Chapter 107 Yellow Turban Uprising
Han Dynasty.

Liu Che was extremely greedy when he saw so much gold.

With just this one official position, that person only held it for a month, but he was able to amass so much wealth. No wonder he would follow the same path in the future.

So much money has been used to attack the Huns, does he still need to worry?
Emperor Ling of Han was really extravagant. He spent so much money on building the West Garden, a place for pleasure. What's the point of building it? How could it be more practical to use it to equip the army?
You can even give me some of it! I have frightened the Xiongnu, so you people in later generations can enjoy the coolness, right?

You don’t know how to respect your ancestors at all!
Tang Dynasty.

Li Shimin also fell into deep thought. Does the emperor make money this way by selling official positions?
Official positions in the Eastern Han Dynasty could be sold for so much money, so what about now?

Maybe he could also sell those honorary titles that are in name only to enrich the national treasury?
Wei Zheng, who was standing by, seemed to have seen the emperor's thoughts, and despite his hoarse voice, he took the initiative to stand up.

"Your Majesty, selling official positions is not what a benevolent monarch does. Only a tyrant monarch would do such a thing. If Your Majesty follows the example of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, perhaps the Tang Dynasty will also perish in the second generation like the Qin and Sui dynasties!"

It might be because Wei Zheng cursed Emperor Ling of Han too much today that the last words "died in the second generation" were broken in his voice, but everyone present still heard it.

Li Shimin: "..."

He didn't intend to do this, he was just thinking about it in his mind!

How could such a huge dynasty not fall apart after being tossed around like this? Moreover, disasters occurred constantly during that period. There was a major plague every few years, and natural disasters occurred every year.

The last few decades of the Eastern Han Dynasty can be said to be a period in Chinese history when the ancient people suffered the most. Natural disasters and wars continued, and the people complained bitterly.

According to the "Zizhi Tongjian", in the second year of Jianning, in the fourth month of summer... there was a strong wind, rain, hail, thunder, and uprooted more than a hundred large trees; an epidemic spread and many people died.

"Book of the Later Han Dynasty: Chronicle of Emperor Xiaoling" records that in the first month of the third year of Jianning, there was a famine. Women in Henei ate their husbands, and husbands in Henan ate their wives.

In February of the fourth year of Jianning, on the day of Guimao, there was an earthquake, the sea water overflowed, and the river water became clear... In March, there was a great epidemic... In May, the ground in the east of the river cracked, it rained hail, and water burst out from the mountains.

Not to mention the successive locust plagues, droughts and earthquakes that followed...

The continuous disasters year after year made the decadent and dark late Eastern Han Dynasty even worse.

Even in a peaceful and prosperous era, with such continuous disasters, people would have a very hard time.

Under the reign of Emperor Ling of Han, eunuchs were in power and abused their power. Officials desperately extorted money and food from the people.

Han Dynasty.

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, looked at the disasters listed in the sky one after another and couldn't help but feel frightened. It turned out that there would be so many disasters in the future?

"Write down for me all the times and natural disasters that Tianmu mentioned. I will have them compiled in the history books to serve as a warning to future generations."

It’s a pity that these natural disasters occurred too far away from now. It would be great if Tianmu could tell them in advance when the natural disasters in the Western Han Dynasty would occur.

[In the seventh year of Guanghe, the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out. This uprising was different from other uprisings in history. It was organized in a religious form and its scale was so large that it was relatively rare in the entire history of China.

Zhang Jue, a desperate civilian, joined others, put on yellow scarves, and rose up in rebellion.

He even relied on his medical skills, combined with the wonderful book "Taiping Yaoshu", to save people everywhere and educate the world with kindness.

On one side is the foolish and incompetent emperor who sells official positions and titles, and his blood-sucking eunuchs and ministers; on the other side is Zhang Jue and his children who save people everywhere. It is very obvious which side the people will lean towards.

Zhang Jue was supported by many people. He used religious belief to establish the Taiping Dao, declaring, "The blue sky is dead, the yellow sky should be established, the year is Jiazi, and the world will be blessed!"

It has to be said that in this desperate and gloomy environment, Zhang Jue was very resourceful. People are always in awe of the unknown. He put on the cloak of religion for the uprising and called himself General Tian Gong, which added a mysterious color to it and made the people even more in awe.

Zhang Jue used religious belief to win over the hearts of the people, and his followers reached more than 100,000. In just a few years, he swept across the world, and even the Yellow Turbans in Qingzhou had a followers of one million.

