The Fall of Luoyang Breaks Western Jin

After Liu Cong took power, he made the capture of Luoyang his first great objective.

Earlier assaults had failed. This time, he turned to encirclement.

Three Routes Close Around Luoyang

Liu Cong sent three major commanders, Liu Yao, Shi Le, and Wang Mi, to seize the cities around Luoyang from different directions.

Liu Yao advanced west from the Mianchi area of Henan toward the Shaanxi corridor. Wang Mi attacked cities around Kaifeng. Shi Le took Xincai and then Xuchang. Step by step, the three armies cut the grain routes into Luoyang.

Famine soon began inside the capital. Emperor Huai of Jin and Sima Yue, Prince of Donghai, were frightened enough to put aside their conflict for the moment and summon forces from across the realm to rescue the capital.

But regional commands no longer obeyed the center as they once had. Edicts went out. Few real reinforcements arrived.

Officials suggested moving the capital to escape danger. Emperor Huai was ready to agree, but Situ Wang Yan opposed the move. Wang Yan came from the Langya Wang family and held high office, so his words carried weight. Once he objected, the emperor could not leave.

That hesitation kept Emperor Huai inside a shrinking siege.

Outside, relief forces failed to come. Inside, grain disappeared day by day. Luoyang's fate was already sliding downward.

Sima Yue Leaves First

The emperor stayed in Luoyang, but Sima Yue did not want to wait there for death.

He asked Emperor Huai for permission to personally lead troops against Shi Le. The emperor understood that he wanted to leave the capital and held his sleeve, begging him to stay. Sima Yue insisted that he was going to defeat the enemy, not flee.

In the eleventh month of Yongjia's fourth year, Sima Yue led 40,000 soldiers toward Xuchang. Before leaving, he placed his trusted men Li Yun and He Lun near the emperor.

These men were supposed to protect the emperor. In reality, they watched him. He Lun was especially overbearing and often ordered Emperor Huai around. The emperor could not bear it and tried to use the royal relative Sima Mao to remove him, but the plan leaked, and Sima Mao was nearly killed.

After that, He Lun became even more reckless, robbing ministers and disturbing the palace.

Emperor Huai secretly wrote an edict and sent it to Gou Xi, inspector of Qingzhou, asking him to attack Sima Yue.

Gou Xi Turns Toward the Emperor

Gou Xi was a formidable commander in the late Western Jin, known by the harsh nickname "Butcher Earl." During the War of the Eight Princes, every side had tried to draw him in.

After Sima Yue emerged victorious, he also used Gou Xi and had him guard Yanzhou. But the more military success Gou Xi gained, the more Sima Yue feared him. Yanzhou was strategically important; Cao Cao had once risen from there. Sima Yue did not want Gou Xi holding it for too long and later transferred him to Qingzhou.

Their relationship cracked. Emperor Huai appealed to Gou Xi because he had troops and was already at odds with Sima Yue.

After receiving the secret edict, Gou Xi immediately led troops west to attack Sima Yue.

Sima Yue was already surrounded by Shi Le near Xiangcheng and deeply anxious. When he heard that Gou Xi was marching against him too, shock and rage overwhelmed him. He vomited blood and died.

Before dying, he ordered his men to keep his death secret and take the army back to his Donghai fief.

The Death of Wang Yan

After Sima Yue died, the army had no leader. The officers chose Wang Yan as commander.

Wang Yan did not want this ruined situation. He insisted that he was a civil official, not a military leader. But in the end, the army followed Sima Yue's final order and quietly carried his coffin away from Xiangcheng, hoping to avoid Shi Le and return east.

Shi Le discovered the movement. He led cavalry in pursuit and surrounded the column. Wang Yan was captured.

Years earlier, Wang Yan had said Shi Le would become a great danger to the realm and had even sent men to arrest him. Now, facing Shi Le, his tone changed. He said Shi Le had the air of an emperor and urged him to establish himself.

Shi Le sneered. In his view, men like Wang Yan, high officials who loved refined talk, had helped drag the world into chaos.

He ordered Wang Yan and others driven into a house, then had the walls pushed down to crush them.

Sima Yue's main force was destroyed.

Luoyang Becomes an Isolated City

News of Sima Yue's death soon reached Luoyang.

Li Yun and He Lun heard that their protector was gone. They escorted the Donghai prince's family out of the city at night, trying to flee back east. Many nobles and aristocrats followed with their property.

The escape column ran straight into Shi Le's advancing troops. Shi Le ordered pursuit. Apart from Li Yun, He Lun, and a few others who escaped south, most were killed.

By now, the main Jin forces around Luoyang had been scattered.

Shi Le continued toward Luoyang. Liu Cong ordered Wang Mi and Liu Yao to approach the capital as well. Luoyang was pressed from northeast and west. Emperor Huai knew the situation was desperate and tried to leave the palace with the few people still around him.

But there were no carriages left. Nobles fleeing the city had taken the usable vehicles and horses. Emperor Huai had to walk out of the palace with only a few dozen people.

