Since 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang established the first great unified dynasty in the history of our country, and successive rulers have taken pride in establishing a great unified dynasty, but only a few people have achieved this goal, and have established nine great unified regimes in the land of China. The first was naturally the Qin Dynasty established by Qin Shi Huang, followed by the Han, Jin, Sui, Tang, Song (disputed), Yuan, Ming, and Qing. Many people may wonder, is the Jin Dynasty also a unified dynasty?
Usually, when we talk about the Jin Dynasty, we are always accustomed to referring to it together with Cao Wei and the Southern and Northern Dynasties period as the "Wei and Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties", which makes us subconsciously attribute the Jin Dynasty to a period of division between large and small regimes and chaotic wars, but in fact the Jin Dynasty did unify the land of China.
Territory of the Western Jin Dynasty
But why is the existence of the Jin Dynasty so low that even many people do not regard the Jin Dynasty as a unified dynasty?
Is it because of short life?
But even if you only count the establishment of the Western Jin Dynasty in 266 AD to the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty in 316 AD, not counting the Eastern Jin Dynasty in 104 years, the Jin Dynasty also has 50 years of national longevity, compared with the Qin Dynasty, which "died twice" in 14 years and the Sui Dynasty that lasted for 38 years, the life span of the Jin Dynasty is not short, and the life expectancy of the Qin Dynasty and the Sui Dynasty is roughly the same as that of the Western Jin Dynasty.
However, the history books have written great books about the Qin and Sui dynasties, but they have "turned a blind eye" to the Jin Dynasty, and many events have even been just a brush stroke, even now, the historical research rarely focuses on the Jin Dynasty, and the middle school history education is also introduced in a few words for the Jin Dynasty.
In fact, this is all because the Jin Dynasty is too strange, our impression of the great unification of the dynasty has a prosperous world, has a Ming Monarch, is the "heavenly dynasty on the country", foreign tribes do not dare to commit crimes, even if there is a disputed Northern Song Dynasty, although it was oppressed by foreign tribes, it is also the most prosperous dynasty in the history of our country.
The Jin Dynasty, whether it is political, military, or economic, social atmosphere is almost the slightest desirable, in addition to the Jin Emperor Wu posthumously crowned the three emperors of Jin Xuan, Jin Jing and Jin Wen, the Jin Dynasty has experienced a total of eighteen emperors, but none of them can be called Ming Jun, it can be said that the Jin Dynasty is the most unworthy of the name of the great unified dynasty in China's history, and the period under the Jin Dynasty can be called one of the darkest periods in the history of the Han people.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" > usurped power and stole imperial power</h1>
In 220, Cao Pi forced the Han Emperor Liu Xiechan to establish the state of Cao Wei and set the capital at Luoyang, officially replacing the Han Dynasty. In the middle and late period of Cao Wei, Sima Shi's power fell to the opposition and controlled the imperial government. "Sima Zhao's heart, known to passers-by" originated from the mouth of Cao Wei's fourth emperor, Cao Xian, but Sima Zhao died of illness before he could claim the title of emperor. In 265 AD, Sima Yan attacked his father to be the King of Jin, and a year later he learned from Cao Pi to force the Wei Yuan Emperor Cao Yichan Rang, called Wei emperor, changed the name of the country to Jin, changed the yuan Taishi, set the capital Luoyang, and posthumously named his grandfather Sima Yi, his uncle Sima Shi, and his father Sima Zhao as emperor, and the Jin Dynasty officially entered the historical stage.
Although Sima Yan usurped the throne and won the country incorrectly, as the founding emperor of the Jin Dynasty, he could also be regarded as "half" a promising king. In the early period of his reign, because of the existence of Sun Wu's regime, Sima Yan had a sense of crisis, and he was also determined to make a career, exert himself to govern, and successively implemented a number of innovative measures. On the political front, he opened up the way of speech, restored the system of advisors abolished by Cao Wei, and appointed Fu Xuan and Emperor Futao to jointly take charge of the duties of advisors; rectified the administration of officials, strengthened the supervision power of the central government, promoted lower-level officials, and let the courtiers of the DPRK recommend talented students. In the economic aspect, we have attached importance to restoring and developing agricultural production, persuaded peasants to teach mulberry lessons, and implemented the system of occupying land, thus enhancing the peasants' enthusiasm for production. In terms of people's livelihood, water conservancy projects were built, displaced people were recruited, and servitude was reduced or waived; the imperial family was not allowed to "encroach on the weak and weak," and a "changping warehouse" was set up to sell cloth at an appropriate price in good years and buy grain; in famine years, grain was sold at appropriate prices to stabilize grain prices, so as to ensure the normal life of the people. In 279 AD, the Western Jin Dynasty sent an army to attack Wu. In 280, sun hao, the lord of Wu, surrendered, Sun Wu perished, and the Western Jin Dynasty unified the world. Sima Yan changed his name to Yuan Taikang, and in the ten years after the unification of the Western Jin Dynasty, the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, and a sea of Yanhe was cleared, which was called "the rule of Taikang" in history.
