In the general historical narrative, it is probably described as follows: Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty.

Sima Yan inherited the management of his grandfather for three generations, and was allowed by Wei Chan to obtain the throne for Emperor Wu of Jin. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty, he inherited the Jiupin Zhongzheng system, promulgated the household adjustment formula, conquered Eastern Wu, ended the division of the Three Kingdoms, and realized the short-term unification of the country; the abolition of the state and county armed forces, and the problem of internal migration of ethnic minorities has not been well handled; wantonly divided the prince of the Sima family, and reused the relatives of the Jia family and the Yang family; There are anecdotes such as Wang Shidoufu, the ban on marriage in the world, the luck of the sheep cart, and the money entering the private door; Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty finally passed the throne to Sima Zhen, the idiot son of "why not eat minced meat", which eventually led to the rebellion of his relatives, the rebellion of the eight kings, the rebellion of Wuhu, and the rebellion of Yongjia...... The Western Jin Dynasty soon fell into decay and perished.

Such a description cannot be miscalculated, but, judging from this narrative, Sima Yan is simply a third generation of officials who can't be supported, just lucky, he actually became the founding emperor of the great unification, and because of his own wrong decision, he finally buried the Western Jin Dynasty, it can be said that in addition to the full level of reincarnation skills, the so-called Jin Wu Emperor Sima Yan is simply useless.

Here we can list Sima Yan's five deadly sins:

First, his own experience was not convincing, and he relied on the blessing of his grandfather for three generations, and he became the founding emperor by luck.

The second is to wantonly divide the princes at the local level, turning back the clock of history, leading to the demise of the empire in the cannibalism.

The third is the reuse of foreign relatives, which leads to the dictatorship of foreign relatives of the central government, and the foreign relatives fight with each other, and the central government is in a miasma.

Fourth, an idiot son was chosen to inherit the throne, which led to the chaos of his relatives and the rebellion of the eight kings.

Fifth, he is extravagant and lustful, known as the "wine-colored son".

The first is the fundamental reason, it is precisely because Sima Yan did not have the hardships experienced by entrepreneurs, and the legend of the eventual success, and Sima Yan's political methods were relatively mild, which led to Sima Yan's low historical evaluation, as the founding emperor of unified China, I am afraid that there is no emperor with a very low sense of existence like Sima Yan and Yang Jian.

The fifth is the question of the personal moral character of the emperor, which will be put aside for the time being, and will not be discussed for the time being.

However, two, three, or four are major national policies and are worth discussing. Sima Yan's policy, summarized as follows:

First, to ensure that the department holds the imperial power (Sima Zhen rather than Sima You);

second, let the two foreign relatives coexist in the central government (Yang and Jia);

Third, to divide the princes in a big way, so that they can occupy the most important local resources of the empire (economic, political, and military points)

Fourth, let the representatives of the nobility enter the center (such as Wei Qian, Xun Xuan, etc.);

Fifth, implement the nine-grade Zhongzheng system, abandon the poor, and form a personnel pattern of "high-quality without cold".

To sum up the above five points, the royal family, foreign relatives, clans, nobles, local governments, and the central government finally formed a political model in which the royal family, foreign relatives, clans, nobles, localities, and the central government checked and balanced each other, so as to realize the high political power of the imperial power.

At first glance, I don't think there is any problem, but after a careful analysis, you will find that Sima Yan abandoned the poor family and engaged in friendship among the nobles of the clan, which is simply nothing to do.

You, Sima Yan, as the emperor, can completely open the imperial examination, use the children of the poor family, divide the main rights of people, finance, military and politics, and all serve by people who have no backs of the gate lords, and raise relatives, clans, and nobles in captivity, and have to engage in any checks and balances of power, which is typical of looking for trouble.

So what exactly is the truth? Later, the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties all did this, and the effect was also very significant, so why did this method not work in the Western Jin Dynasty?

In the final analysis, this is a question of who should hand over the military power, the reason why the power of the sect king is strong is because of the leadership of the troops, and what Sima Yan gave to the children of the clan is the position of assassin plus the title of governor. In an era like the Western Jin Dynasty, if your military power is not handed over to the clan, it can only be handed over to the scholars. The large-scale division of the clan is used to snatch military power from the scholars. In the Western Jin Dynasty, many scholars had very strong military power, and if there was no check and balance between the kings, the emperor would definitely be a puppet in the hands of the scholars.

