes was Xie An. Through the battle, the Eastern Jin Dynasty reversed the decline in one fell swoop, the Former Qin collapsed, and the north fell back into strife. The Battle of Shuishui took place during the reign of Emperor Xiaowu. At that time, Emperor Xiaowu was twenty-one years old and had been on the throne for ten years. This phenomenon also shows that Xie An's role in the Battle of Shuishui far exceeded that of Emperor Xiaowu. It also shows that the actual ruler of the regime at that time was Xie An, not Emperor Xiaowu. At the same time, Xie An's historical popularity also surpassed that of Sima Yao, the Emperor of Xiaowu (about Xie An, I will discuss it).

Another thing, if you are a lover of traditional Chinese studies, you must know the pastoral poet Tao Yuanming, whose famous fantasy novel "Peach Blossom Origin", that is, the era of Emperor Xiaowu as the background of the story. Describes a paradise that "does not know whether there is a Han or Wei and Jin". The article begins with "In the Jin Dynasty, the Wuling people fished for their profession", and Taiyuan was the era name of Emperor Xiaowu.

Through the Battle of Shuishui, the national strength of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was revived, but Emperor Xiaowu was determined to restore imperial power, and taking advantage of the weakening power of the Shi clan and the emergence of a fault, he elected his younger brother Sima Daozi to replace Xie An to preside over the imperial government, and Xie An took the initiative to retreat in order to avoid his sharp edge. The Eastern Jin Dynasty swept away the previous situation of power and power, the imperial power was restored, and Emperor Xiaowu became the most powerful emperor in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

Emperor Xiaowu Sima Yao (362–396), the ninth emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (reigned 372–396). He was the sixth son of Sima Yu, Emperor Jianwen. It had been fifty-five years since the Eastern Jin Dynasty passed to Emperor Xiaowu's succession, but due to the extreme irregularity of the succession to the throne, although he had eight emperors before him, he had only been passed down for four generations. After the abdication of the deposed emperor, his grandfather Sima Yu was put on the throne by the powerful minister Huan Wen, Sima Yu was the younger son of the founding emperor Sima Rui, and Sima Yu's succession brought the succession order of the imperial throne back to the second generation, and Emperor Xiaowu passed back three generations.

After the victory at the Battle of Shuishui, the Eastern Jin Dynasty temporarily relieved itself of the fear of destroying the country, but at the same time, infighting began to intensify, Xie An lost power, the power struggle between Emperor Xiaowu and his younger brother Sima Daozi intensified, and the social contradictions in the Eastern Jin Dynasty were very sharp, all of which greatly weakened the ruling base of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

An accidental event changed the fate of Emperor Xiaowu and accelerated the fall of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

As the saying goes, evil comes out of the mouth. Being an emperor is no exception. Emperor Xiaowu was drunk and drunk, and was killed by his favored Zhang Guiren.

Here's how it went. According to the Zizhi Tongjian records, the emperor was addicted to alcohol, lingered in the inner temple, and there were very few awakenings, and outsiders rarely saw it. Zhang Guiren favored the harem, and the harem was feared. Gengshen, the emperor feasted in the harem, the prostitutes were happy to serve, when the nobles were nearly thirty years old, the emperor played: "Ru was also abolished in that year." My intention is more of a lesser. "The nobles are angry, Xiang Xi, the emperor is drunk, sleeping in the Summer Palace, the nobles drink the wine of the eunuchs, scatter them, make the maids be faced by the emperor, kill them, and bribe them heavily, and the clouds: "Because of the storm."

Sima Yao was only thirty-five years old when he was killed.

The murder of the ancient emperor was a big deal, and it was a miracle that Zhang Guiren successfully escaped punishment. The reason sima Guang gave was: "When the prince was weak, he would make the king Daozi faint, so he did not ask questions again." ”

After Emperor Xiaowu was killed, his foolish sons Sima Dezong and Sima Dewen succeeded to the throne one after another, during which the Huanxuan Dynasty Jin Emperor Incident occurred, Liu Yu took advantage of the rise of the situation, established the Liu Song Dynasty, and began the period of confrontation between the Northern and Southern Dynasties.