Emperor Wu of Jin, Chinese emperor (b. 236)
Emperor Wu of Jin (simplified Chinese: 晋武帝; traditional Chinese: 晉武帝; pinyin: Jìn Wǔ Dì; Wade–Giles: Chin Wu-Ti; 236 – 16 May 290), personal name Sima Yan (Chinese: 司馬炎; pinyin: Sīmǎ Yán), courtesy name Anshi (安世), was the grandson of Sima Yi, nephew of Sima Shi and son of Sima Zhao. He became the first emperor of the Jin dynasty after forcing Cao Huan, last emperor of the state of Cao Wei, to abdicate to him. He reigned from 266 to 290, and after conquering the state of Eastern Wu in 280, was the emperor of a reunified China. Emperor Wu was also known for his extravagance and sensuality, especially after the unification of China; legends boasted of his incredible potency among ten thousand concubines.
Emperor Wu was commonly viewed as a generous and kind, but also wasteful. His generosity and kindness undermined his rule, as he became overly tolerant of the noble families' (世族 or 士族, a political/bureaucratic landlord class from Eastern Han to Tang dynasty) corruption and wastefulness, which drained the people's resources. Further, when Emperor Wu established the Jin Dynasty, he was concerned about his regime's stability, and, believing that the predecessor state, Cao Wei, had been doomed by its failures to empower the princes of the imperial clan, he greatly empowered his uncles, his cousins, and his sons with authority, including independent military authority. This ironically led to the destabilization of the Western Jin, as the princes engaged in an internecine struggle known as the War of the Eight Princes soon after his death, and then the Wu Hu uprisings that nearly destroyed the Western Jin and forced its successor, Eastern Jin relocation to the region south of the Huai River.