How was Sima Yi, the seventh emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, deposed?

How was Sima Yi, the seventh emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, deposed?

Most of the puppet emperors lived relatively well. Because the imperial power is sidelined, because of their special status, they can easily fall into the political whirlpool and become victims of power struggles. A history of the ups and downs of imperial power, to put it bluntly, is a history of the struggle between imperial power and subject power. Once the powerful ministers broke out of ambition and had no scruples, the puppet emperors were mostly not good to eat, and were either killed or deposed, for reasons other than absurdity, fainting, immorality, immorality, weakness, youth, and incompetence. However, the reason for sima yi's depose of the Eastern Jin dynasty emperor was very strong, and the courtiers insisted that he suffered from impotence.

Sima Yi (司馬奕), courtesy name Yanling, was the son of Sima Yan, the Emperor of Jincheng, and the younger brother of Sima Pi, the Emperor of the Jin Dynasty, who was initially enfeoffed as the King of Donghai and later the Prince of Lang. In February of the third year of Xingning (365 AD), the Jin Emperor died of poisoning by swallowing Dan medicine for many years, leaving no heirs behind him. The country cannot be without a monarch for a day, and Empress Chu, who has three times draped the curtain, issued an edict to let "Mingde Mao personally ,...... Sima Yi of Yi (宜奉祖) (see Book of Jin) ascended the throne, and Sima Yi thus became the seventh emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. During his reign, the general Huan Wen held real power and was arrogant, while Sima Yi, who had no power and no real name, was like a puppet.

Huan Wen is tough and deceitful. According to the Book of Jin, Huan Wen was a "heroic creature" from an early age, and when he grew up, he was "very magnificent", and after becoming a relative of the emperor, he was even more indispensable. During the reign of Emperor Wei of Jin, Huan Wen began to take power; during the reign of Sima Yi, Huan Wen was even more powerful. The most vicious sentence in China, "A man cannot be exiled for a hundred lifetimes, but should also be left with a stink for ten thousand years" (see "Zizhi Tongjian"), and the Book of Jin, "Neither can it be shed in the future generations, nor can it be enough to restore the smell of ten thousand evils", came from his mouth. When encountering a powerful minister like Huan Wen, Sima Yi was doomed to a bad fate.

When Sima Yi ascended the throne, the Eastern Jin Dynasty was on the cusp of imperial power. At that time, Huan Wen held several positions, from the logistics of the troops, from the central to the local, almost all important positions were integrated. Under its obscenity, Sima Yi could only look at its color with trepidation, but Huan Wen intended to replace it. In order to establish prestige and gain political capital, Huan Wen "wanted to make meritorious contributions first, in order to reap the hopes of the time." From April to September of the fourth year of Taihe (369 CE), HuanWen northernly attacked Former Yan, suffered a major defeat at Fangtou (枋頭, in present-day western Junxian County, Henan), and returned home, causing "resentment among the people" (see Book of Jin).

The great defeat of Fangtou was caused by Huan Wen's command mistakes, which were won first and then lost, and the defeat was very miserable, and Huan Wen could not escape the blame. For Huan Wen, who "has the heart of not being a subject", "the defeat of Fangtou and the sudden setback of prestige" are undoubtedly a heavy blow to politics. Whether it was all the way down, a slump, or a hero, forcibly abolished, Huan Wen and Sima Yu, the prince of Huiji, who had coveted the throne for a long time, hit it off and chose the latter without hesitation. In November of the fourth year of Taihe (369 CE), "Xin Ugly, Huan Wen zi shanyang and Huiji Wang Yuhui in Tuzhong, will plot later" (see Book of Jin).

"Plotting to move backwards" means plotting to depose Sima Yi. Huan Wen, whose reputation plummeted through abolition, can save face and rebuild people's expectations, "with long authority". The abolition of the establishment is a matter of great importance, there is no killer skill, and Empress Chu may not be able to pass this pass; moreover, since Sima Yi took the throne, he has always "kept the way", followed the rules and manners everywhere, was cautious and cautious, and had no fault, and did not act of abolishing the establishment for no reason, for fear of being criticized. Therefore, Huan Wen did not dare to act hastily. Politically, there is no excuse to start from private life, which is the usual trick used by successive powerful ministers to depose the emperor.

