As a feudal dynasty, the Western Jin Dynasty was very unqualified, both from the political perspective of the feudal era and the current historical perspective. This unqualifiedness was manifested in two ways, one was that it continued and magnified the political problems of the Cao Wei era, and the other was that it did not use the time hub of the annihilation of Wu to carry out the political renewal of the unified dynasty.
Therefore, the Western Jin Dynasty had the most decadent start of almost all the unified feudal dynasties in Chinese history, and more importantly, the founding emperor Sima Yan was a mediocre man with ordinary intellect, and his good situation was to rely on the foundation left by his grandfather, uncle and father to sit back and enjoy his success, not the foundation he worked hard with his own hands, under such an innate condition, even if Sima Yan wanted to reform, it would be difficult to start because he did not have prestige, not to mention that Sima Yan did not have the heart to reform at all?
Nevertheless, during Sima Yan's lifetime, he relied on his status as the founding prince of the country and the prestige of destroying the Wu state to unify China, and he could also suppress the family clan that controlled the government in all directions because of the "Nine Pins of Zhongzheng Law", and barely maintained the overall stability of the Western Jin Dynasty. However, the mistake of the heir's designation caused him to painstakingly maintain the balance was completely broken, and the eldest son, Sima Zheng, was an intellectually inferior disabled person, and could not even make a complete decision.
In this case, Sima Yan still decided to appoint Sima Zheng as the crown prince, and for this reason, he squeezed out and even forced his twin brother Sima You the Prince of Qi to die, but he did not think that all the plots were a bamboo basket to draw water, Sima Yan's body was not cold, and the designated auxiliary chancellor Yang Jun was destroyed by another son, Sima Wei the Prince of Chu, and the crown princess Jia Nanfeng, and Jia Nanfeng held the core power of the entire Western Jin Dynasty, and the Rebellion of the Eight Kings began.
After the establishment of the State of the Western Jin Dynasty, because of the lesson that it was almost irresistible in the process of Sima Shi's usurpation of the Wei Dynasty because of the lack of power in the Cao Wei clan, Sima Yan gave most of the Sima clan very much power, and even had their own private armies. It can be seen that Sima Yan's brain circuit is very single, only opening a first-order thinking, he thinks that giving the power to the clan can ensure that the Sima family will not fall by the side, but on the other hand, if the clan has power, will it also start to peep at the imperial power like foreign ministers?
Even if it was the same Sima family's imperial family, his own son being emperor and other distant relatives being emperors were still different, Sima Yan did not think, or did not think so much. But there will always be people who think for him, such as his daughter-in-law Jia Nanfeng, after Jia Nanfeng took control of the government, for various purposes, he killed Sima Song, the crown prince of the Jin hui emperor who was not his own, and took this opportunity to set off a new round of hegemonic climax, the intensity of the rebellion of the eight kings developed to the peak, and all kinds of princes could not stop coming out one after another, so that the land of China, which had rarely enjoyed stability for several years, was once again plagued by war.
Speaking of our protagonist Liu Kun, we mentioned earlier that Liu Kun and his brother Liu You surrendered to Sima Yue, the king of the East China Sea, and in the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, in order to defeat their opponents, the princes often did two things, one thing was to organize the ethnic minorities that had been gradually moving inward since the Three Kingdoms era to serve themselves and become the main force attacking the opponents, and the other thing was to send their own henchmen to go to various places to occupy the blank land that had become corrupt and weakened due to the dispersion of the population.
As Sima Yue's confidants, Liu Kun's brothers were naturally no exception, because in the previous war Liu Yu had already gained sima Yue's deepest trust with his talent and loyalty, and Liu Kun had also made a lot of contributions after being recruited by his brother to Sima Yue's command, so in 306 AD, the year when the Rebellion of the Eight Kings ended, Sima Yue sent Liu Kun to lead more than a thousand people to serve as the assassin of Hezhou, for him to develop the already ten-room and nine-empty prefecture into a solid reserve base.
It is worth mentioning that the story of "smelling the chicken dancing" as we know it should have occurred in the years of the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, because only during this time did Liu Kun and Zu Ti have the opportunity to meet and serve as low-level officials within the Western Jin Dynasty. But the most ironic and sad thing is that the friendship in the chaotic world is like duckweed on the water, and the candle in the wind has become an eternal nostalgia as the future two people are separated. In the years that followed, Liu Kun never saw Zu Ti again, except for using a network of unobstructed letters to maintain certain contacts.
However, this is something that young Liu Kun can't think about, and won't think about, because in front of him is another tricky situation, as a history of the state of merger, how should he fulfill his duties and reintegrate the state?
