A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 500: Ambition turns out to be a mistake, and the emperor arrogates the throne and the rabbit dies and the fox is sad

The second year of Yongkang
Since Sima Lun came to power, he has become more and more domineering and has the intention of overstepping and usurping power.

Sima Yun, the king of Huainan, and Sima Juan, the king of Qi, were very dissatisfied with Sima Lun's arrogance and usurpation of the throne. They regarded him as a great harm to the country and often compared him with the powerful official Sun Wei of the Eastern Wu Dynasty.

Sima Yun, King of Huainan, was the ninth son of Emperor Wu Sima Yan. Because of his prestige, after the death of the prince, someone in the court wanted to make him the emperor's younger brother and the crown prince.

When Sima Lun first came to power, in order to win over him, he appointed him as General of Hussars, Kaifu Yitong Third Division, and Shizhong. His duties as Commander-in-Chief were still the same, and he also served as the Central Protector. The power in his hands was not insignificant.

But as Sima Lun's power became more and more powerful, the desire in his heart became more and more difficult to satisfy, and he intended to depose the emperor Sima Zhong and proclaim himself emperor.

Sima Yun was worried that the transfer of the country would harm his own interests, so he secretly contacted the righteous people and the ministers who shared the heart of serving the country to prepare to get rid of him.

But Sima Lun's mastermind, Sun Xiu, somehow learned of Sima Yun and Sima Juan's dissatisfaction and informed Sima Lun of the news.

Soon, Sima Juan received an order for him to serve as General Pingdong and leave Xuchang during the holidays.

Sima Juan knew that Sima Lun assigned him, but he did not dare to disobey the imperial edict, so he had to bid farewell to Sima Yun and go to Xuchang.

When Sima Yun saw Sima Juan being sent away, he knew that the news of his plot to remove Sima Lun had been leaked, so he immediately summoned his advisers and asked them to speed up preparations.

The first day of the first lunar month

The imperial court issued an edict and sent envoys to the Huainan Palace to worship him as Taiwei.

Sima Yun was confused, so he pretended to be ill and was unwilling to accept the appointment.

But not long after, a censor actually came and forced him, saying that if he did not obey the imperial edict, he would be disrespectful to the emperor, and his officials and subordinates at all levels would be arrested and prosecuted for treason.

Sima Yun was very angry and took the edict to look at it. Based on his calligraphy skills, he vaguely saw that it was the handwriting of Sima Lun's lackey Sun Xiu. He understood that this was Sima Lun's superficial treatment of him, but in fact he wanted to take away his military power. .

Sima Yun was furious and immediately ordered the censor to be arrested and killed.

Fortunately, the censor reacted quickly and escaped from the palace before the guards surrounded him and narrowly escaped death. However, the two censors who followed him were not so lucky and were caught and executed by Sima Yun.

Seeing the censor running away, he knew that the matter was urgent and could not wait any longer, so he said to the people around him:

"Now Sima Lun is plotting a rebellion, and I am going to attack him. All the soldiers of King Huainan will show their left arms."

Within sight, whether they were the soldiers of King Huainan or the guards assigned to him by the imperial court, they were usually favored by Sima Yun, so they all rolled up their left sleeves to show their loyalty.

Then Sima Yun led hundreds of soldiers from the mansion into the palace. King Zuocheng, the minister of state, had quick eyesight and quick hands. He saw Sima Yun coming with his troops from a distance, and immediately closed the Dongye Gate, preventing Sima Yun from entering.

They can only turn to surround the Prime Minister's Mansion.

The Huainan soldiers brought by Sima Yun were all elite soldiers he carefully selected from the country. Each of them had unique skills. As a result, the two sides fought many times. Sima Lun's soldiers were unable to stop them. They retreated steadily, and more than a thousand people were killed. people.

Soon, Prince Zuo led Chen Hui to learn that Sima Yun was in trouble, and immediately led his troops to shout in the East Palace on the side of the Prime Minister's Mansion as an internal response.

Sima Lun was about to lead his people to escape to the East Palace, and relied on the walls of the East Palace to resist. When he heard this, he was shocked and quickly led his troops to flee to the Chenghua Gate of the East Palace, not daring to enter the palace.

Sima Yun arrived with his troops and saw that the terrain was empty. He immediately ordered all bows and crossbows to fire, and dense arrows were fired at thousands of people under Sima Lun's command, causing many casualties.

Sima Lun and his subordinates had to hide behind trees to avoid arrows, and each tree was hit by hundreds of arrows.

However, Sima Lun had many soldiers and Sima Yun had few, so the battle continued from early morning to late afternoon.

