The Rebellion of the Eight Kings was a turmoil caused by the royal family's struggle for central power during the Western Jin Dynasty in China. On July 26, 291 AD, civil strife broke out in the Western Jin Dynasty of China, and the Rebellion of the Eight Kings began. There were not only eight kings in the Western Jin royal family who participated in this turmoil, but the eight kings were the main participants. Moreover, the Book of Jin compiled the eight kings into one biography, so it is called the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings." During the Western Jin Dynasty, a scuffle broke out between the kings of the Sima family with the same surname for central power, which lasted for 16 years. The final result was that Sima Yue, King of the East China Sea, seized power. It caused serious damage to the rule and is considered one of the reasons for the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty.

Although this battle broke out during the reign of Emperor Hui, the root cause of the disaster was the feudal system implemented by his father, Sima Yan, Emperor Jin Wu. Sima Yan, the founder of the Jin Dynasty, believed that he could seize power from Cao Wei and become emperor because the Cao family did not give the same surname as the vassals and kings, and the royal family was isolated and helpless. Therefore, in 256 AD, he restored the ancient feudal system, which made 27 members of the royal family king, and allowed the kings to choose the large and small civil and military officials in their own kingdom. In 277 AD, a system of the kingdom's army was established, which divided the feudal country into major, minor, and minor. Those who govern the 20,000 of the people are big countries, which can have 5,000 people in the upper, middle and lower armies; those who govern the 10,000 of the people are sub-countries, which can have 3,000 people in the upper and lower armies; those below 5,000 people are small countries, and 1,500 people in the army. At the same time as Emperor Wu gave the same surname to the king, he also gave the noble family with different surnames to the titles of dukes, princes, uncles, sons, men, etc. They not only have fiefs, but also can set up armies like small kingdoms. Many princes and kings also hold the military and political power in the central or local areas. They are all greedy and brutal careerists who take the opportunity to recruit party members, expand the army, and each draws a group of bureaucrats and landlords of the noble race. They compete with each other in an attempt to seize the throne. In this way, the princes became a powerful separatist force within the Jin Dynasty, and finally performed the ugly drama of "The Rebellion of the Eight Kings".

In 290 AD, Emperor Wu of Jin died, and the crown prince Sima Zhen succeeded him as Emperor Hui of Jin. Emperor Hui was an idiot who knew nothing but pleasure. When the world was in chaos and the people starved to death, he said after learning that, "Why don't you eat meat porridge?" Such a confused emperor naturally could not be in charge of the imperial government, and his maternal grandfather Yang Jun assisted the government and took over the central power of the Jin Dynasty. Emperor Hui's queen, Jia Nanfeng, was a woman with political ambitions and sinister, and she was not satisfied with the central power falling into the hands of the Yang family. In 291 AD, Empress Jia and the palace attendants conspired and plotted, secretly summoning the governor of Jingzhou, King Sima Wei of Chu, to lead troops into Beijing (now Luoyang, Henan), and commanded Emperor Hui to kill three brothers, Yang Jun, Yang Yu, and Yang Ji. Thousands of their relatives and party feathers were implicated and died. Empress Dowager Jia deposed Empress Dowager Yang as a concubine and forced her to starve to death. The internal chaos of the Jin Dynasty began with this palace coup.

After the Yang Group was eliminated, the Jin court elected Sima Liang, King of Runan, and the veteran Wei Guan, to jointly take charge of the government. Sima Wei, the king of Chu, was granted the title of General Wei and the Marquis of the Northern Army (the forbidden troops guarding the northern part of the capital) for his meritorious assistance in the coup d'état. He held military power in the central government, and conflicts often occurred between Liang and Wei. Empress Jia believed that Liang Wei and the others were hindering her from exercising power, so she used tactics again. She first asked Emperor Hui to issue an edict to Sima Wei, ordering him to lead the northern army to kill King Liang and Wei Guan of the South. Then she denied that Emperor Hui had issued this edict. Instead, she killed Chu Wei on the charge of Sima Wei killing ministers. In this way, Empress Jia fully controlled the power of the Jin Dynasty.

After Empress Jia came to power, Dashu's own henchmen, in addition to relying on his brother Jia Mo, nephew Jia Mi, and his mother's uncle Guo Zhang, who were close to the party, also appointed Zhang Hua, a famous scholar at the time, as Sikong, Pei Ji, as Shangshu Pushe, Pei Kai, as Zhongshu Ling, and Wang Rong as Situ, making the four of them jointly manage the capital's confidential affairs. Because these few people all had certain experience in governing and were able to "support the government" with Jia Mo and others, Empress Jia was able to maintain a relatively stable situation during the seven or eight years from 291 to 299 AD.

