Characters and stories of the Two Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties (36) - The Revolt of displaced people in the last years of the Western Jin Dynasty

In the last years of the Western Jin Dynasty, internal contradictions intensified, the kings of the clan clan competed for power and seized the throne, the nomadic people who migrated inland took advantage of the chaos to raise troops, the Central Plains was plagued by wars, coupled with drought and locust plagues, a large number of peasant households were forced to become displaced people, and anti-Jin uprisings continued to break out.

Qi Wannian Uprising: In the last year of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Xiongnu Hao San raised troops to attack Shangdang (northeast of present-day Lucheng, Shanxi), and two years later, Malanqiang and Lu Shuihu of Beidi County rebelled against the Jin, and hundreds of thousands of people from Qin (in present-day Gangu, Gansu) and Yong (in present-day northwest of Xi'an) responded and pushed Qi Wannian to be emperor. Successively attacked the counties of Tianshui, Luoyang, Shiping, Wudu, and Yangping, and later Jin sent the general Meng Guan to lead the Jingshi Su wei army to suppress it, the uprising failed, Qi Wannian was captured, and since then, the great uprisings of displaced people throughout the country have risen one after another.

BaQi displaced people revolt: In 301 AD, several consecutive years of drought and famine forced more than 100,000 displaced people of various ethnic groups such as Han, Qi, and Qiang in the six counties into the Bashu region. However, the local government forced them to return to their hometowns, which provoked an uprising of displaced people, and the displaced people defeated the Bashu Jin army, captured Guanghan, and besieged Chengdu. In 303, Li Te, the leader of the displaced rebel army, his brother Li Liu, and his son Li Xiong drove away Shi Luoshang from Yizhou and captured Chengdu. In 304 AD, Li Xiong was proclaimed the first King of Chengdu, then the Emperor, and the Chenghan Dynasty was established. This revolt of displaced people was the largest of the displaced people's revolt in the last years of the Western Jin Dynasty, and the Chenghan regime established by Li Xiong existed for 44 years until 347 AD, when it was destroyed by the army led by Huan Wen of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

Jingzhou Displaced People's Uprising: In 303 AD, in order to extinguish the rebellion of the Baqi displaced people, the Western Jin Dynasty court urgently recruited Jingzhou men, which was strongly resisted by the people of Jingzhou. The barbarian leader Zhang Chang gathered a crowd at Anlu (present-day Yunmeng, Hubei) to revolt, and the Jingzhou displaced people and Ding Zhuang, who had escaped service, participated one after another, and while the kings were vying for power, they quickly occupied Wuchang (present-day Ezhou, Hubei), Xiangdong (present-day Hengyang, Hunan), Yiyang (present-day Huangchuan, Henan), and Xiangyang, and captured the two prefectures of Jiang (in modern Nanchang) and Yang (in present-day Nanjing), and quickly expanded their power to most of the five prefectures of Jing, Jiang, Xu, Yang, and Yu, and also killed Sima Xin, the military commander of the Western Jin Dynasty. The Western Jin Dynasty had to send Liu Hong, the assassin of Jingzhou, to mobilize a large army to besiege Zhang Chang, and the rebel army was defeated by the Jin general Tao Kan and his troops, Zhang Chang was killed, and the jingzhou displaced people's uprising was suppressed.

Yongzhou Displaced People's Revolt: In 310 AD, some displaced people in Yongzhou went into exile to the area of Wan (present-day Nanyang, Henan), and the Western Jin Dynasty court forced the displaced people to return to their hometowns, but the displaced people strongly resisted. Wang Ru of Jingzhao took advantage of the situation in Wan to launch an uprising, gathering 40,000 or 50,000 people in a short period of time, and repeatedly defeated the Jin army in the Xiangyang area. Wang Ru claimed to be a great general, and joined forces with the Eastern Han General Shi Lebu to eliminate the dissident Hou Tu and Yan Ling, and most of the Displaced People's rebel army in Yongzhou was annexed by Shi Le. Wang Ru and Shi Le shared the same bed and dreamed, and took advantage of Shi Le's attack on Xiangyang to attack Shi Le, but was defeated, and in 312 AD, he surrendered to the Eastern Jin Dynasty Yangzhou assassin Shi Wang Dun and was killed.

The Du Tao Rebellion of the Shu people: In 311 AD, tens of thousands of displaced families in Bashu fled to the Jing and Xiang regions to avoid war. Xiangzhou Assassin Shi Xun wanted to do his best to curse the displaced people, and the displaced people were angry and opposed, and jointly pushed the Shu people Du Tao as the mainstay. Du Tao led his men to capture Changsha, captured Xunguan, captured Lingling (present-day Hunan), Guiyang (present-day Chenzhou, Hunan), and Yuzhang (present-day Nanchang). In 315, Sima Rui, the king of Jin, sent the southern generals Wang Dun and Jingzhou Assassin Shi Taokan to gather a large army to besiege Du Tao, and the rebel generals were killed and wounded, and Du Tao was killed before he could break through.

Shi Le Wangmi's Rebellion: In 305 AD, Shi Le and Ji Sang led hundreds of horsemen to participate in the anti-Jin uprising of gongshi fan in the Zhao Wei region (present-day part of Henan and Shanxi, Shandong, Hebei), and soon after the Gongshi clan was defeated and killed. In 307, Shi Le and Ji Sang revolted again, capturing The City of Yi (邺城, in present-day Linzhang, Hebei), killing Sima Teng, the new Cai king of the Western Jin Dynasty, but was later defeated by shi Gou of the Jin Dynasty, and Ji Sang was killed, and Shi Le defected to Liu Yuan, the King of Han. In 306, Wang Mi of Donglai Commandery (東莱郡, in modern Ye County, Shandong) participated in Liu Bogen's anti-Jin uprising, and after Liu Bogen's death, Wang Mi led his troops and fought in present-day Hebei, Shandong, Anhui, Henan, and other places, with tens of thousands of people, and was later defeated by the western Jin Dynasty Situ Wang Yan's army, and Wang Mi led the rest of his troops to defect to Liu Yuan. The Shandong and Hebei uprisings led by Shi Le and Wang Mi, which broke out in the northern Central Plains, had the greatest impact, and eventually they all defected to Liu Yuan, enriching Liu Yuan's strength.

The revolt of the displaced people at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty consumed a lot of financial and material resources of the Western Jin Dynasty, and the result of these uprisings was to deal a heavy blow to the rule of the Western Jin Dynasty, which accelerated the speed of the destruction of the Western Jin Dynasty, relative to their purpose of launching an uprising to overthrow the Western Jin Dynasty, because the displaced people were too widely dispersed, did not form a joint force, and finally only consumed the military strength of the Western Jin Dynasty and did not destroy the Western Jin Dynasty.