At this time, Chen Hui's elder brother Chen Zhun, who served as the Secretary of the Central Committee in the palace, knew that Sima Lun was surrounded outside the East Palace Gate and Sima Yun could not break through many attacks, so he intended to help Sima Yun.

Then he found the emperor Sima Zhong and tricked him into sending someone to fly the white tiger banner, the command flag for supervising the battle, so that Sima Yun could legitimately attack Sima Lun's formation.

But at this time, Sima Lun's son Sima Qian was serving as a servant. When he learned about this and knew that the opportunity had come, he immediately stopped the team supervising the battle in front of the palace gate and promised them wealth and honor to help Sima Lun.

Not long after, Sima Supervisor led 400 cavalry and rushed out of the palace, holding empty boards in their hands, pretending to have an edict to help Sima Yun.

Sima Yun thought they were helping him and was unaware of them. He formed a formation to receive them and got out of the car to accept the order. Unexpectedly, Fu Yin drew his sword and killed Sima Yun. Sima Yun died at the age of twenty-nine.

Sima Lun was overjoyed when he saw Sima Yun's death. He immediately dispersed the Huainan troops under Sima Yun and gathered the rest of the army.

He also praised Fu Yin greatly, promised him a high official and generous salary, and appointed him as Zhonglang General.

When he learned that Chen Zhun had sent him, he thought that Chen Zhun had helped him, so he moved him to the rank of Taiwei as a reward. His brother Chen Hui was also relieved of the crime of helping Sima Yun, and he was only demoted.

The third day of the first lunar month
Sima Lun was awarded Jiuxi, adding 50,000 households to the fiefdom.

Sima Lun pretended to be humble and sent hundreds of officials to his house to persuade him to enter. The imperial edict was read out by the servants before he accepted it.

Later, he made his son Sima Xun the general of the Fu army and the leading general; Sima Qian was made the general of the central army and the general of the right guard...

He also appointed Sun Xiu as the minister, general of the auxiliary country, Sima of the prime minister, and the right commander of the prince.

He also increased the number of soldiers and horses in his prime minister's palace to 20,000, which was the same as the emperor's bodyguard. He also hid some soldiers, totaling more than 30,000.

After learning the lesson from Sima Yun, Sima Lun had the three gates of the East Palace built into gorgeous watchtowers at the four corners. He also separated the east and west roads of the palace as external boundaries, and built his Prime Minister's Mansion into a strong fortress. All political opponents and people with different opinions in the court were eliminated. The remaining ones were those bribed by Sima Lun and his vassals. There was no obstacle to his progress.

The tenth day of the first lunar month
Sima Lun hinted that Sun Xiu, under the guise of being a witch and ghost, sent someone to invite a famous priest from Hanzhong Ghost and God Tao to offer sacrifices. He pretended to have obtained the divine words from Emperor Xuan of Jin Dynasty, Sima Yi, saying that he would let Sima Lun enter the West Palace as soon as possible.

It is also said that Emperor Xuan received the help of King Zhao in Beimang Mountain, so Sima Lun built a temple for Emperor Xuan in Beimang Mountain to show his orthodoxy.

The thirteenth day of the first lunar month

Sun Xiu and others arranged the troops and placed confidants in place, letting Sanqi Changshi and Yiyang King Sima Wei concurrently serve in the middle, and come in and out with imperial orders, pretending to be imperial edicts of concession.

Let the envoys Chijie and Shangshu Lingmanfen, and Pushe Cui Sui, be their deputy, and hold the emperor's jade seal and seal ribbon to give Sima Lun the Zen throne.

At first Sima Lun pretended to be humble and refused to accept it.

So all the kings of the clan, the officials and officials pretended that they had Fu Rui Tian Wen's spirit and should be persuaded to join him. Only then did Sima Lun agree.

As for why all the ministers and princes were willing to persuade him to come in, this was because Sima Lun’s trusted generals, such as Zuowei General Wang Yu, former army general Sima Ya, etc., all led the soldiers into the palace and clearly showed the three Sima soldiers with powerful rewards, so no one Dare to object.

That night, Sima Lun sent Zhang Lin and others to guard the gates to guard against unexpected events. He also asked Sima Wei, King of Yiyang, Luo Xiu and others to force the emperor to take away the jade seal and seal ribbon.

Before dawn the next day, hundreds of officials from home and abroad used cars and law to welcome Sima Lun into the court.

The emperor Sima Zhong was riding in a mica chariot, accompanied by hundreds of honor guards. Zhang Heng, the central guard of the palace, led hundreds of people to protect him, and surrounded him from the west gate of Hualin to Jinyong City.

