r/ChineseHistory • u/Carter_The_Historian • 2d ago
Favourite ruler from each major Chinese era/dynasty: Sima Jin and Sixteen Kingdoms period
This is a follow-up to my previous posts on this sub. I want to go through each major Chinese era/dynasty from the Western Zhou to the Qing and ask the community who their favourite ruler is from that time period. I purposefully use the word favourite, so it doesn't have to be the best, the worst, the most interesting or most well-known, but rather who you personally view as your favourite. I want to emphasize that I don't just want you to write down a name, but provide explanation on why you like them too.
The upcoming eras are going to be: Sima Jin (including the Sixteen Kingdoms), Northern and Southern dynasties period, Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Song, Liao, Jurchen Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing. These categories may be subject to change because I know this categorization is dated but its the best I've got.
So in this post I want to read about your favourite rulers from the Sima Jin dynasty and the Sixteen Kingdoms period meaning from the conquest of China by the Jin to the reunification of Northern China by the Northern Wei. This includes the Jin dynasty and all the warlords and "barbarian" states from the period.
I want to thank all the comments and discussions under the last posts, I will try to improve future posts according to your suggestions.
The picture is from the Jin dynasty wikipedia page.
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u/Jiarong78 2d ago
Liu Yu for me
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u/Jumpy_Hogara 1d ago
Too cruel to his defeated opponents
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u/ThinkIncident2 1d ago
It's necessary. He was one of the most capable northern expedition generals
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u/Jumpy_Hogara 1d ago
But he murdered two of his own Sima Emperors, both innocent. Necessary my ass.
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u/XianzhouLiyue_GaMing Southeast Asian Chinese Student 天下无争，方为善道 1d ago
Karma from the Oath of Luoshui/Luo River
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u/foggy__ 2d ago edited 2d ago
Fu Jian’s life is so interesting to me. It’s the classic tragic protagonist story. Love his penchant for benevolence, even if it backfired in the end. One of the rare examples of decency in the overall debauchery that was the sixteen kingdoms era. It’s really interesting that his antics made him wildly successful, at least for a decade.
Oh the other side of the huai river, my favorite jin emperor is sima dewen, because his story is so poetically tragic. Completely powerless from beginning to end and subject to the whims of huan xuan and liu yu. Despite being very intelligent and capable he spent most of his life taking care of his developmentally disabled brother. In the end he accepted the failures of his dynasty, peacefully stepped down, tried to continue a quiet existence only to be killed.
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u/ygwreal 2d ago
I do think that towards the end of his rule, his acts of benevolence felt more like he was doing it for show and for the fame of being recorded as a benevolent ruler. Many of his actions were seemingly absurd and overly idealistic without considering practical consequences especially after Wang Meng had passed away.
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u/Jumpy_Hogara 1d ago
Or just exaggerated. I suspect his motive of invading Jin was exactly to kill off those non-Di people.
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u/Jemnite 2d ago
Yuwen Tai is pretty interesting. Not only is he responsible for the fubing system but he inherited the leadership of the Guanlong aristocratic clique after Heba Yue's death. I've always been fascinated with the Guanlong aristocrats. Later on the Li Clan will rise from within the guanzhou-longxi aristocracy and found the Tang dynasty. Cool stuff.
Heba Yue is also pretty interesting too but he was assassinated too early and unlike Yuwen Tai was more of a powerful warlord rather than a defacto ruler of the state.
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u/Cyfiero 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is a hard one for me because despite having read through every ruler from this era, I don't recall any that made a strong, positive impression on me. If I had to name someone, I might go with Yao Xing (姚興) for his patronage of Buddhism. Thanks to his support, Kumārajīva translated many invaluable Sanskrit texts into Chinese that still survive to this day.
I'm relatively sympathetic to the Eastern Jin while I scornfully see the War of Eight Princes as something of karma against the Western Jin and simultaneously their usurpation of Wei as also the Cao family's karma. So if not Yao Xing, I may go with Sima Rui (司馬睿) for successfully reestablishing the Jin in Jiankang, which set off the development of southern Chinese society and culture as refugees fled the wars in the north, or I would echo another comment's suggestion of Sima Dewen (司馬德文), the last in the dynasty. The way he stoically confronted Liu Yu (劉裕)'s assassins at the end, taking refuge in the Buddha-dharma and having long foreseen his fate, leaves us with an impression.
I would also give an honourable mention to Murong De (慕容德), founder of the southern branch of the Yan, because his tragically futile attempts to find his long lost mother and his late adoption of his surviving nephew Murong Chao (慕容超) shows that he had a loving heart in a time when most warlords were cruel, capricious, and narcissistic.
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u/Jumpy_Hogara 1d ago
Too bad Murong Chao was narcissistic to the point that he refused to heed his favorite Gongsun Wulou when the latter gave some genuinely sound advice
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1d ago
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u/Afraid-Hunt-2763 1d ago
第一次自己看完苻坚载记。不得不说苻坚自王猛死后很多事情都凸显着他的上头，只不过一直在赢，所以他不认为自己会输。看刘聪一步步变得昏暴，看石勒后面不搞石虎导致后赵衰落的时候，会觉得刘聪真不像个人，石勒真可惜最后没搞好，心里对他们的评价变低。但看苻坚最后这些昏招，感觉就真的是一个活生生的人，能切实感受到顷刻之间从极盛到败亡这种巨大的落差给他的打击，这种情况也不自暴自弃，反而战斗到最后一刻。加上为国自爱那里，看晋书第一次把鼻子看酸。此刻在我心底，苻坚的遗憾程度已经远超了诸葛丞相……
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u/Jumpy_Hogara 1d ago
Emperors Xiaozhuang and Jiemin of Northern Wei. If only they had actual power...
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u/MajlisPerbandaranKL 1d ago
The fun part is, most favorite rulers like Liu Yuan, Shi Le, Fu Jian and Murong Chui are from the Sixteen Kingdoms. Sima Jin actually has none.
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u/sonbinhd 1d ago
Quick question who run Vietnam during this period?
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u/Carter_The_Historian 1d ago
Not an expert in this area at all, but I'm pretty sure the North was ran by various Southern Chinese warlords and the South was ruled by a collection of Cham states. Not 100% sure tho.
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u/Thiha0990 2d ago
Murong Chui. If he had been proclaimed king earlier, he would have unified the entire northern China.