Once they reached the streets, they saw that Luoyang was no longer the splendid capital it had been. Famine was severe. Bandits moved through the city. The emperor's party was easy to recognize and was quickly robbed of its possessions. They had no choice but to retreat back into the palace.

There was no food inside. Emperor Huai even had soldiers disguise themselves at night and go out to steal grain.

The Son of Heaven had been reduced to stealing food to keep the palace alive.

Han Troops Enter the City

When Liu Cong's advance troops arrived below Luoyang, the city no longer had a real defense.

The vanguard commander Hu Yanyan could not believe it at first. He suspected an ambush. He ordered arrows shot into the city and sent troops inside to set fires as a test. Flames rose, but the city did not respond.

In earlier times, a fire in Luoyang would have brought soldiers and residents rushing to put it out. Now the silence was so strange that Hu Yanyan became even more cautious. He waited for later forces.

The next day, Wang Mi arrived. He did not hesitate and led troops straight into the city. Hu Yanyan followed.

Only then did they see that Luoyang was almost a dead city. It held starving people and empty palace halls.

Han troops began killing and plundering. Palace treasures were taken. Emperor Huai tried to escape through the west gate, but ran into Liu Yao and was captured.

When Liu Yao entered the palace, he found that Wang Mi and Hu Yanyan had already taken much of the treasure. Angry, he turned to the Jin imperial tombs and dug into the graves from Sima Yi onward to seize valuables.

He then entered the rear palace, took Yang Xianrong, the empress of the previous Emperor Hui, and made her his consort.

Before leaving, Liu Yao set fire to the palace. Luoyang, the old splendid capital, became ruins.

Wang Mi was furious when he heard. He had imagined that after taking Luoyang, he might persuade Liu Cong to move the Han capital there and turn the old Jin capital into a new center. Liu Yao's fire burned not only palaces but also Wang Mi's plan.

Wang Mi and Shi Le Part Ways

Wang Mi had wanted Luoyang to become useful for Han. Liu Yao's destruction ruined that possibility.

The tension between Wang Mi and Liu Yao deepened. Someone advised Wang Mi that in this age of disorder, powerful men everywhere were taking territory. Although he had served Han well, he was not a member of the Liu clan. Better to go to Qingzhou, build his own base, and wait for a future chance.

Wang Mi thought the advice made sense and led his troops toward Shandong.

Shi Le arrived at Luoyang later and found only scorched ruins. There was no profit in staying, so he moved to Xuchang.

Liu Cong ordered Liu Yao to continue toward Chang'an. He also had the captured Emperor Huai, surrendered Jin ministers, and the imperial seal sent to Pingyang. After Luoyang fell, Western Jin was not dead immediately, but its most important political center had been pulled out by the roots.

After Emperor Huai was captured, Gou Xi in Qingzhou set up Sima Duan as crown prince and called himself tutor to the crown prince, trying to support a small court. But he soon sank into pleasure, killed officers who criticized him, and lost support.

Shi Le saw the chance and attacked Gou Xi. In half a day, he reached Gou Xi's residence and captured him.

Shi Le did not kill Gou Xi immediately because he wanted to use his knowledge of Qingzhou against Wang Mi. Later, Shi Le lured Wang Mi to a feast and killed him, then reported to Liu Cong that Wang Mi had plotted rebellion. Liu Cong had little choice but to accept the fact.

After Wang Mi died, Qingzhou fell to Shi Le. Gou Xi no longer had value. Soon afterward, he plotted rebellion and Shi Le killed him and his family.

Emperor Huai Is Killed

The captured Emperor Huai was sent to Pingyang and fell into Liu Cong's hands.

Later, Liu Cong humiliated him at a banquet, making him wear servant-like clothes and pour wine. Former Jin ministers saw their old emperor reduced to this state and could not stop crying.

Liu Cong was enraged. He had the ministers locked together and poisoned. Emperor Huai was also killed in Pingyang.

When the news reached Chang'an, the Jin crown prince Sima Ye was enthroned as Emperor Min of Jin. He mourned Emperor Huai and called on the realm to rise against Han, trying to restore the Central Plain.

But many Jin royals and elite families had already moved south. Northern regions were busy trying to survive. The call sounded grand, but few could truly answer.

Chang'an Falls

When Liu Cong heard that Sima Ye had taken the throne in Chang'an, he ordered Liu Yao to attack the city with 50,000 soldiers.

Chang'an was soon surrounded and cut off. In October 316, severe famine struck the city. Many residents starved, and accounts describe people eating one another.

Emperor Min waited for relief that did not come. Guanzhong armies had their own calculations. Royals and elite families in the southeast were already protecting themselves. Court orders could still be sent out, but they could no longer bring back grain or soldiers.

Unable to hold on, Emperor Min sent a surrender letter to Liu Yao. He bared his upper body, held a jade disk in his mouth, rode out in a sheep cart, and surrendered.

Chang'an fell. Western Jin was dead.

After surrendering, Emperor Min was humiliated for two more years and then killed in Pingyang at only eighteen.

Northern Western Jin could not be saved. But the Sima family's story was not over. At the same time, Sima Rui, Prince of Langya, had already gained a foothold in Jiangdong. Jiankang was about to become the new center of the Jin house.