Wang Ye (Three Kingdoms)
3rd century Chinese Cao Wei state politician

Wang Ye (fl.260–271) was a Chinese politician of the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period of China. He served under the Jin dynasty (266–420) after Cao Wei was replaced by the Jin dynasty.
Life
Wang Ye was from Wuling Commandery (武陵郡), which is around present-day Changde, Hunan. He started his career as an official in the state of Cao Wei in the Three Kingdoms period and served as a Regular Mounted Attendant (散騎常侍). In 260, the Wei emperor Cao Mao secretly summoned Wang Chen, Wang Jing and Wang Ye to discuss a plan to remove the regent Sima Zhao from power. However, Wang Chen and Wang Ye refused to participate in the plot and instead secretly reported it to Sima Zhao. Cao Mao failed in his coup against Sima Zhao and ended up being killed in June.
Wang Ye continued serving under the Western Jin, which replaced the Cao Wei state after Sima Zhao's son, Sima Yan, usurped the throne from the last Wei emperor Cao Huan. In the early years of Sima Yan's reign, Wang Ye was promoted to Central Protector of the Army (中護軍). On 10 April 271, Sima Yan appointed him and Sima Gui (司馬珪; son of Sima Fu) as the Left and Right Supervisors of the Masters of Writing respectively.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3818358. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wang Ye (Three Kingdoms)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.