The Story of the Yellow Turban Uprising

2026-03-22 05:59

"The Yellow Turban Uprising took place in the first year of Zhongping, the year of Emperor Ling of the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 184). At that time, the politics of the Eastern Han Dynasty was dark, with severe droughts and plagues. Zhang Jiao, the leader of the Path of Peace, called himself the "Great Virtuous Teacher". He used charms to cure people and recruit disciples. He also secretly conducted religious propaganda to organize an uprising. There were many preparations before the uprising. One was to use the historical cycle theory of "the five virtues are always the same" to spread the prophecy that the Han Dynasty's luck had declined and prepare for public opinion. The second was to propose the slogan "The sky is dead, the yellow sky should be established, the year is in Jiazi, and the world is in good luck". The time of the uprising was set to be March 5th, and people were sent to write the word "Jiazi" at the temple gates of the capital and the government offices of the states and counties as a secret signal and target of the uprising army. The third was that Zhang Jiao personally went deep into the capital to obtain information. The fourth was to formulate a precise uprising plan. In Luoyang, he would recruit the people, the palace guards, and eunuchs as spies. He would send Ma Yuanyi to contact the two constant attendants and mobilize tens of thousands of refugees from Jing and Yang to gather in Ye City for standby. He planned to first break out the uprising in Luoyang to paralyze the command center, and then make all the places revolt at the same time to seize the world. However, due to his disciple Tang Zhou's secret, the uprising was forced to start in February. There were more than 300,000 rebels, covering You, Ji, Yan, Yu, Jing, Yang and other states. From the beginning, they formed a strategic encirclement of Luoyang. The rebel army fought separately, forming Bocai and Pengtuo's Yingchuan, Runan, and Chen Yellow Turban armies, Zhang Mancheng's Nanyang Yellow Turban army, Zhang Jiao and his brother's Jizhou Yellow Turban army, as well as Yangzhou's Yellow Turban army and Youyan's Guangyang Yellow Turban army. The Eastern Han government sent Huangfu Song, Zhu Rong, and others to suppress the situation. By November of that year, Bo Cai and Zhang Mancheng had died in battle. Zhang Jiao from Jizhou had died from illness. Zhang Liang and Zhang Bao had also died in battle. However, the remaining Yellow Turban tribes continued to struggle for more than twenty years in various places, and were finally suppressed and incorporated by Cao Cao and the noble families. Although the Yellow Turban Uprising failed, it dealt a heavy blow to the ruling order of the Eastern Han Dynasty. In the process of suppression, the power of the prefectures and local armed forces expanded rapidly, and finally destroyed the Eastern Han Dynasty. The novel "Battle of Yin and Yang" is equally exciting. Everyone is welcome to click and read it! "