Campaigns Of The Three Kingdoms

Yellow Turban RebellionSince all the three brothers were healers, they spread it easily by telling their patients to spread it amongst thepeasants.Religious practicesZhang Jue used a form of Taoism to cure the sick by confession of sins and by faith healing. The religion and thepolitics of the Zhang brothers were based on belief in an apocalyptic change in the order of the world, and they toldtheir followers that in the jiazi year, beginning of the new sexagenary cycle, the sky would become yellow, and thatunder this new heaven the rule of the Han Dynasty would end and a new era of government begin. The charactersjiazi became a symbol of the coming change and later, when the followers of Zhang Jue went to battle they wore ayellow cloth bound about their heads as a badge. From this there came the term Yellow Turbans.[]Nearly all of the religious practices of the sect were communal activities (collective trances, fasts). A typical worshipservice consisted largely of music and chanting, the burning of incense, and sermons or anecdotes that could begiven by any member of the congregation including women and those perceived as barbarians. Several Xiongnu suchas Yufuluo are known to have at least lent their support to the sect and a number of scholars have theorized thatZhang Jue may have derived some of his teachings from shamanism as he appeared as a mystical healer with a directlink to the heavens.[citation needed]While many of the beliefs of the early Path of Supreme Peace have been lost, it is very likely that they had somerelation to the Way of the Celestial Masters, considering Zhang Jue claimed to be a descendant of Zhang Daoling. Itis further worthy to note that many of the writings found in the 52 surviving chapters of the Taiping Jing that arefound in the Daozang have a direct relationship to the Way of the Celestial Masters. Regardless, it is quite likely thatany discrepancies found within the Way were suppressed by later Taoist sects.Military actionThe rebels were mostly concentrated in three areas. The group led by Zhang Jue and his two brothers gained theirsupport from the region just north of the Yellow River, near Zhang Jue's home territory of Julu and his base in WeiCommandery. A second major rising took place in Guangyang and Zhuo commanderies in You Province, in theneighborhood of present-day Beijing. The third center of rebellion was in the three commanderies of Yingchuan,Runan and Nanyang. This force had evidently been intended to co-operate with the traitors inside Luoyang in theattempt to seize the capital, but even without that support, the rebels in this region were a major threat.In the first weeks of the uprising, the government of Emperor Ling was chiefly concerned with finding and executingthe traitors at the capital and with the immediate defense of the city. General-in-Chief He Jin, the half-brother ofEmpress He, was placed in charge of putting the rebellion down in the capital. In the third month, when thesepreparations had been made, three armies were sent out to deal with the rebellion. One was sent east against ZhangJue. The other two, commanded by Huangfu Song and by Zhu Jun, were sent against the rebels in Yingchuan, Runanand Nanyang. Zhu recommended Sun Jian's appointment to call up troops and join his forces. With such widespreadrebellion to deal with, the imperial commanders were anxious to gain any reinforcements that they could, and theterritory of the lower Yangtze River, not directly affected by Zhang Jue's movement, was close enough to be aconvenient source of recruits for the imperial army. Sun Jian rallied his troops, and he marched to join Zhu Jun'sarmy with a thousand men under his command. The fighting against the rebels of Yingchuan, Runan and Nanyangwas frequently fierce, with varying success.In the third month of 184, soon after the rebellion had broken out, the rebel leader Zhang Mancheng defeated andkilled the Grand Administrator of Nanyang, and in the fourth month, at the beginning of summer, the imperial armyunder Zhu Jun was defeated by Bo Cai in Yingchuan, while the Grand Administrator of Runan was defeated byanother force of rebels.3

Yellow Turban RebellionIn the middle of 184, however, the tide turned. In the fifth month Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun combined their armiesto defeat Bo Cai, and in the sixth month they destroyed the rebels of Runan at the Battle at Xihua in Henan. Then thetwo generals went separate ways, Huangfu to join in the attack on the rebels north of the Yellow River, and Zhu todeal with the rebels of Nanyang. By this time, a new Grand Administrator had defeated Zhang Mancheng and killedhim. In that campaign, however, the rebels were able to capture the capital of the commandery, Wan, and took refugethere.For the next several months, the core of the campaign was the fighting in and around Wan, until the place was finallystormed and the defenders massacred in the eleventh month, midwinter at the beginning of 185. The capture of Wanwas the last great defeat of the rebels. Their forces in the North China Plain had been destroyed in the field by theimperial armies during the summer, their strongholds were besieged and captured, and the three Zhang brothers weredead. The remaining, scattered rebels were pursued by commandery and county forces in various mopping-upoperations, and in the twelfth month of the Chinese year, mid-February 185, the government issued a proclamationof celebration, changing the era name to Zhongping (中 平), or "pacification achieved."The rebels were defeated in February 185, but only two months later, the rebellion broke out again. In 185, it spreadto the Taihang Mountains on the western border of Hebei and in 186 it reached Shaanxi, Hebei, and Liaoning, in 188it reached Shanxi. In the same year, a second independent uprising took place in Sichuan, but it was not coordinatedwith the Yellow Turban Rebellion in other parts of the country.In 192, the warlord Cao Cao was able to gain the submission of a rebel army after they marched into Yan Province.The rebels eventually ceased to pose a military challenge by 205.Aftermath and impactThe Han armies had gained a glorious victory, and it was a remarkable achievement that they removed so quickly thethreat of Zhang Jue's rebellion. The cost, however, was very high. Over wide areas the offices of the government hadbeen destroyed, magistrates had been killed, and whole districts were cut off from the writ of the central government.The enemy had been slaughtered in the hundreds and thousands, many innocent people had been left homeless ordestitute by the wars, and the economy and society over great parts of this most populous region of the empire wereleft in ruins and without resources. Unrest remained and bandits appeared in every district; the government, in noposition to put down all the lesser disturbances, was forced to patch up the situation as best it could. A long period ofconsolidation was needed to restore some measure of peace and prosperity, but that breathing space was not given.While the rebellion was eventually defeated, the military leaders and local administrators gained self-governingpowers in the process. This hastened the collapse of the Han Dynasty in 220. After Emperor Ling of Han died in189, a power struggle between He Jin and the eunuchs ensued in which He Jin was assassinated on September 22,189. He Jin's chief ally Yuan Shao retaliated by setting the palace on fire and slaughtering the eunuchs. Finally, thewarlord Dong Zhuo was able to gain control over the underage heir to the throne which he used as a legitimation foroccupying the capital, which was ransacked on the occasion. Because of his cruelty, Dong was murdered in 192,setting the stage for Cao Cao's rise to power.Despite the negativity portrayed in Luo Guanzhong's historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, being a largescale rebellion against corrupted authority, several peasant uprisings in China were patterned after the YellowTurban Rebellion or claimed to be its spiritual successors.4

