晉武帝

Sima Yan took the Wei throne by the same abdication ceremony his family had staged for the Han, then conquered Wu in 280 and ruled a united empire for a decade. He also handed the succession to a son universally described as incapable, and gave his relatives real armies — the two decisions that produced the War of the Eight Princes.

The reunification was genuine and brief. The princely commands he created to protect the throne from ministers instead turned on each other within a year of his death, and by 316 the north was gone.

The Western Jin silk holds four empresses across his reign and his son's — including Yang Yan, who is said to have chosen both her own successor and her disabled son's wife from her deathbed.