The Yellow Turban Rebellion | DOCUMENTARY

the Yellow Turban rebellion of 184 ad was one of the bloodiest conflicts the world has ever seen claiming more than three million lives and paving the way for a new era forever immortalized in Chinese history if you're wondering what would cause millions of peasants to stand against one of the most powerful dynasties in history you need look no further than their growling stomachs and their children wasting away at their feet it's a common fact that the fastest way to a man's heart is through his stomach and when torrential rains caused the yellow river to flood around 170 AD it washed away more than fields and lives an entire economic system quickly collapsed and with no food to be found in the north of China people packed it up and went south looking for bread and honest work with honest pay expected as well but history has never been kind to the refugee and they found themselves hand-to-mouth tilling the fields of fat cat landowners that stuffed their bellies and pockets with other men's sweat what little money they did make the taxman came for sent by the Han Dynasty to build higher walls on their western border to protect the riches of the Silk Road the men in charge were more than willing to push others lives for more money now with no way to pay these common men were branded as outlaws after all it's criminal not to pay your taxes so farmers peasants even former soldiers fled to the hills to escape the long reach of John law and as desperate men always do heads came together to do something about it [Music] the Han government had been running on fumes for years the Emperor didn't help the situation much either after 400 years of family rule and relative peace throwing lavish parties and visiting the ladies in your harem or just perks of the office who needs to run an empire when you have people who will do it for you factions inside the imperial court refuting and fighting to become the power behind the Emperor's throne and didn't care one bit for what happened outside their gilded walls and none were bigger carpetbaggers than the 10 attendants a bunch of eunuchs who surrounded the Emperor leave hung with feathery fans and flattery but lacked the balls to do anything to fix the people's problems back in the fields among the sick and starving Gyeongju a a Taoists priest saw the imperial court for what they were corrupt leeches whose decadence had thrown their world into disarray so that now the universe itself punished their hand and if the emperor had lost the Mandate of Heaven then it was up to the people to restore the natural order to show he knew his business Gyeongju I traveled from village to village curing the sick through healings and faith and for free to boot along the way telling them to confess their sins and purify their bodies and as word of his miracle spread Jang sent out his two brothers Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang to spread the good news China could be saved but first they would need to burn it to the ground so it could rise again like a phoenix from its own ashes and so in hidden corners and behind closed doors the rebellion was organized in the way of supreme peace carried on the wind its message was simple the azure sky is dead a yellow sky is rising and the new year will bring riches to everyone under heaven yet the Han Empire is vast and the eunuchs powers deeper than most new a rebel sympathizer in the imperial court caved under this pressure spilling the beans on the entire operation including fellow sympathizers in the Imperial City immediately the eunuchs anyone who sympathized with the rebels to be drunk from their homes in the night and executed at dawn and when that blade fell the eunuchs sounded a clear call to every labor in the Han realm every man who starved while his master ate who had bled while his leaders looked on and they threw down their tools and rose up first in trickles and bans then as a torrent that flowed from the mountains to the plains not unlike the floods on the Yellow River itself and in the second month of AD 184 China was engulfed in yellow banners the characters Jia Zi became a symbol of coming change and the strips of yellow cloth were ripped from tattered peasants clothing and then wrapped around their heads these men of the yellow scarf and turban proclaimed Zhang's way the Lord general of heaven Zhang Bao the general of earth and Jang Liang the general of the people the Yellow Turban rebellion had begun in just 10 short days the provinces of Zhi Jing Yu and ye were overrun by 360,000 Yellow Turban rebels killing any government officials and burning down anything tied to the imperial court once he received the news of his lost provinces the Emperor called on the Imperial armies and to put these peasants back under the boot he employed Liu ji Kwang soos own and Joo Shin to lead a three-pronged assault on the north with 40,000 troops under their command they were told to crush the rebellion by any means necessary when Joo Chun's army arrived in the north local leaders including Joe chin of the rounin commander II rushed to join his banner no doubt hoping to make a name for themselves yet even now with their swollen ranks they were unprepared for an attack a Chow lean the yellow turbans show that they would not be swept aside without a fight and drove the Imperial Army from the then a second defeat push Joo Chun from the Ronin commandery itself realizing they had underestimated the strength of the yellow turbans the imperial court called for a horse regiment to ride north and reinforced him led by a brilliant young cavalry commander sau sau seeing that they couldn't handle the rebel armies alone jujin sau sau and who I'm foo sone joined their armies at chunky and this time when the yellow turbans attacked they were ready driving them from the field the Imperial Army routed the yellow turbans running down the rebel leader boat chai like a dog anyone who is caught and yellow was killed those with scents threw down their banners and as the Imperial forces marched into Ronin again they swept aside anyone else who forgot to scatter without any proper fight left