Born: 257, China
Died: 300
Country most active: China
Also known as: 賈南風, 賈南風
Jia Nanfeng was the first wife of Emperor Hui of the Jin dynasty. Often portrayed as a villainous figure in Chinese history, she is seen as the person who provoked the War of the Eight Princes, which led to the Wu Hu rebellions and the Jin Dynasty’s loss of northern and central China. From 291 to 300, she ruled the empire behind the scenes by dominating her husband, who had developmental disabilities.
Jia was born in 257 to the Jin official Jia Chong and Guo Huai. In 271, her father was desperate to avoid being assigned to lead an army against the Xianbei rebel Tufa Shujineng. So he decided to marry Jia or her younger sister to the developmentally disabled crown prince, Sima Zhong. At first, the emperor rejected the proposal, as he preferred a different bride for the crown prince, saying “Lady Jia is jealous, ugly, short, and dark-skinned.”
However, Jia’s mother Guo Huai was friendly with Empress Yang Yan, whose associates all greatly praised Jia and her sisters. Eventually, Emperor Wu agreed, but chose her sister Jia Wu instead. When Wu was deemed too short and too young to wear the formal dress, Jia Nanfeng replaced her. At age 14, she married the 12-year-old crown prince in 272, and she was made crown princess. She soon gained a reputation for her jealousy, and established a relationship with the crown prince where he both loved and feared her. For the rest of her life, he was firmly in her control. When several of his concubines became pregnant, she reputedly killed them herself in fits of jealousy. Jia bore four daughters, but could not produce a son; she became jealous of her husband’s son, Sima Yu, by his concubine Consort Xie Jiu, but could not act against them because the child had Emperor Wu’s favour.
When someone implied to the emperor that Zhong lacked the mental capacity to be a suitable heir, Jia circumvented his enquiries by having someone write simple but correct responses. When Emperor Wu died in 290, Zhong took the throne as Emperor Hui, and Jia was made Empress later that year.
At first, the empress dowager’s father, Yang Jun, ruled as Hui’s regent. To limit Jia’s ability to interfere, he created a system where the emperor’s edicts had to be co-signed by his daughter, Hui’s stepmother Empress Dowager Yang. For a time, she could only influence matters inside the palace, including keeping the new crown prince Yu from his mother. But she wanted real power, and began conspiring with the eunuch Dong Meng and the generals Meng Guan and Li Zhao, as well as Hui’s brother, Sima Wei. They implemented a coup in 291.
Jia had the emperor issue an edict declaring Yang Jun a criminal and removing him from his regency, and order his forces to attack Yang’s. When the empress dowager, trapped in the palace, shot arrows outside with edicts ordering assistance for Yang Jun, Jia declared her actions treason. Yang Jun was soon defeated, and their clan massacred, while his daughter was imprisoned, dying the following year.
New regents were named, Sima Liang and Wei Guan, and Jia gained more influence in government matters. When the regents tried to strip Sima Wei, Hui’s brother and Jia’s co-conspirator, of his military command, he convinced Jia to intercede. His assistants later lied to her that the regents were planning to depose Emperor Hui. So she staged a second coup in the same year, having her husband write an edict to his brother, ordering the removal of the regents. Sima Wei attacked their mansions and killed both men, despite their surrendering to him. Knowing she could not control him, Jia then betrayed Sima Wei, publicly claiming that he had falsely issued the edict. His troops abandoned him and he was captured and executed.
Jia was now the undisputed power behind the throne, and would remain so for years. She had little self-control and was often violent and volatile, with her behaviour growing more unstable as time went on. This included having affairs with men and then killing them to ensure their silence, and lying that she was pregnant so that she could present her nephew as a claimant to the throne (it is unknown why she did not carry out this plan).
Resentful as ever of her stepson, Crown Prince Yu, Jia acted against him in 299. She got him drunk and had him write a statement saying he planned to kill his father and Jia and take the throne. Presenting her fabricated evidence, she argued to have him executed, but in the face of resistance from officials, he was only deposed, though his mother and favourite concubine were killed. She later had him assassinated.
Jia was overthrown in 300 by Sima Lun, the Prince of Zhao. Following his coup, she was deposed and forced to commit suicide by drinking jinxiaojiu (“wine with gold fragments”)