“Yellow Sky”: Crisis for the Han Dynasty sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne
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“…Organised by officials, men
like Liu Xiu!” Yuan Shao insisted. “Commoners are incapable of anything besides
grumbling and the occasional petty act of defiance that will be immediately crushed!
Yet you suggest that they are a threat…?
For what reason, Mengde, would they ‘rise up’ now, specifically, since their lot is, unlike ours, somewhat consistent…?”
“Yes… consistently miserable,”
Cao Cao sighed.
“Consistent, nonetheless!”
Yuan Shao barked. “Why should they act now?”
“Famine is rife across the land,” Cao Cao said. “People’s taxes are
beyond endurance, disease goes unchecked in distant provinces, while some work
pays less and less - in some places, nothing at all. Were it a burden shared by
all, that would be fine, but the friends of the ‘Ten’ enjoy palatial homes,
good food, fine clothing, well-paid jobs, immunity from prosecution, and a
nonsensical belief that they are infallible. The most worthless, incompetent
men hold important roles that they are unfit for and then plead that same
incompetence when they fail, as if it is an acceptable excuse for bribing and
conniving their way into jobs that they knew they could not do but did so
because they paid well. And the sovereign - who must, by now, with all the
petitions and the rebellions, know what’s going on, unless he is a simpleton -
does things that only invite the hatred to his doorstep, like commission bronze
statues that taxes must be raised and limited bronze supplies must be raided to
provide the resources for, and then arrest the men that point out the folly! If
it is not obliviousness or stupidity, then it is idealistic complacency or,
more likely, greed and contempt.
“On the grand scale of things, it is the sad fact that
all of society is revolved around providing an undeserving few with everything
they want and then trying to protect them from the indignation of their own
needlessly oppressed people, worse still at a time when we are under threat
from barbarian conquerors that will kill and enslave us all if we do not get
our priorities right. Closer to home and in simple terms, it is a case of
pushing people too far… and they’ll break.
Lujiang is the start… men like Lu
Kang are repairing the broken dam with twigs, for the logs he needs are busy
propping up the ‘Ten’. Give it five years at the most, and Lujiang’s hundred
thousand will be nothing in comparison… nothing.”
“But what can happen?” Yuan Shao scoffed. “They’re too disorganised!”
“All ‘they’ need is a leader - yes, an official if needs be - for all
under Heaven know they already have a number of very good reasons, as I have
just said,” Cao Cao said calmly. “What is going on in Yang Province right now,
if it is not what I now describe? A hundred thousand from Lujiang and Jiangxia
- a coalition from Jing and Yang Provinces that have communicated, arranged,
convened, and coalesced in one place - all fight as an army! How is that not
what I describe…?”
Yuan Shao harrumphed.
“I’m right,” Cao Cao continued. “The types that think the way of
corruption is easy and without consequence have always been proven wrong, no matter what measures they take to
protect their worthless hides from retribution; but let us hope that they are
the only ones that suffer, Benchu, for as I said, very often it is the entire
ruling class that answers for the crimes of the selfish few, and that would be
tragic indeed; for without the intellectually enlightened, who will guide the
revolutionaries back out into the light, once chaos must be replaced by order…?”