As the founding emperors, most of them are still relatively enlightened, but in the hands of future generations, most of them have become "rich second generations", who do not think about state affairs for a day, drink and have fun, harem wives and concubines are in groups, good at killing courtiers, loyal and adulterous, in the later, the emperor also has a variety of ways to die, but some are killed by powerful subjects, so it is still relatively strong, but it is killed by the pet concubines in the harem, which has to nest, has to be sloppy. But it happened that Emperor Xiaowu of Jin became one of the most scruffy emperors in the history of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and he was killed by Zhang Guiren.
Emperor Xiaowu, courtesy name Sima Yao (362–396 CE), was a Chinese poet. Son of Sima Yu, Emperor Jianwen. Emperor Jianwen succeeded to the throne after his death. After reigning for 24 years, he was smothered by Zhang Guiren's palace maid with a quilt due to drunken jokes, and died at the age of 35. He was buried in Longping Mausoleum (present-day southwest of Jiangshan, Jiangning District, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province).
Sima Yao, emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, was made crown prince during the reign of Emperor Jianwen. Emperor Jianwen died of illness in July 372, and he succeeded to the throne on the same day. The era name used is "Ningkang, Taiyuan".
When Sima Yao succeeded to the throne, he was only 10 years old and was under the command of Empress Chu. However, as soon as Emperor Jianwen's funeral was completed, hundreds of people led by Lu Hu suddenly entered the Yunlongmen Gate, claiming that Ma Yi of the Fenghai West Company had returned to the palace to reset, rushed straight into the imperial hall and the inner palace, snatched weapons, and slashed and killed. After being suppressed by the Janissaries, Lu Huo was arrested and killed. Soon, Huan Wen led an army into the capital, and the He Dynasty was shocked, afraid that he would come to seize the throne, but before long, Huan Wen fell ill and died, making the Eastern Jin Dynasty pass through another crisis.
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After Sima Yao's death, the temple name was Liezong and his courtesy name was Emperor Xiaowu.
During Sima Yu's reign as King of Huiji, he had five sons, but the eldest son, Daosheng, died of seclusion because of his roughness and mania and lack of virtue, and the other sons died at an early age. Sima Yao and his younger brother Sima Daozi were both born to Sima Yu and the palace man Li Ling. When Sima Yao was born, Dongfang had just turned white, so he took the name Yao and took Changming as the character. He was the son of Sima Yu wannian and was much loved.
Sima Yu was originally the younger son of Emperor Yuan of Jin, and was given the title of Prince of Langya, and later changed his title to The Prince of Huiji. In the third year of Xingning (365), Sima Yu was re-created the King of Langya, so Sima Yao, who was only four years old, was made the Prince of Huiji.
In the first year of Cheng'an (371), the chancellor Huan Wen abolished the current emperor Sima Yi and established Sima Yu as emperor, in favor of Emperor Jianwen, but the power of the imperial court was still in Huan Wen's hands. Although Emperor Jianwen was a son of heaven, as a puppet emperor under Huan Wen, he trembled all day long, not knowing that bad luck would fall on his head that day, so that in less than a year, Emperor Jianwen fell ill, so he made Sima Yao crown prince, Sima Daozi as the king of Langya, and ordered Sima Huanwen to assist him. Sima Yao ascended the throne on the same day that he was made crown prince, which can be described as a double happiness linmen, for Emperor Xiaowu. Sima Yao was only eleven years old at this time, and he behaved differently. After Emperor Jianwen's death, according to the ceremony, he should go to mourn at dusk, but he did not go, and replied, "When grief comes, he cries, so what is the routine?" Xie An listened to the great emotion, thinking that although he was young, his shrewdness was not inferior to that of Emperor Jianwen.
In the first year of Ning Kang (373), Huan Wen died of illness, and Xie An did not want Heng Wen's younger brother Huan to rush into the imperial government, so despite the objections of Shangshu's servant Wang Biao, he asked Empress Chongde to be the regent of the dynasty, and the real power was in his hands, and with the joint assistance of Xie An and Wang Biao, the situation in the Eastern Jin Dynasty slowly quieted down.
In the first year of Taiyuan (377), Emperor Xiaowu was already fifteen years old, he was already an adult who could personally experience the imperial government, according to common sense, the Empress Dowager Chongde of linzheng should issue an edict to return to the government, the imperial government was still presided over by Xie An, Emperor Xiaowu had great respect for Xie An, but already had the ambition to directly take power, from the fifth year of Taiyuan, Emperor Xiaowu began to reuse his younger brother Sima Daozi, first appointing him as a Situ, and then asking him to record the six affairs of Shangshu. In particular, after the Eastern Jin dynasty army won the battle of Feishui in the eighth year of the Taiyuan Dynasty, Xie An's prestige reached its peak, which also caused the slander of sinister villains, the most intense of which was Xie An's son-in-law Wang Guobao. He vigorously denigrated Xie An in front of Daozi, instigated Daozi to stir up dissension, and caused Emperor Xiaowu to gradually alienate Xie An, so that the power of the Eastern Jin Dynasty gradually passed into the hands of Sima Daozi.