The rule of Taikang
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > monarch fainting and politically incompetent</h1>
Unfortunately, after completing the unification of the whole country, Sima Yan gradually indulged in victory, changed the image of a wise monarch who was diligent in government affairs, ignored the government, coveted pleasures, lived in poverty and luxury, and could be said to be one of the most absurd emperors.
Sima Yan
After Sima Yan destroyed Wu, he not only took over Sun Wu's territory, but also took over the harem of Sun Hao, the lord of Wu, and it is said that there were tens of thousands of beautiful ladies in his harem, and even he himself could not make a choice about who to spoil, in order to solve this problem, he came up with a way, that is, to let the sheep make decisions instead of himself. Sima Yan often rode in a sheep cart, letting the sheep pull the cart around the palace at will, and wherever the sheep stopped, he would be lucky to be the concubine of the place. In order to gain favor, some palace women planted willow branches on the palace gate and sprinkled salt water on the ground, and the sheep were attracted by the smell of salt water and stopped to eat. To this end, an idiom called "sheep cart wangxing" has also been formed.
The sheep cart is blessed
If this is the case, Sima Yan may not be able to become a Ming Jun, after all, there are many wise monarchs who are "late and unsafe". But he did five things wrong, laying the foundation for social chaos.
First, under the leadership of Sima Yan, it became a common practice to show off wealth and compare. Shi Chong, famous for his fighting with Wang Kai and his luxurious life, came from the Western Jin Dynasty. Moreover, throughout the reign of the Jin Dynasty, the style of metaphysics prevailed in the family clan, and the people of the Shi clan only loved to talk clearly, and regarded entering the Shizhi world as a turbid stream. As a result, the ruling class has few good people who can do practical things, and they only know how to have fun all day long.
Wang Kai and Shi Chongdoufu
Second, Sima Yan relied on the support of the Shi clan to successfully usurp Wei and took great care of the Shi family, which was less constrained and the class solidification was very serious compared to other dynasties before it.
Third, Sima Yan insisted on following the system of primogeniture, refused to abolish Chang Liyou, and made Sima Zhengzhi the crown prince, which was later Emperor Hui of Jin.
Fourth, Sima Yan believed that Cao Wei had easily seized the world by himself because he was guarding against the clan and did not have the protection of the clan, so he opened the back of history, arbitrarily divided the seals, implemented the system of fifth-class knighthoods, and crowned a large number of uncles and nephews of the same sect as kings. At the beginning of Sima Yan's reign, he was given twenty-seven kings at a time, and then successively added titles to a total of fifty-seven kings, and allowed the kings to choose their own chief officials in the kingdom. He also appointed several emperors to command heavy troops and leave strategic places in Xuchang, Yicheng, and Chang'an to defend the capital Luoyang. This greatly strengthened the strength of the clan kings, and the existence of these powerful clan kings laid the foundation for the subsequent "Eighty Thousand Rebellion".
Divide the lords of the domain
Fifth, Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty adopted an ethnic policy based on appeasement, and the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Qianghu and other ethnic minorities moved inland in large numbers, although objectively promoting ethnic integration, but the subsequent occurrence of "Wuhu Chaohua" cannot be said to have not been affected by this.
In 290 AD, Sima Yan died of illness at the age of fifty-five and was buried in the Junyang Mausoleum, where Sima Zheng, the Emperor of Jinhui, took the throne. Sima Zheng, the Emperor of Jinhui, can be said to be "famous", and you may not be familiar with his name, but you must have heard anecdote about him "why not eat meat".
At the time of the famine, Emperor Hui of Jin heard that the people had no food to eat and were starving all over the field, but asked them why they did not eat porridge, which showed that the emperor was not very clever. Emperor Hui of Jin himself was not very bright-minded, and when he ascended the throne, he was even more "worried about internal and external troubles", with several powerful clan kings on the outside and a powerful empress Jia Nanfeng monopolizing power inside.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="11" > the rebellion of the eight kings, the five huhua</h1>
Jia Nanfeng was at odds with Sima Zheng's maternal clan, the Yang clan, and was therefore dissatisfied with the then regent Fu Yangjun, so he joined forces with Sima Wei, the king of Chu, to launch a coup d'état, in which Yang Jun was killed and the three clans were wiped out. Sima Liang, the king of Runan, entered the imperial court as Dazai, but was subsequently killed by Jia Nanfeng, and Jia Nanfeng killed the king and empress dowager of Chu in succession, and even the crown prince Sima Song was killed because he was not Jia Hou.
