As the saying goes, there are many talented courtiers and generals in history who died young, which makes people regret. What I want to talk about today is such a famous courtier who is both literate and martial, with long talents, but who died in middle age, that is, Wen Zhao in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
Wen Yu (文峤), also spelled Taizhen ,was a large clan of Qi County, Taiyuan (present-day eastern Qi County, Shanxi). His father had six brothers and was famous as the "Six Dragons". His uncle Wen Xian was the Zhongshu Supervisor during the reign of Emperor Hui of the Western Jin Dynasty. When Wen Yao was born, the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" had not yet begun, and he had been reading the scriptures since he was a child, and he did not release the scrolls in his hands, and practiced orthodox Confucianism.
Because Wen Yu was talented from an early age and had a prominent family, he was summoned by the prefecture and county as an official at the age of seventeen, which he did not accept at first, and was later appointed by Si Li as a capital official, that is, an official of the inspector official. Politics in the Western Jin Dynasty was extremely corrupt, and officials' appetite for money and bribery became the norm, and even open robbery. Scattered Horse Chang Yu was very famous, often embezzled, and was reported and punished by Wen Zhao, and the whole capital was shaken.
During the Rebellion of the Eight Kings, the kings slaughtered each other. The ruling power of the Western Jin Dynasty was also greatly weakened. The hidden class contradictions and national contradictions are uncontrollable. The Xiongnu Liu Yuan and Shi Le raised troops against the Jin Dynasty, and the Hu and Han people responded one after another. As Liu and Shi's power grew, their ambitions to establish a Hu ruling regime grew, turning their brutal rule against the Western Jin Dynasty into a massacre of the Han people. After the western Jin dynasty and the second emperor huai were captured, the western Jin dynasty's rule in the north collapsed, and the social contradictions in the north became the struggle of the Han people against the brutal slaughter and enslavement of the Hu rulers. In order to escape the massacre of the Hu rulers, a large number of northerners fled to the more stable south of the Yangtze River. And those Western Jin officials, local clans, and powerful people who could not leave the north for a while have successively joined the clan and built a fort to protect themselves. Most of these dock owners who built up their own docks took the Eastern Jin Dynasty as "Zhengshuo" and actively fought against Liu and Shi, so the surrounding Han people took refuge in large numbers at Wu fort. For a time, these forts became the center of resistance to the Hu attack in various parts of the north and the reunion and survival of the vast number of Han people. During this period, Wen Yu threw himself into the rong and became a famous general who resisted Liu and Shi.
In 306, in order to recover Liu Yuan's control of Hezhou, Liu Kun recruited more than a thousand people to enter Hezhou with Wen Yu as his subordinate. Thanks to the efforts of Liu Kun and Wen Jiao, they soon gained a foothold in Hezhou, where "thorns are forested and jackals are full of roads", and quickly expanded their power in Jinyang. The arrogant Liu Yuan had to move the capital from Lishi to Puzi to avoid Liu Kun and Wen Yue.
In 317, Wen Yu was sent by Liu Kun to jiankang with his watch to persuade him to advance. After Sima Rui ascended the throne, he was left in Jiangnan and later served as a subordinate official of Sima Shao, the crown prince, "the friend of the prince and the cloth cloth". After the establishment of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Sima Rui was not willing to be only a puppet of the great tribes in the north and south, he cultivated his confidants and strengthened the centralization of power, but it touched the interests of the great clan, triggered contradictions with the magnates, and eventually broke out the Wang Dun Rebellion. Wang Dun's ultimate goal was to take Sima Shi's place. The removal of the prince was an important step in his efforts to achieve this goal. Wang Dun had summoned hundreds of officials, and in front of everyone, he pressed Wen Yu in a loud voice, trying to force Wen Yu to deny the prince's conduct. However, Wen Yao was not moved by Wang Dun's obscenity, calmly replied correctly, and forced Prince Chen's "filial piety" character. Everyone believed it, and foiled Wang Dun's plot to shake the "fundamentals" of the Jin Dynasty.
Sima Rui died in grief. The crown prince Sima Shao succeeded to the throne as Emperor Ming. Wen Yu served as a servant after Emperor Ming ascended the throne. Because there are "the responsibilities of the pillars, the emperor and the relatives rely on them", "the secrets and conspiracies are all involved". Wang Dun did not want Emperor Ming to have such a wise man by his side, so he transferred Wen Yu to his side as The Left Sima and served him with Tu Wen Zheng. Wen Yu pretended to be close to Wang Dun and participated in the conspiracy, which won Wang Dun's trust. and Danyang Yin Que, in order to set up more eyes and ears in the Beijing Division, Wang Dun made Wen Yu take office. Wen Yu was able to return the capital and immediately reported Wang Dun's intentions to Emperor Ming, so that Jiankang would be prepared first. When Wang Dun found out that he had been deceived, he was so angry that he ordered Wen Yu to be captured alive and personally executed. Later, in the quelling of Wang Dun's rebellion, Wen Yu played a key role.
In 327 AD, Su Jun raised an army to attack Jiankang. Wen Yu and Xi Jian became the core figures in the crusade against Su Jun. They contacted Tao Kan, Wang Shu, and others to form an ally and negotiate with Su Jun for two years before they could quell Su Jun's rebellion.
Although Wen Yu had distinguished himself in quelling the two civil strifees, and after the great disturbance, it was expected that he would be in the middle of the government, but he insisted on resigning. This avoided the possible friction between him and other powerful ministers, and obviously had a positive effect on the stability of the political situation in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. In April of the fourth year of Xianhe (329 AD), Wen Yu died of a stroke from tooth extraction at the age of forty-two. "When Jiangzhou Shishu heard it, he wept without looking at each other."