Emperor Xiaowu thought that Daozi was his brother, of course, trustworthy, he handed over political affairs to Sima Daozi to deal with, but he was addicted to wine, but Daozi was also an alcoholic fanatic, so the brothers took pleasure in drinking for two days and nights, and the government gradually became popular.
In addition to the alcoholism, Emperor Xiaowu was obsessed with superstitious Buddhism, spending huge sums of money to build stupas and jingsha, and most of the people who were close to him were witches, monks and nuns. Shangshu Zuo Cheng Wang Ya and other ministers wrote to advise, but Emperor Xiaowu indulged in it and could not extricate himself.
In the tenth year of the Taiyuan Dynasty, Xie An fell ill and died, and Sima Daozi was appointed as the governor of the Chinese and foreign militaries. Xie An was dead, and Daozi's power was expanding day by day, so that Emperor Xiaowu gradually felt uneasy about Sima Daozi, but he still had great respect for Daozi on the surface, Daozi did not perceive Emperor Xiaowu's dissatisfaction with him, and with the identity of the emperor's brother, he was arrogant and arrogant, and he had time to drink and drink with Emperor Xiaowu, and he lost the courtesy of his subjects, which made Emperor Xiaowu even more unhappy, and in the fifteenth year of the Taiyuan Dynasty, Emperor Xiaowu selected Wang Gong, who was very famous at that time, to serve as the assassin of Yan and Qing Erzhou, and led his army to garrison Jingkou and secretly restrain Daozi. Then in the seventeenth year of the Taiyuan Dynasty, Sima Dewen was established as the King of Langya, and Daozi was renamed the King of Huiji, in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the King of Langya had a special status, the Jinyuan Emperor Sima Rui was the King of Langya before he ascended the throne, and most of the heirs to the throne after that were the Kings of Langya, so Emperor Xiaowu changed Sima Daozi to the Title of Huiji King undoubtedly reduced his status.
However, Sima Daozi did not restrain himself in the slightest, not only used huge sums of money to repair the mansion for himself, but also allowed his henchmen to sell officials and amass wealth, and Emperor Xiaowu was even more disgusted with Sima Daozi, but because of the face of the empress dowager, he could not bear to depose Daozi, so he promoted his confidants Wang Gong, Yin Zhongkan, Wang Xie, Wang Ya, and others, and arranged them in important positions inside and outside the imperial court to prevent Sima Daozi, Sima Daozi was not willing to show weakness, and led Wang Guobao and others as his confidants, and the two brothers formed a party, and there was no brotherhood and friendship. It was only because the empress dowager often persuaded her, coupled with the above-mentioned letters from Zhonglang and others, that the struggle between the brothers did not further intensify.
Emperor Xiaowu left political affairs to Sima Daozi as usual, and he drank and lustfully in the palace as usual, so that when he was sleepy and less awake, the ministers rarely saw him, and there was a Zhang Guiren in the harem at that time, although he was nearly thirty years old, he was the most favored by Emperor Xiaowu. In September of the 21st year of the Taiyuan Dynasty, Emperor Xiaowu jokingly said to Zhang Guiren during a banquet in the harem: "You are old and should be deposed, I prefer to be young." Unexpectedly, this joke infuriated Zhang Guiren, and in the evening, zhang Guiren instructed his maid to cover Emperor Xiaowu's head with a quilt when he was drunk and asleep, and blinded him alive, and Emperor Xiaowu, who was addicted to wine, actually died at the hands of his most beloved nobleman, and Sima Daozi, who was in power, did not pursue the sinners.
There have only been two cases of harem murder of the emperor in history, one is zhang Guiren's murder of Sima Yao, and the other is the attempted murder of the Jiajing Emperor by Yang Jinying and others during the reign of Emperor Ming Shizong (see The Change of the Palace of Nongyin).
Wang Bo commented: Sima Changming and Sima Daozi brothers, by blood, one became an emperor, the other became Zaifu, but they were both faint and incompetent, the two ignored the government, drank all day and worshiped Buddha, resulting in the decline of the Politics of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Sima brothers did not die well, and the demise of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was irreparable. Mainly Emperor Xiaowu, as an emperor, did not have a little deterrent power, and finally died at the hands of a spoiled concubine because of a joke, which must be said to be the most scruffy emperor in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.