Eight Kings Melee

Emperor Wu of Jin believed that the fall of the Wei dynasty was due to the failure to give power to the sons of the royal family, which isolated the royal family. Therefore, after his reign, he crowned twenty-seven kings with the same surname. Each kingdom had its army; the civil and military officials in the kingdom were chosen by the vassal kings themselves. He thought that in this way, with many relatives and sons supporting the royal family, the Sima clan's rule would be firmly established. However, I did not know that this has sown the root of the trouble.

After the reign of Emperor Hui of Jin, Yang Jun, a relative, used intrigue to squeeze out the king of Ruanan, Sima Liang, to obtain the status of a separate auxiliary government. Some of the vassal kings were certainly not willing to do so, but there was no opportunity to oppose him.

Emperor Hui of Jin did not know what to do, but his wife, Queen Jia, was a ruthless person. She did not want to let Yang Jun manipulate the power, so she secretly sent someone to contact Sima Liang, the king of Runan, and Sima Wei, the king of Chu, asking them to bring troops to the capital to crush Yang Jun.

The king of Chu, Wei, brought his troops from Jingzhou and entered Luoyang. With the support of Wang Wei of Chu, Queen Jia declared Yang Jun's rebellion and sent troops to surround Yang Jun's house, and killed him.

After Yang Jun was killed, the king of Runan, Liang, entered Luoyang to assist the government. He wanted to take the power, but the military power was in the hands of Chu Wang Wei. There was a conflict between the two. The Queen of Jia, who thought that keeping Ruanan Wang Liang was an obstacle, sent Chu Wang Wei to arrest and kill Ruanan Wang Liang under the pretext of a secret order from Emperor Hui of Jin.

The king of Chu, Wei, was originally an accomplice of the queen of Jia, but she was afraid that he would have too much power after killing two kings in a row. That night, he announced that Wang Wei had killed the king of Ruanan without permission by forging the emperor's edict, and he was sentenced to death. The king of Chu knew that he had fallen for Queen Jia's trick and cried out that he had been wronged, but it was useless.

After that, there was no minister to assist the court, the emperor of Jin was nominally the emperor, but in fact, Queen Jia was in charge.

The queen of Jia was in power for seven or eight years, and her reputation was so bad that she was arrogant and domineering. Prince Sima Yu (pronounced yù) was not born to Empress Jia. The Queen of Jia was afraid that if he grew up, she would not be able to keep her position, so she tried every possible way to get rid of the prince.

One time, Queen Jia asked someone to draft a letter in the tone of the crown prince, which was to force Emperor Hui of Jin to abdicate. The prince was invited to drink and got drunk, and when the prince was drowsy, she tricked him into copying the letter.

The next day, Empress Jia told Emperor Hui of Jin to summon his ministers, pass the letter written by the Crown Prince to everyone and announce that the Crown Prince had plotted against him. The ministers suspected that the letter was not written by the crown prince. Queen Jia asked everyone to check the handwriting. When they saw that the letter was written by the crown prince, they dared not say anything else.

Empress Jia then had the crown prince deposed.

The court ministers were already very dissatisfied with the fierceness of Empress Jia, but now that they saw her abolish the crown prince, they were very angry behind the scenes, and there was a lot of discussion. The king of Zhao, Sima Lun, who was in charge of the forbidden army, thought it was a good opportunity to oppose Queen Jia, but he was afraid that if the crown prince was in power, he would not be able to deal with her, so he spread the rumor outside that the minister was secretly planning to reinstate the crown prince. When Queen Jia heard this rumor, she really got scared and sent someone to poison the crown prince. In this way, King Lun of Zhao seized the leverage and sent the forbidden army captain, King Sima Jon (pronounced jiǒng) of Qi, with troops into the palace to arrest Empress Jia.

Empress Jia, who specialized in intrigue, fell for the same trick. When she saw that King Jon of Qi had brought troops into the palace, she was shocked and said, "What do you want?"

King Jon of Qi said, "I am here to arrest you by imperial decree."

Empress Jia said, "I am the one who issued the imperial edict, so where is the other imperial edict?"

Empress Jia screamed and shouted, expecting Emperor Hui to come to her rescue. Wang Lun of Zhao arrested and killed her.

Wang Lun of Zhao got hold of power and became more ambitious. He was not satisfied with being a ministerial state. After a year, he simply put Emperor Hui of Jin under house arrest and called himself emperor. As soon as he assumed the throne, he gave his cohorts, whether civil officials and military generals or retainers and soldiers, all large and small official positions. At that time, the official hats worn by the officials were decorated with the tails of mink (diāo). The number of officials that Zhao Wanglun made was so large that the collection of mink tails in the official treasury was not enough, so he had to find some dog tails to make up the number. Therefore, the folk made up a song to satirize them, which was called "Sable is not enough, dog's tail continues".

When the vassal kings heard that King Lun of Zhao had become the emperor, they all wanted to take the throne. As a result, there was one battle after another among them. They were Si Ma Lun, the king of Zhao, Si Ma Jon, the king of Qi, Si Ma Ying, the king of Chengdu, Si Ma Grand, the king of Hefei, Si Ma Miao, the king of Changsha, and Si Ma Yue, the king of Donghai. Together with the already killed Runan King Liang and Chu King Wei, there were eight vassal kings, which is known as the "Eight Kings' Rebellion" in history.

The Eight Kings' Rebellion lasted for sixteen years, and in 306 A.D., seven of the eight kings died, leaving the last one, King Yue of the Eastern Sea, who poisoned Emperor Huai of Jin and created another brother of Emperor Huai, Sima Chi (pronounced chì), who became Emperor Huai of Jin.