She is commonly seen as a villainous figure in Chinese history, as the person who provoked the War of the Eight Princes, leading to the Wu Hu rebellions and the Jin Dynasty's loss of northern and central China.
In 271, Jia's father desperately wanted to avoid an assignment to guard the Guanzhong region and fend off attacks from Di and Qiang (氐羌) rebels,[3] so he decided to have either Jia or her younger sister marry the developmentally disabled crown prince, Sima Zhong.
The emperor initially rejected the idea, as he preferred Wei Guan's daughter as a bride for the crown prince.
[4]However, Guo Huai was on friendly terms with Empress Yang Yan, whose associates all greatly praised Jia's daughters.
When several of his concubines became pregnant, she killed them herself in fits of jealousy; Emperor Wu was going to depose her, and only intercession by his second wife Empress Yang Zhi (Empress Yang Yan's cousin, whom he married after her death) led to Crown Princess Jia being spared.
In 291, after Sima Wei returned to Luoyang from his defense post (Jing Province (荊州, modern Hubei and Hunan)) with his troops, a coup went into progress.
Empress Jia, who had her husband easily under her control, had him issue an edict declaring that Yang Jun had committed crimes and should be removed from his posts.
Sima Liang and Wei tried to get the government on track, but Empress Jia continued to interfere with management of daily governmental matters.
Empress Jia, who had already resented Wei for having, during Emperor Wu's reign, suggested that he change his heir, and therefore resolved to undergo a second coup.
His forces thereby surrounded Sima Liang and Wei's mansions, and while both men's subordinates recommended resistance, each declined and was captured.
[9] She lacked self-control, and was violent and capricious in her ways, but Zhang, Pei, and Jia Mo were honest men who generally kept the government in order.
However, as she grew increasingly unbridled in her behavior (including committing adultery with many men and later murdering them to silence them), Zhang, Pei, and Jia Mo considered deposing her and replacing her with Crown Prince Yu's mother Consort Xie, but they hesitated and never took actual action.
At one point, Empress Jia falsely claimed herself to be pregnant and planned to falsely claim her nephew Han Weizu (韓慰祖, Jia Wu's son with her husband Han Shou (韓壽)) to be her own, but for reasons unknown did not actually carry out that plan.
When Crown Prince Yu was in the palace to make an official petition to have his ill son Sima Bin (司馬彬) created a prince, Empress Jia forced him to drink a large amount of wine and, once he was drunk, had him write out a statement in which he declared intention to murder the emperor and the empress and to take over as emperor.
Empress Jia presented the writing to the officials and initially wanted Crown Prince Yu executed—but after some resistance, she only had him deposed and reduced to status of a commoner on 6 February.