We look at the architect of the Sima clan’s rise to power.

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Sima Yi (Source: Wikipedia)

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

In this episode, we will take a look at the real life Sima Yi, the architect of the Sima clan’s rise to power in the Wei court.

Sima Yi was unceremoniously introduced in the novel. In episode 48 of our podcast, he appeared in a passing mention where he was one of several guys that Cao Cao promoted while beefing up the civil administration. I made a note at that time to that you should pay attention to Sima Yi. But in the novel, there was no call-out, and he just snuck in and lay low for about half the novel before rising to prominence after Cao Cao’s death.

While it may appear that Sima Yi came out of nowhere, in reality, he definitely had a reputation that preceded him. The Sima clan was a prominent family even before the Han Dynasty. After the fall of the Qin Dynasty, the predecessor to the Han, the empire fractured into 18 small feudal states, and one of Sima Yi’s ancestors was the ruler of one of those states. Their state later became of the Han empire, and the Sima clan remained one of the most powerful families. Members of the clan served in the government for generations. The several generations immediately preceding Sima Yi served in various generalships and governorships, while Sima Yi’s father was a superintendent.

Coming from this illustrious lineage, Sima Yi did not exactly fly under the radar. Even in his youth, he was said to have been crafty and often concerned about the empire, which was teetering at the time. At the age of 22, he was nominated to join the civil service.

At that point, Cao Cao was not yet prime minister but had started his ascent up the political ladder. When Cao Cao heard about Sima Yi’s reputation, he wanted to bring the guy onto his personal staff. Sima Yi, though, didn’t want to serve under Cao Cao, so he claimed that he had been paralyzed and could not serve. Cao Cao was naturally suspicious, so he sent someone to spy on Sima Yi at night. Sima Yi, well aware that Cao Cao might be keeping him under tight watch, laid motionless in bed all night, and that fooled the spy, who told Cao Cao that Sima Yi was indeed paralyzed.

Fast forward seven years, and Cao Cao was now the prime minister, and through the grapevine he had learned somewhere along the way that Sima Yi had miraculously gotten better from his paralysis. So now, Cao Cao made another effort to court Sima Yi. Well, “court” isn’t exactly the right word for it. Let’s just say that Cao Cao made Sima Yi an offer he couldn’t refuse, not if he wanted to keep his head. Given the choice of serving or dying, Sima Yi chose the pragmatic path, and that was how he came to be in the Han court.

This is the point where Sima Yi first appeared in the novel. He started out as an attendant to the crown prince and then moved on to various other positions. But gradually, Cao Cao began to have second thoughts about this guy he tried so hard to recruit. He detected that Sima Yi may be harboring uncommon ambitions. Cao Cao warned his son Cao Pi that Sima Yi  was not one to take orders from somebody else forever, so best be on guard against him. Fortunately for Sima Yi, he was on very good terms with Cao Pi, so nothing really came of it.

 

Now, in the novel, we didn’t really hear much about Sima Yi after he began serving Cao Cao.