Yellow Turbans 黃巾

In the 1st year of Zhongping (184), Zhang Jue, leader of the Yellow Turbans, rose in Wei Commandery. Claiming the will of the spirits, he sent out eight emissaries, saying they would convert the realm with the good Way, while secretly linking his followers together, and he styled himself 'Huangtian Taiping'. On the jiazi day of the third month thirty-six bands rose all at once in a single morning, and the realm responded, burning commanderies and counties and killing the senior officials. The Annals of Emperor Wu records this as "at the end of the Guanghe era the Yellow Turbans rose." The Han court sent Huangfu Song, General of Chariots and Cavalry, and Zhu Jun, General of the Household, to lead troops and suppress them. Records, Wu 1 §6Records, Wei 1 §3

Cao Cao became Chief Commandant of Cavalry and attacked the rebels of Yingchuan. Sun Jian, who became Zhu Jun's Assistant Army Major, gathered about a thousand men, adding merchants, travelers and crack troops from the Huai and Si rivers to the young men of his home district who had followed him at Xiapi, and joined forces with Zhu Jun; when the hard-pressed rebels of Runan and Yingchuan fled to hold Wan City, he personally took charge of one side, was first to scale the wall, and crushed them. When the provinces and commanderies each raised volunteer troops, Liu Bei led his followers under the Colonel Zou Jing against the Yellow Turbans and, for his merit, became Commandant of Anxi. Dong Zhuo, attacking the Yellow Turbans as General of the Household, was defeated and punished. Records, Wei 1 §3Records, Wu 1 §7Records, Shu 2 §6Records, Wei 6 §3

When the Yellow Turbans rose, in Dong'e County of Dong Commandery the county assistant Wang Du responded to them and burned the granaries. When the Yellow Turbans rose in Xu Province, the court made Tao Qian Inspector of Xu Province, and Tao Qian attacked the Yellow Turbans and drove them off. In Yi Province, Ma Xiang, Zhao Zhi and others called themselves Yellow Turbans at Mianzhu County and gathered the exhausted people, gaining several thousand within a day or two; they killed the Inspector Xi Jian and laid waste three commanderies, and Ma Xiang proclaimed himself Son of Heaven. The provincial attendant officer Jia Long attacked them with over a thousand men and broke them within a few days. Records, Wei 14 §2Records, Wei 8 §24Records, Shu 1 §6–7

Gongsun Fan, a cousin of Gongsun Zan, helped Gongsun Zan with the troops of Bohai to crush the Yellow Turbans of Qing and Xu Provinces, and Gongsun Zan's forces grew all the stronger. In Beihai, Kong Rong, Chancellor of Beihai, went out to garrison Douchang because of Yellow Turban raids and was surrounded by the rebel Guan Hai. Taishi Ci broke through the encirclement and went to Pingyuan to ask Liu Bei for help; Liu Bei sent three thousand picked troops, and the rebels, hearing that relief was coming, lifted the siege and scattered. Records, Wei 8 §12Records, Wu 4 §21 · 24–26

In the 3rd year of Chuping (192), a million Yellow Turbans of Qing Province entered Yan Province, killed Zheng Sui, Chancellor of Rencheng, and moved into Dongping. Bao Xin advised that since the rebels had no baggage train and lived by plunder, they should hold fast and wait for them to scatter, but Liu Dai would not listen, gave battle and was killed. When Bao Xin and others came to Dong Commandery and welcomed Cao Cao to take charge as Governor of Yan Province, Cao Cao attacked the Yellow Turbans east of Shouzhang; Bao Xin fought hard and was killed, and the rebels were barely defeated. Cao Cao pursued the Yellow Turbans as far as Jibei and accepted their surrender, and in winter he received more than 300,000 surrendered soldiers and over a million men and women, took their best men and called them the Qingzhou Army. Records, Wei 1 §20 · 22–23

When Cao Cao was defeated by Zhang Xiu at Wan and his army was in disorder, the Qingzhou Army, made up of surrendered Yellow Turbans, relied on Cao Cao's leniency to plunder, and Yu Jin attacked them and charged them with their crimes. In the 18th year of Jian'an (213), the decree appointing Cao Cao Duke of Wei counted among his merits that when the Yellow Turbans invaded three provinces and the calamity reached the common people, he cut them down and brought peace to the eastern lands. Records, Wei 17 §29–30Records, Wei 1 §120–121 · 123

He Yi, Liu Pi, Huang Shao, He Man and other Yellow Turbans of Runan and Yingchuan, each with a following of tens of thousands, first responded to Yuan Shu and then also attached themselves to Sun Jian. In the second month of the 1st year of Jian'an (196), Cao Cao advanced and crushed them, beheading Liu Pi, Huang Shao and others and accepting the surrender of He Yi and his followers. The biography of Yu Jin in Records of Wei 17 likewise records that Yu Jin beheaded Huang Shao and others and made all their followers surrender. The biography of Dong Zhao in Records of Wei 14 records this as "the Grand Progenitor pacified the Yellow Turbans at Xu." Records, Wei 1 §38Records, Wei 17 §28Records, Wei 14 §50

Yet the Biography of the First Sovereign records that in the 5th year of Jian'an (200), when Cao Cao was facing Yuan Shao at Guandu, Liu Pi and other Yellow Turbans of Runan betrayed Cao Cao and responded to Yuan Shao. Yuan Shao gave Liu Bei troops and had him raid the area around Xu together with Liu Pi and the others. Records, Shu 2 §16–18

When the Yellow Turbans rose, Zhang Yan (張燕) of Zhending in Changshan also gathered young men into a band of brigands, and his following later reached a million and came to be called the Heishan Bandits. When Xu He, Sima Ju and other Yellow Turbans of Jinan and Le'an attacked cities and killed senior officials, Xiahou Yuan crushed them with troops from Taishan, Qi and Pingyuan Commanderies and beheaded Xu He. After attacking Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang at Liyang, Yue Jin separately crushed Yellow Turbans and pacified Le'an Commandery, and Zhu Zhi of Wu captured Chen Bai, Wan Bing and other remnants of the Yellow Turbans. Around the time Cao Cao pacified Ji Province, Xing Yong said, "It has been more than twenty years since the Yellow Turbans rose." Records, Wei 8 §52–53Records, Wei 9 §15Records, Wei 17 §21Records, Wu 11 §5Records, Wei 12 §58

Chen Shou gave no separate assessment of the Yellow Turbans. The biography of Zhang Lu in Records of Wei 8, however, records that the methods by which Zhang Lu taught the people with his Way of Spirits were broadly similar to those of the Yellow Turbans, and Deng Ai said that after the Yellow Turbans were crushed in the past, military farming colonies were set up on that occasion and grain was stored at Xudu to control the four quarters. Records, Wei 8 §62Records, Wei 28 §51