Feng Xu 封諝

Chapter 1 of the Romance relates that when ill omens followed one after another in the reign of Emperor Ling, the Gentleman-Consultant Cai Yong submitted a memorial saying that 'the falling rainbow and the hen turning into a cock are caused by women and eunuchs meddling in government', but Cao Jie, who had been secretly reading it from behind, made its contents known to everyone around, and Cai Yong was in the end charged with a crime over another matter and driven back to his home village. After that, ten men, Zhang Rang, Zhao Zhong, Feng Xu, Duan Gui, Cao Jie, Hou Lan, Jian Shuo, Cheng Kuang, Xia Yun and Guo Sheng, banded together and committed every kind of wrong, so that people called them the 'Ten Regular Attendants'; the government of the state went from bad to worse day by day, the hearts of the people of the realm longed for upheaval, and bandits rose like swarms of bees. Romance, Ch. 1 §5–6

At that time Zhang Jue of Julu Commandery, having mastered the 'Essential Arts of Great Peace' he received from the Old Immortal of Nanhua, styles himself the 'Great Worthy and Good Teacher' and cures the sick with water in which talismans have been burned; as his following grows day by day, he sets up thirty-six 'fang' (districts) and spreads the false saying, 'The Blue Heaven is already dead; the Yellow Heaven shall arise.' Zhang Jue has his disciple Ma Yuanyi secretly take gold and silk to join hands with the eunuch Feng Xu and make him an inside agent in the palace, and after consulting with his two younger brothers, he on the one hand secretly has yellow banners made and sets a date for the rising, and on the other sends his disciple Tang Zhou hurrying to Feng Xu with a letter. But Tang Zhou goes straight to the authorities and reports the rebellion. Romance, Ch. 1 §7–10

The emperor summons the General-in-Chief He Jin and has him deploy troops to seize and behead Ma Yuanyi, and then throws Feng Xu and his whole band into prison. Learning that the plot has been exposed, Zhang Jue raises troops that very night and styles himself 'General of Heaven', while his younger brother Zhang Bao is called 'General of Earth' and Zhang Liang 'General of Man'. The common people who wrap their heads in yellow turbans and join Zhang Jue in rebellion number four to five hundred thousand. Romance, Ch. 1 §11–12

In Chapter 2, Zhao Zhong and Zhang Rang send men to demand gold and silk from the generals who crushed the Yellow Turbans, and the Ten Regular Attendants hide all the memorials reporting emergencies and do not pass them to the throne. The Grandee Remonstrant Liu Tao comes before the emperor, who is drinking with the Ten Regular Attendants in the rear garden, weeps aloud, and declares that the calamity of bandits rising on all sides stems entirely from the Ten Regular Attendants selling offices, harming the people and deceiving their sovereign. When the emperor orders Liu Tao dragged out and beheaded, the Minister over the Masses Chen Dan stops the execution and goes into the palace, remonstrating that the people of the realm long to eat the flesh of the Ten Regular Attendants, yet His Majesty has made them all marquises though they have not a hair's breadth of merit, and that moreover Feng Xu and the others colluded with the Yellow Turbans to stir up rebellion from within. Romance, Ch. 2 §29–33

The emperor replies, 'The matter of Feng Xu's rebellion is not clear. Among the Ten Regular Attendants, how could there not be one or two loyal subjects?' When Chen Dan remonstrates by striking his head against the steps, the emperor in his anger throws him into prison together with Liu Tao, and that night the Ten Regular Attendants kill the two men in prison. Feng Xu's name does not appear in the Romance again after this. Romance, Ch. 2 §34