In 299 AD, the conflict between Empress Jia and Crown Prince Sima < unk > broke out again. Emperor Hui had only one son, Crown Prince Sima < unk >, who was the descendant of the harem Xie Mei. As he grew older, he gradually became dissatisfied with the power of Jia Hou and his gang, which aroused the attention of Empress Jia. Jia's pro-party Jia Mi and others, who were afraid that after the Crown Prince won power, they would also deal with themselves like Empress Jia killed Yang Jun and killed Empress Yang Dowager, so they tried their best to persuade Empress Jia to abolish the Crown Prince. Therefore, Empress Jia accused the Crown Prince of trying to kill Emperor Hui and her, and abolished the Crown Prince as a concubine, and then killed the Crown Prince. The Crown Prince was innocent and killed, which aroused the dissatisfaction of the kings and some courtiers who supported the Crown Prince. One month after the death of the crown prince, that is, in April 300 AD, Simalun, the king of Zhao, who was a chariot general in Luoyang, the capital, took revenge for the crown prince and used the forbidden guards at his disposal to enter the palace to kill Empress Jia, Zhang Hua, Pei Qian and other henchmen, and reused his lover, Sun Xiu, to kill dissidents. In the first month of the following year, Simalun moved to Emperor Hui as the supreme emperor and established himself as the emperor. From then on, the palace coup turned into a struggle for the throne of the royal family.

Zhao Wanglun usurped the throne, which immediately aroused the opposition of the other royal kings. Sima Ji, King of Qi, who left Xuchang (now Xuchang City East, Henan Province), first launched an army to ask for Lun, and was responded by Sima Ying, King of Chengdu, and Sima Ji, King of Hejian. The three kings allied forces and Lun Bing fought near Luoyang for more than two months. As a result, Zhao Wanglun was defeated and killed. At the same time, Sima Lun's trusted general Wang Yu also raised an army in the capital to oppose Lun and welcome the restoration of Emperor Hui. Sima Ji entered the capital to assist the government. Holding the power of the imperial court.

After Sima Yi assisted the government, in order to consolidate his position, he had long monopolized the power of the court. He changed Sima Ying and Sima Yi, King of Changsha, who could have been appointed as the younger brother of the emperor, to the son of Sima Xia, King of Qinghe, brother of Emperor Hui. Sima Qin, who was only 8 years old, became the crown prince. This move not only led to the rupture of the relationship between Sima Ying and Sima Yi, but also caused Sima Yi's dissatisfaction. In December 302 AD, Sima Shu joined forces with Sima Yi, King of Hejian in Guanzhong, Xizhen, to oppose Sima Yong. Sima Yong sent troops to attack Luoyang, and the army arrived in Xin 'an (now east of Mianchi County, Henan). Sima Yi in Luoyang also mobilized troops to attack the Tang Dynasty, and the armies of both sides engaged in a fierce battle in the capital. For a time, arrows rained like rain and flames soared into the sky. After fighting for three days and three nights, Yi was defeated and killed by Yi. King Yi of Changsha took control of political power.

In August 303 AD, Sima Yong sent another general, Zhang Fang, to lead the elite army 70,000 the army of more than 200,000 Sima Ying, the king of Chengdu, and launched an attack on the capital under the pretext of Sima Yi's "unfairness". Due to the disparity in the strength of the two sides, Luoyang City was in danger. At this time, the ruling group in the city began to split. In the first month of 304 AD, Sima Yue, the king of the East China Sea, colluded with some of the forbidden army. Imprisoned Sima Yi, asked for peace with foreign soldiers, and handed Sima Yi over to Zhang Fang and roasted him alive. Sima Ying entered Luoyang, and although he became the prime minister, he still returned to his base, Yecheng (now southwest of Linzhang County, Hebei Province).

During the time when Sima Ying, the king of Chengdu, was in power in Yecheng, the political corruption was even worse than when Sima Ji and Sima Yi were in power before, and he lost the hearts of the people. Therefore, Sima Yue, the king of the East China Sea, led the Luoyang Imperial Army and supported Emperor Hui in his crusade against Sima Ying. As a result, he was defeated in Tangyin (now southwestern Tangyin County, Henan Province), and Emperor Hui was captured in Yecheng. Sima Yue fled to his own feudal state (now north of Tancheng County, Shandong Province). Sima Yong, the king of Hejian, ordered Zhang Fang to lead his troops to occupy Luoyang. Soon, Wang Jun, the governor of Youzhou, and Sima Teng, the governor of Pingzhou, joined forces to break through Yecheng, and the war further expanded. Sima Ying and Emperor Hui went to Luoyang, all of which fell into Zhang Fang's hands, and were forced to

In July 305 AD, Sima Yue once again raised an army in Shandong and attacked Guanzhong westward. The following year, they invaded Chang 'an. Sima Yong and Sima Ying were defeated and killed one after another. Yue welcomed Emperor Hui back to Luoyang, then poisoned Emperor Hui to death, and appointed Emperor Hui's younger brother Sima Chi, King of Yuzhang, as Emperor Huai of Jin. The power of the Jin Dynasty finally fell into the hands of Sima Yue. At this point, the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" came to an end.