It’s been a while since someone made a play to seize power from within. That changes this week.

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Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast. This is episode 137.

Last time, the Wei emperor Cao Rui had died, and his 8-year-old son, Cao Fang (1), ascended to the throne. Being 8, he needed some adults to help him manage things. Those adults were Sima Yi and Cao Shuang, the son of Sima Yi’s former colleague and sometimes-frenemy Cao Zhen. Things started out well enough between Sima Yi and Cao Shuang, until somebody reminded Cao Shuang how Sima Yi had showed up his late father time after time, though really, it was his father who usually did the heavy lifting in humiliating himself.

In any case, Cao Shuang decided to elbow Sima Yi out of the way, and he did so in a very cloak-and-dagger way. He convinced the emperor to promote Sima Yi to imperial guardian, a lofty title that just so happened to carry zero military authority. So Cao Shuang, as regent, hoarded command of the army, and with that came total control of the court.

In response, Sima Yi, well, just decided to stay home on account of … umm … illness. And his two sons also retreated from public life, settling into private lives of leisure instead. So now Cao Shuang, with a firm grasp on control of the court, spent his days drinking and making merry with his entourage. Their clothing and daily wares were the equal of those used by the court. Whenever a tribute of exotic curios arrived for the emperor, Cao Shuang skimmed the best for himself before sending the rest to the emperor. His residence was filled with pretty women, and even that wasn’t enough. A eunuch from the inner palace wanted to suck up to Cao Shuang, so he picked seven or eight of the late emperor’s attending ladies and secretly sent them to Cao Shuang. As you can imagine, getting busy with women who had served your former lord was a huge impropriety, but Cao Shuang didn’t care. He just piled on. He chose 30 or 40 daughters from good families to serve as his private singers and dancers. He also built a multi-level painted gallery, commissioned gold and silver wares, and hired hundreds of artisans to work day and night on things to tingle the senses. So basically, he was living the debauched life of a spoiled, myopic aristocrat. Things usually end well for those people in this novel, right?

Another thing that Cao Shuang began doing quite frequently was to go on hunting expeditions outside the city with his entourage. One of his younger brothers told him, “You hold too much power to go hunting all the time. If somebody makes a move against you, it’ll be too late for regrets.”

But Cao Shuang scoffed. “I control the military. What concern is there?” So he dismissed cautions from his brother and another confidant and kept up with his hunting. And in this way, 10 years passed. Yes, you heard right. Ten years passed, just like that. See, I told you the timeline gets really compressed from here on out.

So, we’re now in the year 249, a decade after the young emperor Cao Fang ascended to the throne. All power rested with Cao Shuang. As for Sima Yi, Cao Shuang had kind of lost track of the man over the years. After all, Sima Yi had basically disappeared from public life years ago because of his health.

Around this time, the emperor had appointed one of Cao Shuang’s confidants,