Han Dynasty.

Liu Che felt that Zhang Jue was extremely clever, and whenever he dealt with matters involving the gods of heaven and earth, they always made people feel awe.

In order to consolidate his rule, he even adopted Dong Zhongshu's countermeasures, the interaction between heaven and man, the implementation of the Spring and Autumn Period's unification, the promotion of Confucius, and the suppression of all other schools of thought.

A unified empire should have unified ideas in order to create a prosperous dynasty.

But this kind of thinking is not so good when applied to the rebels, and there is also the saying "The blue sky is dead, the yellow sky should be established."

The heavens in it wouldn't represent the emperor, right? He compared himself to the emperor to convince the people of the world, and then they would urge him to die?

Liu Che's face suddenly turned dark.

On the other side, Jiaoxi Kingdom.

When Dong Zhongshu heard the words "Cang Tian is dead and Huang Tian should be enthroned", his face changed.

"Three Strategies of Heaven and Man" is a quiz he wrote, which links divine power and royal power together. If the ruler does not govern the country well and is not kind to the people, heaven will send down all kinds of disasters.

In fact, he also wanted to use the theory of destiny to limit the emperor's rights and behavior, so that the emperor could not do whatever he wanted and do things that would arouse public anger.

After all, the tyranny of Qin II was caused by his arbitrary use of power and abuse of the people's power, which eventually made it impossible for the people of the world to survive and led to a vigorous uprising.

I didn't expect that emperors of later generations would still be so useless, and could mess up the world to such an extent that the people would rather believe an uneducated commoner than the emperor sitting on the throne.

Although this uprising happened hundreds of years later, Dong Zhongshu still worried that the saying "Heaven is dead" would have an impact on the people today.

Those people knew nothing and were easily incited. If a peasant uprising broke out during this period, it would be more or less related to him. After all, he was the main source of the advocacy of the unity of man and nature.

Thinking of this, Dong Zhongshu suddenly felt a chill on his neck. "Prime Minister, it seems that this is all your fault." Outside the gate, Liu Duan, wearing brocade clothes and with a sinister look, came over, followed by a handsome young man. The two had a very close relationship.

Dong Zhongshu glanced at him and pretended not to see him. If he had not been appointed by the court, he would not have wanted to come here at all.

The previous prime ministers were either convicted by the King of Jiaoxi or poisoned to death by his conspiracy and trickery. Countless officials were killed.

If I hadn't just arrived at the post and hadn't been able to leave so many things to do, I would have definitely quit.

In two years he will resign and return home to avoid this bullshit!
[The Yellow Turban Rebellion was a religious uprising, but it also reflected the strong will of the people of the world to stand up and resist as they could no longer bear the exploitation.

In fact, at that time some sober officials had already seen the situation in the world and understood that this uprising was closely related to the eunuchs' disorderly politics.

The Ten Eunuchs were not the ones who levied heavy taxes and levied heavy taxes themselves. Their fathers, brothers, and sons were all over the country. They brought disaster to the people and ran rampant in the villages, but no one dared to stop them.

Among them, Zhang Jun said in his memorial to the emperor that the Yellow Turban Rebellion was forced out by the tyranny of foreign relatives and eunuchs. Those people extorted money and profit and invaded the people. The people had grievances but had no place to appeal, so they could only gather together as "bandits."

So Zhang Jun requested the emperor to kill the Ten Attendants and hang their heads in the southern suburbs to apologize to the people and appease the people of the world.

In that dark and corrupt period, Zhang Jun was indeed a relatively sober official, but he was sober, but the emperor was not. How could he agree if you wanted to kill his "parents"?

So Zhang asked them to just take off their hats and boots pitifully and kowtow symbolically. The emperor was satisfied and allowed them to work as usual.

Let's say this is outrageous, you should at least demote them, as a token of your respect? But they came to "work" as usual the next day!

How could he do this if he was not his own son?

Later, another very important thing happened. Just when the Yellow Turban Rebellion was in full swing and preparing to do something big, one of Zhang Jue's disciples betrayed the organization, not only revealing their plan but also giving away the accomplice.

Among the traitors were the eunuchs Feng Chen and Xu Feng. Yes, these eunuchs and Zhang Jue hit it off and wanted to join the uprising!

In fact, not only Feng Zhen and Xu Feng, but Zhang Rang also had dealings with the Yellow Turban Army. They ate the food of the royal family while eating the food of the rebel army, which could be said to be without delaying either side.

