If you use one word to comment on the dynasties in Chinese history, the Qin Dynasty is the "beginning", the Han Dynasty is the "rule", and the Jin Dynasty is "chaotic". yes. The Jin Dynasty was really chaotic, so much so that later historians shook their heads vigorously whenever they mentioned the Jin Dynasty.
But if you want to say who caused the chaos of the Jin Dynasty, the culprit was none other than sima Yan, the founding emperor.
Although the emperor created the "Taikang Prosperous Era" at the beginning of his accession to the throne, this prosperous era lasted only a short time. In his later years, Sima Yan was arrogant and lascivious, and also became lazy, often slacking off government affairs, and also arbitrarily sealing the princes, providing a hotbed for the later "Rebellion of the Eight Kings".
But to say that Sima Yan did the stupidest thing, he had to set up a demented child to be the prince. This extremely irresponsible behavior towards the state was also the root cause of the chaos in the Jin Dynasty.
However, to say that Sima Yan has no merit at all, it is not enough, at least he has another measure worthy of praise from the world, and it has also benefited women for a thousand years.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > a sentence in the Jin Law</h1>
In 267 AD, after more than a year of collation and discussion, Sima Yan finally promulgated the Law of Jin, which belonged to the Jin Dynasty.
In this Jin Law, there is a law that reads:
"Rebellion, suitable support, motherhood, female marriage, will no longer sit on their parents and abandon the city."
This means that even for crimes such as treason, an adopted son, a divorced wife, including a daughter who has already married, does not have to sit and die.
Moreover, the "Jin Law" also clearly stated that it is necessary to "quasi-five services to control crimes.".
The so-called "quasi-five services", "quasi" is the meaning of the license and the accordance, "five clothes" refers to the funeral clothes to be worn after the death of relatives, which are divided into 5 levels, generally showing the distance of the relationship between relatives.
That is to say, after the promulgation of this law, when judges convict of major crimes such as treason, they must be sentenced according to the distance of kinship, which is equivalent to overturning the system of sitting together with foreign married women that has been practiced for thousands of years.
Then the question arises, why did Sima Yan introduce this law, and what kind of cases led to changes in the system? This is to look at the social impact of the sit-in system.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" How scary is the data-track="1" > "sitting together"? </h1>
The so-called "sitting" was originally intended to exterminate some ugly people, such as those who committed treason, so that they would not leave any roots.
However, when we talk about the two words "sitting together" today, we may not have a deep understanding. But let's just think about it. If you are a woman, after marrying someone in the mother's family who has committed a major crime such as treason, then no matter how far you marry, even if you marry into the desert, you have to leave your husband, leave your children, and be dragged back to kill your head and show the public.
Not to mention how frightened they are, let's just say that their husbands and children will also bear a huge blow. Children, in particular, can never look up to be human beings, and wherever they go, they will be said to be the descendants of sinners who have conspired against them.
Sadly, this situation was practiced for thousands of years, until it was overthrown in 255 AD. The turning point in the overthrow of this system came from the second rebellion in the famous "Shouchun Three Rebellions" in history, the "Yuqiu Jian Rebellion".
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > turning point</h1>
When Yuqiu Jian was defeated and killed, Yuqiu Jian's family was attacked by Zhu Lian, and all the members of the family were beheaded except for his son, who had been smuggled to the southern Wu kingdom.
But Yuqiu Jian had a daughter-in-law, Xun Shi. The Xun family is very large, and it is a famous and prestigious family. In particular, Xun's brother Xun Yan (荀顗), held an important position in the dynasty and made great contributions during the rebellion of Qiu Jian.
Therefore, Xun Yan asked Sima Zhao to intercede, hoping that Sima Zhao could turn a blind eye to his sister.
Faced with the courtier's intercession, Sima Zhao had the puppet emperor issue an edict allowing the Xun clan to divorce the Yu family, thus eliminating the need for the Xun clan to sit together.
But the Xun clan had a daughter, and although the daughter had been married for many years, she was also sitting in the row, but because she was pregnant, she did not immediately carry out the death penalty.
Since the clan brother had already asked Sima Zhao once before, this time the Xun clan did not bother the clan brother, but went around entrusting people to save their daughters, even to the point where they wanted to sell themselves to the official government as slaves.
The last lieutenant, He Zeng, felt that Si Xun was pitiful, so he asked his secretary Chen Xian to draft a letter to the emperor to intercede.
Soon, Chen Xian wrote a sonata of less than 300 words, and although the number of words was small, the impact was very far-reaching.
Chen Xian believes that when Si Kou first formulated the law, there were three grades, and the purpose was to distinguish the circumstances of the crime and the subjective crime according to the status level. But isn't the most precious thing about punishment being justice and fairness?
Women inherently have the obligation of "three subordinates", from their fathers at home, from their husbands when they marry, and when they have children, they must follow their sons. This shows that the woman is no longer a member of the mother's family, but a member of the in-laws' family.
Imagine a woman whose mother's family had committed a crime, and she would have sat together because of her blood ties. If the in-laws have committed a crime and have to follow the husband's family and sit together according to the principle of "three subordinates", why should a woman be tortured inside and outside?
Even from the perspective of crime prevention, for a woman who has already married and become a mother, she should put her own family first, how can she take the risk of committing a crime for her mother's family? What's more, such a heavy punishment not only cannot prevent crime, but also hurts the heart of filial piety.
It is worth noting here that Chen Xian's quotation of "the heart of filial piety" is very clever, and the highest legal spirit in ancient China is "filial piety", and he has raised the spirit of the supreme legal system here, which has irrefutable persuasiveness.
In the face of Chen Xian's reasoning and evidence, and also quoted the scriptures, Sima Zhao was very appreciative, so he once again asked the puppet emperor to pardon the sin of Sitting with Xun's daughter.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > reform</h1>
Sima Zhao appreciated and appreciated, he did not fundamentally change the laws of the time, so after that, he should sit consecutively, or sit consecutively.
However, after Sima Yan founded the Jin Dynasty, he very much agreed with Chen Xian's suggestion, so he formally incorporated the law of not sitting together for foreign married women into the "Jin Law", which was also absorbed and implemented by later dynasties.
From then on, women no longer had to live a life of fear, and Sima Yan's move could be counted as a meritorious achievement, benefiting women for a thousand years until the fall of the Qing Dynasty.
In fact, looking back at history, any emperor is not useless, and they all hope from the heart that the country can be strong. It's just that emperors are also people, and there are also cases of uneven good and bad. Therefore, although Sima Yan, the emperor, is not an outstanding emperor, he has a deed that can be accomplished for thousands of years, and he can also be regarded as a promoter of the historical process.
References: "Jin Law", "Book of Jin", "Tang Law Neglect Discussion"