Yellow Turban RebellionIn fictionThe rebellion is portrayed in the opening chapters of Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, whichportrays the Zhang brothers as sorcerors, having been provided the Taiping Jing from the "old immortal spirit fromthe southern lands" (sometimes identified as Zhuangzi). Many fictional Yellow Turban figures were created for thenovel, including: Du Yuan, who is killed by Liao Hua for kidnapping Liu Bei's wives.Zhou Cang, Guan Yu's rebel-turned-weapon bearer.Gao Sheng, a subordinate to Zhang Bao.Cheng Yuanzhi, defeated by Liu Bei's forces in their first engagement.Deng Mao, Cheng Yuanzhi's champion.Bian Xi, an eventual servant of Cao Cao who tries and fails to kill Guan Yu.Though not a fictional character, Liao Hua is presented in the novel as having been a Yellow Turban in his earlierdays; this is unlikely historically, given his date of death and predicted lifespan.References[1] Referring to the Han Dynasty government[2] Referring to the Yellow Turban RebellionBooks Luo Guanzhong. Romance of the Three Kingdoms.5

Rebellion in Liang Province6Rebellion in Liang ProvinceLiang Province RebellionPart of the wars at the end of the Han DynastyDateWinter 184 – 189 CELocation Regions near the Hexi Corridor, ChinaResultInconclusiveBelligerentsHan DynastyHan rebelsQiang peoplesLesser YuezhiCommanders and leadersZhang WenHuangfu SongGeng BiBeigong BoyuLi WenhouDianyuBian ZhangHan SuiWang GuoStrengthVarious:Several tens of thousands100,000 at[1]Meiyang[2]40,000 at Chencang[3]The Liang Province Rebellion of 184 to 189 started as an insurrection of the Qiang peoples against the HanDynasty in the western province of Liang (Liangzhou, 涼 州, more-or-less today's Wuwei, in the province of Gansu)of 2nd century China, but the Lesser Yuezhi and sympathetic Han rebels soon joined the cause to wrestle control ofthe province away from central authority. This rebellion, which closely followed the Yellow Turban Rebellion, waspart of a series of disturbances that led to the decline and ultimate downfall of the Han Dynasty.[4] Despite receivingrelatively little attention in the hands of traditional historians, the rebellion nonetheless had lasting importance as itremoved Han Chinese power in the northwest and prepared that land for a number of non-Han-Chinese states in thecenturies to come.[5]Outbreak (184)The rebellion began in the winter of 184 with two groups of Qiang people causing disturbances in the outlyingregions of northwestern China, with one group in the northwestern commanderies of Beidi (北 地) and Anding, andanother in at the counties of Fuhan (枹 罕) and Heguan (河 關) in the upper Yellow River valley. Initially, the twogroups were likely separate, each trying to seize the opportunity to resist the weakened Han rule after years ofcorruption and misrule.[6][7] The situation escalated in October or November 184 when the troops of the Auxiliary ofLoyal Barbarians From Huangzhong (湟 中 義 從 胡), which consisted of Qiang and Lesser Yuezhi recruits sentto suppress the disturbances, mutinied against their Han Chinese superiors in the military camp of Lianju (令 居;[8]northwest of present-day Lanzhou) and joined the insurgents, killing the Colonel Protector of the Qiang (護 羌 校尉) Ling Zheng (冷 徵) in the process. At this point, the two groups had joined together, with former Auxiliarysoldiers Beigong Boyu (北 宮 伯 玉) and L

novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Yellow Turban Rebellion 2 Causes A major cause of the rebellion was an agrarian crisis, in which famine forced many farmers and former military settlers in the north to seek employment in the south, wh