Logically speaking, even if the nine clans were not killed, the crime of treason should be torn to pieces, right? After all, the other internal supporters of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, Feng Yan and Xu Feng, were dead.

However, Zhang Rang and several other cunning eunuchs knelt down and kowtowed again, putting all the blame on other people, so Emperor Ling of Han did not pursue the matter. Yes, he was that generous!
This mind is even broader than that of our Emperor Taizong when he was scolded by Wei Zheng! What is contained in it is simply like a vast ocean, which cannot be measured! 】

Tang Dynasty.

The ministers who were watching in the palace subconsciously looked in the direction of Wei Zheng.

Everyone felt a special admiration in their hearts. Wow, this man is so famous for scolding the emperor.

Li Shimin snorted in his heart. He was actually angry. Who likes to be scolded every day? But compared with the world, what does this mean? A minister who can speak frankly and give good advice is much more useful than those ministers who only care about flattering.

Wei Zheng's face looked a little confused. He had cursed Emperor Ling of Han too much before, and now his throat was smoking. He couldn't say anything and could only utter a few "ah ah" sounds.

At the same time, I was thinking to myself that my fame would be passed down to future generations and would go down in history!
Qin Dynasty.

Ying Zheng felt a pain in his liver when he heard this.

Although Tianmu also said that there were good eunuchs among them, such as Cai Lun and Zheng He, why do the eunuchs of the Eastern Han Dynasty sound so infuriating?

They are just a group of eunuchs, yet they can control the emperor to such an extent. This is not biased, this is pure blindness!

Han Dynasty.

Liu Che was too tired to complain, and even thought about driving all the eunuchs out of the palace to avoid more trouble.

But he also knew that this was actually unlikely. Eunuchs have existed since ancient times. Without them, wouldn't there only be concubines and palace maids left in the imperial palace?

Therefore, the most important thing still lies with the emperor.

[It can be said that by finding the Ten Eunuchs of the imperial court as his insiders, Zhang Jue was very knowledgeable about the routines of officialdom and was well versed in official psychology. Unfortunately, he made the wrong choice of people and the secret was leaked in advance, so Zhang Jue was forced to start the rebellion a month in advance.

Even so, the Yellow Turban Army was unstoppable all the way. Many states and counties were lost, and a large number of officials and soldiers fled. This uprising shook the entire capital, and the army was invincible wherever it went.

The Yellow Turban Rebellion really shocked the entire court, so they began to suppress it in a panic.

Although the Yellow Turban Army had a large number of troops, it clearly lacked professional military leadership. Due to advance leaks of information and other reasons, they were later defeated one by one by the imperial court and local warlords.

However, although this uprising failed, it also dealt a serious blow to the foundation of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The countdown to the demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty had begun, and the situation of the Three Kingdoms was about to begin.

Everyone should be very familiar with the Three Kingdoms during this period. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is written about this historical period. Many famous historical figures also came from this period, such as Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, Cao Cao, Zhou Yu...

In fact, the warlord division of the Three Kingdoms during this period was not only caused by the Yellow Turban Rebellion, but also because Emperor Ling of Han accepted Liu Yan's suggestion to abolish the governor and establish the governor, which made the governor's power override the inspectors and prefects and allowed them to monopolize power.

The original function of the Inspector was to supervise all officials and clarify administration of officials. However, you have handed all the power to the governor of the state and even promoted members of the Liu clan and important officials.

Isn't this just like letting a group of ducks out who are alive and kicking but have ulterior motives? They have got such a big piece of fat meat, will they still listen to you? Can you bring them back?

The introduction of "abolishing the governor and establishing the prefect" is equivalent to turning those governors into "kings of different surnames" with their own troops. How is this different from the feudal system of the Western Zhou Dynasty?
Back then, Emperor Wu of Han issued the Enfeoffment Order to weaken the power of the princes and tried every means to use the law to seize their titles.

He established the Inspectors General to supervise local officials and powerful families, and rectified the economy and strengthened centralization. It was with great effort that all power was concentrated in the central government.

As a result, Liu Hong waved his hand and gave away all the power. It can be said that Emperor Ling of Han and Liu Yan were waving their small shovels hard to dig graves for the Eastern Han Dynasty.

As a result, in the later period, the situation of warlord separatism was formed, and the court and the emperor had become completely useless. 】

(End of this chapter)