In November of the sixth year of Taihe (371 CE), Huan Wen, after listening to his subordinates' advice that "the palace was heavy and stuffy, and the bed was easy to slander", so "Emperor Yan was castrated", "Emperor Yan was ill in the domain, and the people Xianglong, Ji Hao, Zhu Lingbao, and other attendants slept in the inner bed, while the two beauties of the Tian clan and the Meng clan gave birth to three men" (see book of Jin), slandering Sima Yi as a person, who suffered from impotence as early as the fiefdom and could not do male and female affairs, and his three sons were all born to his concubines and their male favorites. Huan Wen also widely publicized public opinion and confused the public opinion, "secretly broadcasting this statement to the people, when no one can judge its falsehood" (see "Zizhi Tongjian").

The monarch of a country suffers from "paralysis" and the three princes "do not know whose son", which is an earth-shattering event related to royal dignity, royal blood and political stability. When Empress Dowager Chu heard of this court scandal, Dengshi "felt grateful for the existence of the past, and her heart was like a cut", and accused Sima Yi of "mourning and mourning, and the ugliness was widespread." He could not serve the community, respect the temple, and the evil was great, so he wanted to build a treasure house. Slandering the ancestors and praising the emperor is tolerable, and it is impossible to bear it! Therefore, in the name of the empress dowager, he issued an edict to "abolish Yi as the king of the East Sea, and return the king to the first" (see Book of Jin).

This year, Sima Yi was just thirty years old. Before being deposed, Sima Yi was also often uneasy about his own situation, and he had secretly "summoned the magician Hu Qianzhi", and the result was that the gua elephant was "the solidity of the Jin room has the solidity of the stone, and his majesty has the image of leaving the palace", and now it is abolished, and it is really as the magician Bu Gua said. Huan Wen, in order to plot to abolish the establishment and seize power, made this despicable and vulgar trick, forcing Sima Yi to end his political career as a puppet emperor for six years. "The emperor wore a white cloak and a single coat, stepped down from the West Hall, and took a calf out of the Divine Beast Gate" (see "Book of Jin"), and in a sigh, Sima Yi slipped away from the palace.

Can you protect your wife and son?! After Sima Yi was deposed, his three sons and their birth mother were poisoned by Huan Wen. As an deposed emperor, Sima Yi still had a certain influence, which made Huan Wen feel at ease. Soon, Huan Wensong asked Empress Dowager Chu to rename Sima Yi the Duke of Haixi County, and ordered his henchmen to focus on defense, and sent his subordinates to supervise him to prevent his recurrence. Suffering from this humiliation and demotion one after another, Sima Yi "knew that the destiny of heaven could no longer be returned", and all thoughts were gray, and the other was in danger, "deeply worried about disasters" (see "Book of Jin"), and had to be careful everywhere in order to protect himself.

During this period, in addition to withstanding various temptations and temptations, Sima Yi also pretended to be "Smart, Thoughtless, Happy All Day, and Spoiled in the Heart", and even "had a child who was infertile", even if he gave birth to a child, he drowned and did not raise children, in order to prove that he did suffer from "paralysis" and did not dare to let Huan Wen's words wear help. Huan Wen knew that he was discouraged and had no intention of making a comeback, so he did not harm him again, "the imperial court regarded the emperor as humiliated and no longer feared" (see Book of Jin). In October of the eleventh year of Taiyuan (386 AD), Sima Yi died of illness in Wu County at the age of forty-five, and was known as the Deposed Emperor of Jin or the Duke of Haixi.

Originally prosperous, masculine, others should say that he is not good, originally not a wasted person, not impotence, others insisted on saying that he was impotent, in Chinese history, Sima Yi was the only emperor who was "impotent", and the only emperor who was deposed because of "impotence". Once the emperor becomes a decoration and a puppet, he is destined to become a politically weak individual, and it is inevitable that he will be pulled from the throne by the unscrupulous courtiers. From a component "impotent" to a complete "impotence" of the whole person, Sima Yi's humiliation can be described as a true portrayal of the power struggle under the authoritarian system.

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