It may be that "the murderer, the person who kills hengzhi", Jia Nanfeng achieved the "five kills" achievement, and was killed by Sima Lun, the king of Zhao. Sima Lun deposed Emperor Hui of Jin and established himself, making Emperor Hui of Jin emperor emperor. However, Sima Ran the Prince of Qi, Sima Ying the King of Chengdu, and Sima Yong the Prince of Hejian were not pleased and joined forces to kill Sima Lun, and Emperor Hui of Jin was restored to the throne.
Sima Yan, the king of Qi, had exclusive power, and Sima Yuan, the king of Hejian, united with Sima Qi, the king of Changsha, and killed Sima Yan, and then joined forces with the king of Chengdu to kill Sima Qi.
At this time, Sima Yue, the king of the Eastern Sea, joined the battlefield and united the armies of Youzhou and Hezhou to kill Sima Ying and Sima Yong. Emperor Hui of Jin tossed and turned between kings and was held hostage like a puppet. In 306, Sima Yue welcomed Emperor Hui of Jin back to Luoyang. The following year, Emperor Hui of Jin died violently, and legend has it that he was poisoned by Sima Yue. Sima Zheng's half-brother Sima Zhi ascended the throne and changed his name to Yuan Yongjia as Emperor Huai of Jin. This internal struggle between Sima and Sima and Sima and Sima and Sima finally came to an end, known in history as the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings".
Rebellion of the Eight Kings
However, the end of the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" did not mean that the world had returned to Taiping, just when Sima Shi was killing himself and gradually exhausting the national strength of the Jin Dynasty, there was Li Xiong, a member of the Yu clan, who occupied Chengdu and called himself emperor, with the name of the country as Cheng, and the history was called "Cheng Han"; the Xiongnu Liu Yuan used the name of Fu Han as the name of the founding of the country to call the emperor, the country name was Han, and the history was called "Han Zhao" and "Former Zhao". In 316, Former Zhao attacked Chang'an, by which time Emperor Huai of Jin had collapsed, and Emperor Huai of Jin's nephew Sima Ye (Yi zuo Sima Ye) reigned as Emperor Huan of Jin. The Jin Emperor surrendered, the Western Jin Dynasty fell, and history called the "Yongjia Rebellion".
The following year, Emperor Huan of Jin was killed, the Jin dynasty ruling group moved south to the south of the Han Dynasty, and wang Dao and Wang Dun of the Shi clan supported Sima Rui, a distant patriarch of the Jin Dynasty, and called himself emperor at Jiankang (present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu), as the Emperor of Jin yuan, and the Eastern Jin Dynasty began, and the history was called "Yiguan Nandu". The north was occupied by nomadic peoples, and several non-Han regimes were established, which were in a confrontation with the Eastern Jin Dynasty until the Northern Wei unified the north, known in history as the "Wuhu Chaohua". "Wuhu" refers to the five Hu tribes of Xiongnu, Xianbei, Xianbei, Qiang, Qiang, and Hu, but in fact it is the general synonym of the various Chaotic Hu tribes in the north, and the number is far more than the five ethnic groups. The period of "Five Hu Chaohua" was full of wars and years of war, which was recognized as a period of disaster for the Han people.
Five nonsense
The Eastern Jin Dynasty was not a good place, the power of the Shijia clan reached its peak, the Shi clan controlled the power of the state, and the Jin Yuan Emperor was like a puppet. It was not easy, the successor of the Jin Yuan Emperor Sima Shao had the image of a Ming Emperor, not only could balance the power of the dynasty and the family clan, but also quell the rebellion, the situation in the Jin Dynasty was stabilized for a time, if Sima Shao was given enough time, the Eastern Jin Dynasty could not be unable to prosper. But perhaps it was the day that the jin dynasty was about to die, and Sima Shao died young, and he died at the age of 27. After Sima Shao's death, the successors who followed him either died prematurely around the age of twenty, or they were mediocre or even faint lords.
In 420 AD, Liu Yu, the king of the Song Dynasty, deposed Emperor Gong of Jin, established himself on behalf of the Jin Dynasty, set the capital Jiankang, the state name was Song, the history was called "Liu Song", the Eastern Jin Dynasty was destroyed from then on, and China's history entered the period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
This article is original by Wenshi Old Archives, welcome to pay attention, take you along with long knowledge!