Shi Jian

Biography

Early Life

Shi Jian was the third son of Shi Hu. After Shi Le's death in 333 and Shi Hu's seizure of power, Shi Jian was made Prince of Dai. In 337, his title was reduced to Duke of Yiyang. In 349, when Shi Hu proclaimed himself emperor, Shi Jian was promoted back to Prince of Yiyang.

Installation as Puppet Emperor

In the fourth month of 349, Shi Hu died and his young son Shi Shi briefly ascended the throne. Within thirty-three days, Shi Zun deposed and killed Shi Shi, taking the throne himself. Shi Zun's rule was soon challenged by the powerful general Ran Min, whose military prestige made him a threat to the throne. In the eleventh month of 349, Ran Min led troops into the palace, assassinated Shi Zun, and installed Shi Jian as emperor. However, Shi Jian was merely a puppet under Ran Min's complete control.

Puppet Reign and Destruction

During his brief reign, real power remained entirely in Ran Min's hands. In 350, Ran Min changed the state name from Zhao to Wei, changed the imperial surname from Shi to Li, and changed the era name to Qinglong. In the second month of that year, Ran Min deposed and killed Shi Jian, proclaiming himself emperor. Shi Jian had reigned for a total of only one hundred and three days.

Shi Jian was a son of Shi Hu and the sixth emperor of the Later Zhao. Enfeoffed as Prince of Dai while Shi Hu held power, he was advanced to Prince of Yiyang in the first month of 349 when Shi Hu took the imperial title; Shi Hu died in the fourth month and his young son Shi Shi succeeded. Shi Shi reigned only thirty-three days before Shi Zun killed him and took the throne, and Shi Zun in turn was deposed and killed by Ran Min and others. Shi Jian was then raised as emperor, his throne in fact controlled by Ran Min.

Throughout his reign the government depended entirely on the attitude of Ran Min and Li Nong, and he had neither military power nor any force of his own to rely on. He did try to draw in outside support to check Ran Min's domination but failed; Ran Min then changed the dynastic name to Wei and his own surname to Li, killed Shi Jian in 350 and took the throne himself, founding Ran Wei — the end of the Later Zhao. Shi Jian was the dynasty's last emperor, reigning less than a year, his career showing that by the end of the Later Zhao the throne had become wholly an instrument of contending forces.

The Later Zhao lasted more than thirty years from Shi Le's taking the title King of Zhao in 319 and the imperial title in 330 to its fall in 350; its fall came directly of the long slaughter within the clan and the rising of Ran Min, of which Shi Jian's death is the end.

The last three successions of the Later Zhao all occurred within a single year: Shi Hu died in the fourth month, Shi Shi reigned thirty-three days before being killed, Shi Zun was deposed and killed after taking the throne, Shi Jian succeeded and was killed by Ran Min before the year ended. Such speed of change is extreme even among the Sixteen Kingdoms, the cause lying in the struggle over troops among Shi Hu's sons and such commanders as Ran Min and Li Nong.

After killing Shi Jian, Ran Min changed the dynastic name to Wei and took back his own surname Ran, slaughtering the Jie on a great scale; his war with the Former Yan ended in his defeat and Ran Wei fell a few years later. The old Later Zhao lands passed to the Former Yan, Hebei entering a new phase of politics. Shi Jian's brief reign falls in the middle of this sequence of changes.

In his reign he tried to use outside forces to counterbalance Ran Min, but the clan and generals had long since fallen away and the effort came to nothing. The situation was the same as that of Shi Shi and Shi Zun before him: the throne remained nominally in Shi hands while real power belonged to the commanders who held the troops.

The fall of the Later Zhao and the rise of Ran Min are two sides of one process: Ran Min was a grandson by adoption of Shi Hu who came to power through military merit, and his changing his surname to Li, restoring Ran, and renaming the state Wei mark the passage from a Jie regime to a Chinese one. Shi Jian's death stands at that point of passage.

After his death most of the Shi clan was killed by Ran Min, and the Jie presence in the central plains declined sharply; the Former Yan then came south and Hebei passed into Murong hands. As the last ruler of the Later Zhao, Shi Jian is often cited to show how fragile the internal structure of the Sixteen Kingdoms states was.

The accounts of Shi Jian in the Book of Jin and the Comprehensive Mirror are mostly tied to Ran Min's activity, with little on his own conduct — an arrangement of the record that itself shows how limited his real power was.

The fates of Shi Hu's sons and the dynasty's fortune mirror each other: Shi Sui and Shi Xuan were executed, Shi Shi murdered, Shi Zun and Shi Jian killed, Shi Zhi dying at an officer's hands — not one ended in his bed. Such a wholesale destruction of a clan is the direct expression of the Later Zhao's fall.

He reigned less than a year, only meager notice surviving of his era name and edicts, his name appearing in the histories chiefly as a marker of the Later Zhao's last years.

The destruction of the Shi clan greatly weakened the Jie as a political force in the central plains, their people dispersing thereafter and gradually merging into other groups.

Regimes changed hands very quickly in the Sixteen Kingdoms; after the Later Zhao fell, its lands passed to Ran Wei and then to the Former Yan, the politics of Hebei shifting several times within a few years.

After his death Ran Min took the throne and the fighting in Hebei grew worse, until the Former Yan under Murong Jun came south and matters gradually steadied.