Liu Kun's immediate he was in front of the prefecture, beyond his imagination of the barren, to know that in the Wei and Jin dynasties can be called the northern granary, prosperous, at that time, whether from the climate or the degree of development, the Jiangnan area is far from growing, and the large states such as Hezhou and Jizhou almost bear the national grain supply. However, because of the chaos caused by the rebellion of the Eight Kings, coupled with the continuous plundering and murder of foreign nationalities such as the Xiongnu Xianbei, the originally rich Jinyang City suffered many military disasters, and Jinyang, the seat of government in front of him, was almost an empty city, sparsely populated, the houses were dilapidated, and people who were slightly sensitive could not bear to look at it.
And the challenge for Liu Kun at this moment is not only to restore the vitality of the state, and the convenient transportation of the state itself in all directions has become a life-sucker in the chaotic world, in the Rebellion of the Eight Kings was released from the Pandora's box of the Xiongnu Tu chief Liu Yuan has established the Han Kingdom, and the general foreign leaders are fundamentally different, Liu Yuan's political mind is very flexible and sober, in order to resist the suppression of the Western Jin Dynasty, he decisively took advantage of the historical fact that the Xiongnu nobles intermarried and kissed the two Han Empires for many years. He falsely claimed that he was related to liu han's royal family as a nephew and brother, and thus had the legal right to inherit.
It is obvious that the Yu Wei of the Han Empire is much more influential than the Western Jin Dynasty, which has not even been established for fifty years, and the Xiongnu people do have a fairly strong fighting power, and the Xiongnu Han State has become a climate, which is difficult to resist in a short period of time. In addition to the Xiongnu, the gradually rising Xianbei Duanbu was also a big problem, especially when Wang Jun and the leader of the Duanbu in Youzhou at this time became brothers, colluded with each other, and the vast land of Hezhou could be described as a tiger's eye, Liu Kun's situation was really not good, it can be said that as soon as he got on the field, he began the difficult mode.
However, there are always more methods than difficulties, especially for people like Liu Kun who have ideas, abilities and levels. On the way to Hezhou, Liu Kun sent people to explore the current state of Hezhou in advance, and at the same time constantly used the orthodox banner to appease the displaced people, organizing them into groups according to the academy or the relationship between relatives and relatives, and further improved the measures for recruiting and appeasing after coming to Hezhou.
This was followed by a rational distribution of labor, taking advantage of the displaced people's attachment to their homeland to train them in a life of unity of cultivation and war. It is conceivable that at this moment, Liu Kun experienced what kind of days every day, the history books record that the entire people of Jinyang even went out to the ground on weekdays, they had to carry weapons with them, cultivate during the day, and repair the city walls at night, which was no different from what Liu Kun wrote in his letters to Zu Ti later, and it was indeed a life of waiting for Dan.
However, this effort gradually saw the dawn, under the leadership of Liu Kun, a short period of one year passed, Jinyang and even the whole of Hezhou began to recover, after repelling the xianbei and Xiongnu Han state of many attacks, Liu Kun's prestige rose, and his political measures also received a good effect, not only the people who originally belonged to Hezhou, but also many people in other regions also came to Liu Kun one after another, it can be said that Liu Kun really stood on his feet in Hezhou.
And if you look at the whole country at this moment, the position of the state is more important, after the rebellion of the Eight Kings, the central rule of the Western Jin Dynasty is basically close to collapse, only a very few places can still pass the orders of the Western Jin Court, and the prefecture is one of the most powerful, it can be said that to a considerable extent, Liu Kun's operation in the state has delayed the collapse of the Western Jin Dynasty, and the role is very obvious.
But at the same time, Liu Kun's problems have gradually emerged, first of all, his leadership ability has a relatively serious shortcoming, according to the history books, Liu Kun is a relatively good at appeasing and recruiting talents, but the specific use and positioning of talents have certain defects, he often can not use and place some professional talents in professional positions, which may not be clear in the early stage, because most of the people Liu Kun faces are ordinary people, but with the passage of time, this defect is becoming more and more serious. In the later period, there was even a thousand people who came to the state one day, and there was also a brain drain problem of thousands of people who left the state.
If the problem of brain drain is not fatal, and at most it will only delay Liu Kun's military and political plans, then another problem is very fatal, that is, Liu Kun's nepotism. One of the most obvious examples of this matter is Liu Kun's pet letter to a person named Xu Run, Xu Run is a Henan native, very proficient in music, good at music playing, and this is a good thing for Liu Kun to doze off and someone to send a pillow, it should be known that Liu Kun is also a true music enthusiast, and there has been a very legendary story in him: Hu Di retreated from the enemy.