Sima Lun followed 5,000 soldiers, entered through the Duanmen Gate, and boarded the Taiji Hall. Man Fen, Cui Sui, and Yue Guang presented the jade seal and ribbon to Sima Lun. From then on, he abdicated the throne and proclaimed himself emperor, granted amnesty to the world, and honored Sima Zhong as the Supreme Emperor. , the year name was changed to "Jianshi".

After ascending the throne, Sima Lun opened the door to rewards in order to win people's hearts:

The first is that all exams this year are waived.

Appoint the planners, those in the capital, envoys from all over the world, imperial students over sixteen years old, and those twenty years old who are studying as officials;

Commanders with more than two thousand shi in counties and counties who were in office at the time of the amnesty were all granted the title of marquis. Those who were rated as filial and honest in the county were all honest and honest officials, and those in the county were recommended to serve in the central government.

Then he surrounded hundreds of his descendants, cronies, confidants, etc. with rewards, and allowed them to all ascend to the position of general.

The rest of the conspirators were also promoted in an unconventional manner, and their number was innumerable. Even the slaves, soldiers, and handymen were given titles to show their favor and honor.

Such a large-scale reward resulted in every court meeting being filled with people wearing Diao Chan crowns. However, there were too few Diao Chan in the treasury for distribution.

Some smart people put a dog's tail that is similar to Diao Chan's after Diao Chan, so people at that time made a proverb: "If the mink is not enough, the dog's tail will continue."

In addition, because he has little education and no clue about the handling of government affairs, even his close confidants Sun Xiu and others have only cunning cleverness and no great ability.

Therefore, Sima Lun appointed his younger brother Sima Xu, the somewhat learned Liang Wang, as Shangshu Ling to preside over the affairs of the state.

But not long after, someone said to Sun Xiu:
"I heard that the Sanqi Changshi Yang Zhun and the Huangmen Shilang Liu Kui have the emperor in mind, and want to persuade Liang Wang Sima Xu to kill your majesty and lure the emperor back to the country."

Sima Lun was really shocked when he learned that he first sent people to kill Yang Zhun and Liu Kui, and then issued an edict to move Sima Xu as prime minister, but let him live in Situ Mansion, deprived him of the right to preside over the government, and appointed someone else as minister. make.

At this time, the local kings Sima Jiong of Qi, Sima Yong, king of Hejian, and Sima Ying, king of Chengdu, all had powerful armies, each occupying one side.

Sun Xiu was still a little clever, so he advised Sima Lun that Qi King Sima Jiong and others must have other plans, and asked him to select relatives and party members as well as Sima Lun's old officials to serve as counselors, generals and county guards for the three kings. Monitor.

Sima Lun agreed, but Sima Juan and others were well prepared and confused the envoys and supervisors sent by Sima Lun, pretending to be in panic all day long.

After receiving the reward from the envoy, Sima Lun thought that Luoyang was in his hands, and the princes and kings from all over the world were afraid of him. He thought he was safe and began to enjoy himself.

As everyone knows, the evil consequences caused by his feudal officials also followed one after another.

First came Sima Lun's confidants Sun Xiu and Zhang Lin.

The two had long been separated. Although they respected each other on the surface, Zhang Lin actually hated Sun Xiu very much in his heart.

When Zhang Lin was appointed as General of the Guard, he saw that Sun Xiu, a shabby scholar, was actually a servant, a supervisor of the Central Secretary, a general of hussars, and had the power to open a mansion.

However, he was a military general but did not have the authority to open a palace. He was very jealous, so he secretly wrote a letter to Prince Sima Xin, stating that Sun Xiu had exclusive power and acted against everyone's wishes, and the heroes he named were villains who disturbed the court and could be killed. To put things in perspective.

But what he didn't expect was that Sima Xin turned around and showed the letter to Sima Lun, and Sima Lun handed it to Sun Xiu to read.

After seeing this, Sun Xiu was secretly angry and advised Sima Lun on the spot to kill Zhang Lin and other gossips, otherwise it would be a great harm to His Majesty.

Sima Lun agreed. Under Sun Xiu's plan, Sima Lun invited people from the same clan to gather in Hualin Garden. He also summoned his confidants Zhang Lin, Sun Xiu and Wang Yu to attend, and took the opportunity to arrest Zhang Lin and kill him on the spot. He also killed three of his tribes.

But this move aroused the grief of some people. This act of killing a general Wei at will without going through the judicial process and without any crime or punishment was still the case for Zhang Lin and other senior ministers of Sima Lun to kill him at will.

They can't help but ask themselves, what if it were themselves?

Therefore, even though Sima Lun rewarded them very generously, the thought of abandoning Sima Lun was deeply rooted in the hearts of the officials.

(End of this chapter)