“Yellow Sky”: Crisis for the Han Dynasty sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne

-

JavaScript is off/unavailable on your browser. You will not be able to experience this website as it was intended without JavaScript enabled.

“I will not live to see it, as you will,” Qiao Xuan sighed. “In a way, I am glad. They will be the greatest threat that the Han has faced since Wang Mang of old times… he brought about the end of the Han, Mengde, let that not be forgotten. The Han that rules here in the east follows another dynasty that was founded by Wang Mang… that is always ignored by ordinary scholars, but you and I, we can say these things. The old Han died… and now, as if to repeat a sad cycle, this newer Han now faces a similar fate, brought about by corruption and soon to be weakened by the ‘Way of Peace’. I wonder… I wonder who the next Wang Mang will be.”
Cao Cao hummed thoughtfully.

Qiao Xuan died within a few months of that last meeting with Cao Cao, who often went out of his way to pay his respects to the grave of an old man that had given him hope, an extended set of moral values, and a sense of what his destiny would be. Cao Cao often wondered - in that time of chaos that was to come - who the ‘next Wang Mang’ would be; that inevitable figure of change that would destroy the house of Han.

Mistakes can often take the form of ignoring an obvious threat. Emperor Ling had received word that Zhang Jue, the leader of a growing cult known as the ‘Way of Peace’, had been making revolutionarily speeches to the disaffected people, promising a brave, fair new world where all would be equal and the corrupt would have no place. The court dismissed Zhang Jue as a harmless fool and his followers as incapable of unity or organisation, and - in complete contrast to the reaction to the eunuchs’ claims of factionists within the wealthy intellectual classes - did nothing at all. For a year, distressed officials throughout the land sent reports of public meetings and daubed messages promising a revolution against the corruption, and for a year, Luoyang did not act.

In that year, corruption went unchecked as it always had, which added to the anger and resentment of the people, and to the numbers that turned to the untried-yet-enticing ‘Way of Peace’ for a solution. For a year, the growth of support for the ‘Way of Peace’ even exceeded the expectations of men who could see - or, perhaps, chose to see - what was coming. And during that year, plans were formulated by the leaders of the ‘Way of Peace’ across the land. They adopted a symbol - a yellow scarf to bind their hair - by which they would soon be commonly known. And despite the increasing blatancy of the followers of Zhang Jue, the Han court failed to change its ways, repeating yet another old mistake. Within a year, the ‘Way of Peace’ had agents in the government and an army of nearly 2,000,000 that dwarfed what the arrogant, impoverished and exhausted imperial court could muster.

Within a year, they were ready to act.

*************

<< Main Product Page

<< Previous Page

~ End of free sample ~