Career Up To 255
Sima Zhao was born in 211, as the second-born son of Sima Yi and his wife Zhang Chunhua, younger only to Sima Shi. As his father was an important Wei official, Sima Shi himself climbed up the ranks of officials fairly rapidly. Due to his father's achievements (not his own) in destroying the warlord Gongsun Yuan, he was created a marquess in 238.
Sima Zhao's involvement in his father's coup d'état against the regent Cao Shuang in 249 is unclear. According to the Book of Jin, he was not told about the plan, hatched by his father and his older brother, until the last minute — a view disagreed with by other historians, who believed that he was intimately involved in the planning. In the aftermaths of the successful coup, however, his father became regent, and he himself became important in status. In 251, when his father suppressed the failed rebellion of Wang Ling, Sima Zhao served as deputy commander. During the next few years, he was involved in commanding forces in repelling invasions by Shu's commander of the armed forces, Jiang Wei.
In 254, while Sima Zhao was at the capital Luoyang, advisors to the Wei emperor Cao Fang suggested that the emperor surprise Sima Zhao and kill him to seize his troops, and then use those troops against Sima Shi. Cao Fang, apprehensive, did not act on the suggestion, but the plot was still discovered, and Sima Zhao assisted his brother in deposing the emperor and replacing him with Cao Mao. In the aftermaths of the removal of the emperor, the generals Guanqiu Jian and Wen Qin rebelled in 255 but were defeated by Sima Shi.
Sima Shi, however, had a serious eye illness that was aggravated by the campaign, and he died less than a month later. At that time, Sima Zhao was with his brother at Xuchang (in modern Xuchang, Henan). The 14-year-old emperor Cao Mao made an effort to regain imperial power. He issued an edict which, under the rationale that Sima Shi had just defeated Wuqiu Jian and Wen Qin's rebellion and that the southeastern empire was still not complete pacified, ordered Sima Zhao to remain at Xuchang and that Sima Shi's assistant Fu Jia return to Luoyang with the main troops. Under Fu Jia and Zhong Hui's advice, however, Sima Zhao returned to Luoyang anyway against edict, and was able to maintain control of the government. Indeed, from that point on, he would not let Cao Mao or Empress Dowager Guo to be out of his control.
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