Unifying the Country Again
5 min readDeng Ai（197-264），a general of the Wei，already captured Chengdu and destroyed the Shu Kingdom in 263. After ascending the throne, Sima Yan took the Wu Kingdom which embraced the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River as the next target of attack.
In 280, generals Wang Jun(206-286) and Du Yu (222-284) led 200 thousand troops that were divided into six routes to advance towards Jianye (present Nanjing of Jiangsu Province), the Wu capital.
The Jin army drove straight in, carrying all before them. The Wu soldiers with a deflated morale fled at the mere sight of the oncoming force. In the end, Sun Hao (242-284, grandson of Sun Quan), the fourth and last Wu emperor, was forced to surrender himself to Wang Jun who first entered the city. TheWestern Jin Dynasty then accomplished the country’s unification once again in Chinese history.
A Couple of Porcelain Figurines, Funeral objects, the Western Jin Dynasty
“Golden Years of Taikang”
After subjugating the Wu Kingdom, Sima Yan changed his reign title to Taikang. As the country had been divided for many years and the common people had suffered a lot of privations during the war, he issued a special imperialedict to reduce taxes and corvee and stimulate agricultural production.
According to the new land and tax policy, an adult man was allowed to own 70 mu farmland,a woman 30 mu, but they only needed to pay taxes for 50 mu and 20 mu of land respectively. Each household was also required to deliver allotted number of cotton and silk fabrics to the state as taxin kind.
A Eastern Jin Dynasty（317-420）hand scroll”Ode to Goddess of the Luo River”by Gu Kaizhi，ink and color on silk，in the collection of the Palace Museum，Beijing Gu Kaizhi（345-ca.406），born in Eastern Jin Dynasty，was one of China’s four great artists in pre-Tang Dynasty period.Knowledgeable and talented，he was particularly proficient at painting and was acclaimed as great master of painting art by people of later ages.He generated drastic and far-reaching impacts on traditional Chinese painting at that time and of later generations.
Despite a reproduction in the Song Dynasty（960-1279），it well preserves painting styles in the six dynasties and accordingly becomes a valuable document to study Gu Kaizhi’s painting art.
This painting drew materials from Ode to Goddess of the Luo River，a literature masterpiece of Cao Zhi，a great litterateur in the Three Kingdoms period（220-280）.It depicts the scene that Cao Zhi meets with the Goddess of the Luo River at riverside.It’s ingeniously conceived and drawn in vivid approaches.The goddess is graceful，beautiful，and appears in all her splendor.The painting shows author’s boundless joy when meeting with the goddess and enormous sadness at farewell.
It was previously preserved in the palace of the Qing Dynasty（1644-1911）.As one of a few existing ancient Chinese paintings，it is a national cultural relic indeed.
In addition，the royal court stipulated that the area of land possessed by a first-grade official shouldn’t exceed 50 qing（a traditional unit of area equal to 100 mu or 6.66 hectares），and it decreased by a degree of five qing as the official’s rank lowered gradually；for example，it was no more than 10 qing for a grade-nine official.The relatives of courtiers and aristocrats were exempt from paying taxes and levies.Whilst safeguarding the economic privileges enjoyed by the bureaucracy and aristocracy，this policy prevented them from occupying land wantonly.
The royal court also built irrigation works and encouraged farmers to reclaim wasteland.For instance，more than 5，000 qing of barren land in Ji Prefecture（present Weihui City in Henan Province）had been brought under cultivation.As a result，grain yield increased greatly and its prices came down nationwide.In order to stabilize food prices，Sima Yan then set up an official granary named Changping，purchasing grain at a higher than normal price when the harvest was good and selling at a lower price in a lean year.
The above policies had helped to usher in a period of prosperity in the early Western Jin Dynasty，which was called the”Golden Years of Taikang”in Chinese history.
Obsessed with Women in His old Age
Once the country was at peace, Sima Yan began to lead a life of shameless dissipation. As early as 273 he put a ban on the marriage of ordinary people for his own convenience to select maids nationwide. On the downfall of the Wu Kingdom, he came into possession of 5,000 concubines of SunHao who was a debauched and unprincipled tyrant, and this allegedly increased the number of Sima Yan’s women living in the imperial harem to 10,000.
Hard to choose a sexual partner from so many beauties, it was said that he rode on a goat-drawn cart to the harem everyday, and wherever the goat stopped he would stay there for the night. Vying with each other for his favor, many girls either planted bamboo leaves or spread a layer of salt at the door to attract the goat. Indulging in sensual pleasures, the once ambitious emperor didn’t attend to government affairs personally any more.
Soon after he was enthroned, Sima Yan had set up 27 members of his family as princes aiming at solidifying his rule. However, this move proved a curse to his empire. In 291, just one year after his death, the so-called “Internecine Wars Among Eight Princes”broke out, and the chaos lasted for 15 years. From then on the Western Jin Dynasty was increasingly on the wane until it was destroyed by the Huns in 316.
Xiao Yan: Emperor of the Southern Liang Dynasty Professing Buddhism
Portrait of Xiao Yan (464-549)
xiao Yan, styled shuda, was the founding emperor of the Liang Dynasty. He was well versed both in civil and military affairs. Soon after he was enthroned he became a pious adherent of Buddhism. Reigning for 48 years, he was reverently entitled Emperor Wu after death.
Xiao Yan(464-549) of the Han nationality, with Shuda as his courtesy name and Lian’ er as his childhood name, came from Moling County(present Jiangning County of Jiangsu Province). The 25th in descent from Chancellor Xiao He of the Western Han Dynasty, he set up the Liang Dynasty(also called Southern Liang,502-557)–one of the Southern Dynasties–and reigned for 48 years(502-549).
He was famous in history for his strict adherence to Buddhism.