In the era that has just ended a few years after the turmoil of the Three Kingdoms, which is not yet stable, one's own people are always slightly more reliable than others, and in the end, even if there is a rebellion of the kings, it is better for the emperor to change to the same surname than to change to a different surname. This is the thinking of ordinary people.

In a period when the imperial power was relatively weak, but there was a great need for urgent military pressure, it was relatively safe for the kings of the clan to lead troops. Wang Chuanshan said in "Reading the Commentary": "Those who cut the princes of Wei are suspected of having the same surname; Jin Zhi's military clan to control the world is also suspicious of the world." There is some truth to this. This "world" is actually the world's noble clan.

If you explain it from an idealistic point of view, it is natural that the emperors are all brain-dead, and there are many lessons in history that overturned because of the king, and the emperors are still as always, and they are happy to divide the kings in a big way.

To explain it from a materialist point of view, it is that in that particular historical period, the wealthy nobles often dominated as a specific interest group, and the emperor usually had only two options in the face of this situation, one was to strengthen the power of the imperial family, and then the empire went to ruin in the fratricidal flesh and blood of brothers with the same surname. Another option is to suppress the royal power, wait for the representatives of the wealthy families, the military and political strongmen to peacefully evolve their empires, and slaughter their own families in blood. In this dilemma, the emperor generally chooses the former.

Listing history is boring and boring, but only by listing history, you can see the truth of history clearly, we might as well take out the history of more than 300 years after the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty and simply sort it out.

You will find a magical law, that is, the empire established on the ruins of the Western Jin Empire, the behavior of these emperors is not fundamentally different from Sima Yan, of course, there is no essential difference in the ending, the empire is all in the abyss of destruction in the cannibalism.

Different stages, different actors, but the same plot. Why is this so? There are also two explanations here.

If you explain it from an idealist point of view, it is natural that the emperors are all brain-dead, and all the people in that era were brain-dead, morally degenerate, and humane were lost, because casually pulling out a current junior high school student also knows that it is not right to divide the kings, and it is to turn back the wheel of history. But the emperors did. How could a normal person poison his own loved ones? But in that era, it was common to kill brothers, fathers and brothers.

If you explain it from a materialist point of view, that is, it was an era with exactly the same political and economic foundations, so the actors who were not used always had the same ending.

Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty, was in that era, and he couldn't escape his fate, not to mention that he also buried a lot of * ...... for his country Dafeng has the same surname as Wang, disbanded the national army, made the stupid son the prince, reused the third prince surnamed Yang, killed his younger brother Sima You, and took the lead in pleasure......

The scourge of the Jin Dynasty is not far off.

Sima Yan was too indulgent in sensuality, and soon became seriously ill, and when he was dying, he issued an edict announcing that his uncle Sima Liang, the king of Runan, would return to the dynasty and assist Sima Zhen together with Yang Jun. This was Sima Yan's last effort to consolidate the Jin dynasty. Yang Jun withheld the edict and kept it a secret. Until Sima Yan's death, Empress Yang Zhi summoned her cronies Hua Hui and He Shao into the palace and wrote a new edict. In the edict, Yang Jun was the chief lieutenant, the prince and the prince, the governor of the Chinese and foreign military, the servants, and the scholars. In other words, Yang Jun alone controlled all the military, political and financial power of the Jin Dynasty, except that he did not wear a dragon robe, he was basically no different from the emperor.

One day in mid-April 290 AD, when Sima Yan's life was at its last moment, Empress Yang Zhi, Hua Hui, and He Shao showed Sima Yan a false edict and persuaded him to agree. At this time, Sima Yan could no longer speak, he listened to He Shao finish reading the edict, and stretched out his hand with difficulty. He Shao hurriedly handed over the edict. Sima Yan took the edict and frowned, he now clearly knew that someone had forged the edict, but all he could do now was to throw the edict to the ground with hatred.

This was the last action in the life of Emperor Sima Yan of the Jin Dynasty, and then he passed away. Perhaps, at the last moment of Sima Yan's life, he realized that he was not a successful emperor, and he suddenly began to worry about the future of the Jin Dynasty he created, but it was too late.

In 290 AD, on the fourth day of the lunar calendar, Sima Yan died in Hanzhang Hall at the age of fifty-five.

The curtain of blood and fire is about to open......