From the perspective of modern society, it is estimated that it is stunted in the mother's body, or its own genetic disease. Sima Zhong was born an idiot, and he was a mess all day. He knows nothing but eating, drinking and having fun, let alone learning knowledge and manners.

(Sima Zhong's great-grandfather Sima Yi and his great-grandmother)

Calling him an idiot, instead of ruining him, is really worthy of the name and appropriate. He remembers that he often heard ministers talk about "for the public" and "for the private". One day when he was playing in the imperial garden, he heard frogs croaking in the pond and asked the attendants around him: Are these frogs croaking for public or private?

Attendants lied to him, saying, "For the public" in the official land and "for the private" in Shu Ren. Sima Zhong felt very reasonable and immediately gave the attendants a silver reward.

One year, serious natural disasters occurred in many places in China, and many people starved to death. His father Sima Yan summoned the ministers to discuss how to help the disaster. Hearing their comments, he didn't understand, saying that there was no steamed bread to eat, so he could eat porridge. The ministers held back their laughter, and when his father saw that he was so stupid that his face would hang, he had to take him out of the temple.

(Si Mazhao, grandfather of Sima Zhong)

How did an idiot become an emperor?

The first thing to blame is the disadvantages brought by the hereditary inheritance system in feudal society, and the second is that "fools are rewarded."

Sima Yan has 25 sons, and Sima Zhong is the second. According to the rules of the eldest son, the eldest son Sima Gui was originally a prince. Alas, poor Sima Guisheng died of illness at the age of 2. There must be relatively suitable successors among Sima Yan's more than 20 sons, but Sima Yan has a special liking for the rule against the eldest son, and thinks that it is natural for the eldest son to lose his second child. In addition, the family of Queen Yang Yan is powerful. If the Yang family doesn't approve of changing the rules of the game, it may be troublesome. Sima Zhong was therefore tied up as a prince and became a crown prince.

There are three kinds of unfilial. Sima Yan thought to himself that Sima Zhong, a silly son, was only in his twenties and probably didn't know anything about men and women. Worried that he could not carry on the family line, he gave Xie Jiu, a highly valued talent, to him. Unexpectedly, Xie Jiu soon became pregnant and later gave birth to Sima Yi. Sima Yu is three or four years old. Sima Zhong doesn't know that he has a son. Sima Yu is very clever and deeply loved by his grandfather Sima Yan. Jia Nanfeng set a deadly trap to kill him, that's another story.