Sima Yi and his family used to live in the imperial capital, Luoyang, where his father, Sima Fang, served as a government official. Sima Yi was raised in a strict Confucian manner: He was not allowed to visit his father unless summoned, to speak to his father without being explicitly addressed, and neither was he allowed to be seated in the same room as his father. In 190, when the warlord Dong Zhuo dominated the Han central government and wanted to relocate the imperial capital to Chang'an, Sima Fang ordered Sima Lang to bring the Sima family out of Luoyang and return to their ancestral home in Wen County, Henei Commandery. Some months later, as Sima Lang foresaw that chaos would break out in Henei Commandery, he relocated his family to Liyang Commandery (黎陽郡; around present-day Xun County, Henan), where they stayed with Sima Lang's kinsman, Zhao Weisun. In 194, when war broke out between the warlords Cao Cao and Lü Bu, Sima Lang brought his family out of Liyang Commandery and again returned to their now-ravaged ancestral home in Wen County, Henei Commandery, where Sima Yi and his brothers largely sustained themselves by living as farmers; fending off local groups of bandits while studying diligently during their free time.