The credibility of this story is unfounded, but it has an extraordinary fantasy color, legend has it that Liu Kun was surrounded by tens of thousands of Xiongnu in a period of time when he had just arrived in Hezhou, Liu Kun had no way to do anything in this situation, his mood was extremely sad, so he played a piece of music with a beard on the city wall, and as a result, tens of thousands of Xiongnu people suddenly felt homesick and withdrew their troops in an all-round way. Of course, as soon as you hear this story, you may guess that there is a strong joke component, but no matter what, we can clearly see that Liu Kun has not changed his habit of flying eagles and running dogs like a brother in the past, and he must maintain the dignity and posture of celebrities under any circumstances.
A male brother, met an enthusiast, the result is what, it is naturally a similar smell, a hit. Of course, you can also say that it is a mountain flowing water, acquaintances meet, this is not a problem, but the bad is that you Liu Kun is in the environment, this is a complete chaotic world, the whole state has just recovered, all kinds of strong enemies around are looking at each other, and this friend of Liu Kun is also very fond of interfering in politics.
As a result, Liu Kun's iron-blooded straight man, who was very upright or spoke mercilessly, called Ling Husheng, came out and told Liu Kun that your friend was not a good thing, and you still had to cut off contact with him as soon as possible. Liu Kun naturally will not obey, but Xu Run's eyes are careful, you can't kill me, I will kill you, turn your head and say to Liu Kun, your subordinate is not a good thing, he wants to support you as emperor, Liu Kun, such a loyal person to the bone, who can tolerate this, anyway, I think it is a good friend to tell himself, it must be no problem, turn around and cut Ling Husheng with a knife.
In fact, this kind of hot-headed problem, Liu Kun's mother has long seen it, she often told her son, you don't like those whose level is higher than your own, don't learn from them and don't want the Grand Duke to selflessly arrange suitable jobs for them, there will be problems in the future. Sure enough, this sentence was directly heard by Liu Kun, which directly led to the later Ling Husheng's son Ling Hushi colluding with the Xiongnu to invade and merge with the Xiongnu. The only pity is that Liu Kun's mother, the old lady of Gao Deshao, also died in the rebel army.
Liu Kun's efforts for more than a year were ruined, not only that, at this time there was also bad news, his brother Liu Yu died in Luoyang because of a finger rupture infection, lost two close relatives in a short period of time, Liu Kun's mentality can be imagined collapse.
However, this frustration did not last long, because Liu Kun soon found a new help, Tuoba Yilu, the tuoba clan chief of the Xianbei people. As a large population, Xianbei also had many branches during the period, and even some branches had unclear contradictions with other branches.
Tuoba Bu is one of the most typical examples, the development of his own tribe was slowed down by Duan Bu, if you do not use the help of external forces, it is likely to stagnate even more severely, looking around him, only Liu Kun, who was defeated like a mountain, is the best ally, he has fame and talent, there are resources, and more importantly, he also needs a support, so the two are in agreement, Liu Kun and Tuoba Yilu are brothers. Tuoba Yilu also began to help Liu Kun rebuild and merge the state.
Liu Kun, who was helped, did have a beautiful scenery for a while, especially militarily, the combat effectiveness of the Xianbei cavalry was much higher than that of the Xiongnu, who were also nomadic, but the good times were not long, because Tuoba Yilu hated his eldest son and decided to make his younger son his successor, and as a result, he was killed by the eldest son Tuoba Liuxiu, Tuoba Was in chaos, and could no longer provide support for Liu Kun, and although Liu Kun received thirty thousand Han and Xianbei immigrants led by his son Liu Zun, he was defeated in the subsequent battles and completely lost his elite. He could only defect to others again, and this time the object he chose was Duanbu.
The leader of the Duan clan, Duan Pi, was a very special Xianbei man, who not only liked Han culture, but also had great admiration for Liu Kun, especially for Liu Kun's act of resisting aggression alone, and the two spent a honeymoon period of close relations.
It can be seen that Liu Kun's personality charm is indeed high and frightening, but with the humble infighting of Duan Bu, Liu Kun was also involved in it and was imprisoned by Duan Pi, and later the letter from Wang Dun, a powerful minister of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, made Liu Kun completely desperate, and Duan Piju succumbed to Wang Dun's pressure and killed Liu Kun, who was forty-eight years old.
Liu Kun is a complex person, he has all the common diseases of literary and artistic youth, but also has the courage and perseverance that ordinary literati do not have, and he adheres to his principles to defend the country in the chaotic world like a dark night, and it is precisely because of this that he finally sublimated into a person with capital letters, a cultural symbol that can go down in the annals of history, and perhaps Liu Kun under the Nine Springs will see that his will affected later patriots, and there will be some comfort.