Wei Dignitary Cao Jiong and His “Treatise-Reasoning on the Six Dynasties” (“Liu Dai Lun”)

The article briefly outlines the internal political context of the era of the Cao-Wei kingdom and its connection with the treatise “Liu Dai Lun”. The text of the treatise has reached our time as a part of the literary corpus “Wen Xuan”, compiled by a court writer of the Liang dynasty named Xiao Tong (501-531). It was revealed that Cao Jiong (207-264 AD) wrote a report to the throne due to fears that the supreme power of the Cao clan in the Kingdom of Wei would be usurped by the Sima court clan. In 243, at the time of writing the report, the Wei emperor Cao Fang (Ming Di) was too young, and therefore Cao Jiong handed his report to his relative and regent named Cao Shuang (?-249 AD) in the hope that the latter would realize the importance of Cao Jiong's proposals. Cao Jiong, in particular, proposed that the regent Cao Shuang grant large land holdings and military powers to the children and younger brothers of the ruling house in order to limit the power of influential nobles from other court clans (Sima clan), i.e. strengthen the trunk and weaken the branches, which was supposed to strengthen the position of the Cao-Wei house. Cao Shuang, however, did not accept Cao Jiong's advice and therefore the powerful and noble Sima clan, which gathered all the power bit by bit, overthrew the ruling Cao clan and executed all its supporters.