In the Later Zhao's last years military power lay chiefly with such commanders as Ran Min and Li Nong, the emperor's authority surviving only in form; the successive killings of Shi Shi, Shi Zun and Shi Jian all follow directly from that arrangement.

His elevation and destruction also illustrate the common path at the end of the Later Zhao: whoever raised a ruler was the one who killed him.

His edicts and appointments of the reign were mostly drafted by Ran Min's side, leaving his own figure rather blurred in the sources.

Succession in the Sixteen Kingdoms was generally unstable, both because the clans were large and military power dispersed and because the regimes lacked a stable institutional base. Three emperors in a single year at the end of the Later Zhao is an extreme expression of that.

His name occasionally appears in gazetteers and epigraphic material, but the evidence is scattered and gives no complete picture of the man.

His brief rule almost coincides with the state's fall, and later historians generally take his killing as the mark of the Later Zhao's end.

No era name of his is clearly recorded either, showing that the regime had fallen into thorough confusion by then.

Many of the Later Zhao's old officials afterward served the Former Yan, and the political map of Hebei was rearranged in the process, fairly fully recorded in the Book of Jin.

The court struggles at the end of the Later Zhao involved Shi Hu's sons, Zhang Chi, the empress dowager Liu, Ran Min and Li Nong in turn, their complexity notable among the records of the Sixteen Kingdoms.

After the Later Zhao fell, Hebei passed under the Former Yan until the Former Qin unified the north, the political changes in between closely tied to where the old Later Zhao forces went.

His brief reign and the rapid changes at the end of the Later Zhao leave the sources for the period brief and disjointed, later scholars generally relying on the chronological arrangement of the Comprehensive Mirror to sort them out.

His reign was so brief that later chroniclers generally discuss him together with Shi Zun and Shi Zhi, treating the last years of the Later Zhao as a whole.

The fall of the Later Zhao and the founding of Ran Wei were almost simultaneous, the transition extremely brief, and Shi Jian is one link sacrificed in it.

The month and circumstances of his killing agree broadly between the Book of Jin and the Comprehensive Mirror, each confirming the other.

The remaining Later Zhao forces were gradually cleared away between Ran Wei and the Former Yan, the politics of Hebei being reintegrated over several years.

His name appears with the other Shi rulers of the Later Zhao in the records in the Book of Jin, on which later ages rely for the account of the state's rise and fall.

The reigns of the Later Zhao's last emperors are counted in months, which shows how swiftly the state came apart.

No significant institutional or military measure is recorded of his reign.

After his death the Later Zhao clan's power in Hebei all but disappeared, and the Jie political presence ended with it.

He was a son of Shi Hu, like Shi Shi and Shi Zun, the three of them succeeding and being killed within a single year, a complete section of the rapid changes of the Later Zhao's last phase. Of Shi Hu's sons, Shi Sui and Shi Xuan were executed early, Shi Bin killed on a forged edict, Shi Shi murdered, Shi Zun and Shi Jian killed, and Shi Zhi slain by an officer — almost none ended well.

In his reign Shi Jian tried to link the local forces of Guanzhong and Hebei against Ran Min, but with the clan and old followers long dispersed the effort came to nothing. His era name and the edicts of his reign are scantily recorded, his name appearing in the histories chiefly as a mark of the Later Zhao's fall.

After his death Ran Min took the imperial title and founded Wei, only to be defeated and killed at Lantai by Murong Ke of the Former Yan, Ran Wei lasting barely two years. Hebei finally passed to the Former Yan, the old Later Zhao lands completing their passage to a new regime.

In the annals of the Sixteen Kingdoms the last years of the Later Zhao fill a considerable space, because the changes of regime and the ethnic conflicts of the period were so violent, and Shi Jian's reign and death lie in the middle of them.

The era name of his reign is not fully recorded in the material cited by the Comprehensive Mirror, so that the chronology of his regime can only be reckoned from the years of surrounding events.

Neither a posthumous nor a temple name for him is recorded.

Major Activities

Shi Jian first took part in the military and political affairs of the Later Zhao as a son of Shi Hu, and later used his secret report to obtain the throne while Shi Zun and Ran Min were contending; after his accession he twice failed to remove Ran Min and finally lost both his freedom and his throne. The change of clan name, of state title and of era name during his reign were driven by Ran Min and cannot be described in general as reforms introduced by Shi Jian himself. A record found only in another account, about harsh corvée in his defence of Guanzhong, has no corresponding basis in that account's fuller text or in the local histories consulted, and is not treated as an established deed.

Personal Relations

• Shi Hu**: Father, Emperor Wu of Later Zhao
• Shi Shi**: Half-brother, briefly reigned before being deposed
• Shi Zun**: Half-brother, assassinated by Ran Min
• Ran Min**: Han Chinese general who controlled and ultimately killed Shi Jian
• Shi Le**: Grandfather, Gaozu Emperor Ming of Later Zhao

Historical Assessment

The criticism of the Shi family as a whole quoted from the Book of Jin in another account does not refer to Shi Jian in particular. His own verifiable political acts are concentrated in his reporting of Shi Zun's secret deliberations to Ran Min, his acceptance of elevation to the throne and his several attempts to kill Ran Min; none of these restored Shi control over the armies at Ye. He was killed after one hundred and three days on the throne, the Later Zhao's rule at Ye came to an end, and Shi Zhi at Xiangguo continued to claim the imperial title.