in the rebels in the area the Imperial Army split back up with Zhu Chen retaking nan young commander II the blonde from sone attacking the rebels at dong it was there that evidence came to light that one of the lead eunuchs in the imperial city had been relaying military orders to the yellow turbans one of the imposes advisers had undermined them when presented with this evidence the Emperor scolded the eunuch Jang rang like a spoiled child seeming to ignore the fact that he had caused the death of tens of thousands of people but the eunuch apologized gracefully and the snake wriggled away yet again Lu Zhi the great teacher and scholar saw initial success in his campaigns to the north tasked with defeating the Supreme Leader himself Zhang's way he invaded julu commander II defeating the Supreme Leader's army and then besieging the priests and gaozong County with no way to retreat and limited supplies only a divine intervention which saved John's ways rebellion but the heavens move in mysterious ways and that help came in the form of who would have guessed it a eunuch jealous of luigis power and success the eunuch accused the man of treason and whispered poison into the Emperor's ear Lu Zhi was arrested put in Chains and the hero was ex courted back to the capital as a prisoner in his place the eunuchs put a man they believed they could trust and more importantly control a promising young warrior from the distant plains don't draw but a puppet can only dance when it's masters allow it and dong Zhuo was unable to hold jungjie way in place while on a leash he was defeated and the rebels escaped by late September Wang Fu's song was completed his cleanup of Cheng keen and after sending the traitors heads back to the capital he was asked to replace dong Zhuo as a reward and so Huang whose son led his men north and to Guanzhong County to attack Zhang Wei himself yet the Mandate of Heaven must be a fickle thing it had abandoned the Emperor long ago and Jon's way soon found it had abandoned him too dying of fever and illness likely starved to death by hewan fus own siege even with the supreme leader dead the Imperial Army couldn't seem to finish the job the yellow turbans were now desperate men backed into a corner ferocious and doomed to die and no man is more dangerous than when he has nothing to lose Jean Joey's brother Zhang Liang took over command of his followers with his own army of former soldiers and deserters at his back they knew every trick in the Imperial playbook and he whipped one who's sown at every turn unable to make progress womp who sold settled into his camp he may not be able to move the ball forward but Jeong Liang sure couldn't push him back either thinking of that one whose son was content to sit and wait them out the yellow turbans dropped their guard as they assumed that Huang zu sone was against the ropes that's exactly when the Imperial Army struck back in the dead of night one from sone marched out from his camp hidden by the hills and trees and they swarmed into the yellow turbans camp and torched it putting the sword to anything that moved thirty thousand bodies lay dead on the ground by daylight Zhang Mian was among them another fifty thousand managed to scurry away in the confusion but dawn found them with their backs against the river forced to choose between fire or water the men plunged into the swollen brown water and no one is recorded to have made it across to add insult to injury who on foo sone then found where zhangzhou a had been buried dug him up cut his head off and then sent it back to the Emperor and Luo yang as a delightful thank-you present now the de facto headed the Imperial forces in the North gone through sone joined forces with the armies marching into the julu commander II and they're the last of the turban rebellions on there Jeong Bao the last surviving brother made their final stand at the battle in Cheyenne County the yellow sky faded back to an Azur one once more Zhang Bao was killed and the 100,000 men still alive surrendered unconditionally to a fate they could not control less than 200 days after it had begun the founders of the Yellow Turban revolt were dead and the momentum of the Yellow Turban rebellion came to over the next handful of years groups calling themselves yellow turbans would pop up from time to time and quickly be put back into the ground like the insignificant rebellions they truly were and it would be well into the 190s ad before the final large-scale yellow turbans were finally snuffed out to become more than footnotes in the pages of history but victory had come at an extremely high cost government offices and infrastructure across the North were destroyed polled counties were cut off from Imperial ties and had learned to become self-sufficient rebel deaths counted in the hundreds of thousands and the crops and houses they burned put hundreds of thousands more out into the streets penniless homeless and hungry with the government in no position to step in and help local leaders shored up the wrecked system literally in most cases through building dams and levees to stem the wrath of the Yellow River becoming rulers in their right with armies and populations loyal to their new local saviors the generals who had been called up to fight the yellow turbans realized in fact they held the power and the Emperor on his deathbed when his bevy of eunuchs was powerless without them in the end the yellow sky Zhang Shui had seen his vision had not come it was a crimson one and heralded nearly 100 years of civil war and what would be famously known as the Three Kingdoms era until finally the last man standing declared that he in fact with sword in hand had the Mandate of Heaven all along [Music] this video was created in relation to but not sponsored by creative Assembly's mandate of heaven DLC for total war three kingdoms if you enjoyed this content do consider subscribing to the channel and checking out the patreon for ways to get involved in the channel thank you for watching this is havoc and I will see you in the next video

Channel: Havoc

Views: 7,143

Rating: 4.9649124 out of 5

Keywords: Havoc, HforHavoc, yellow turban rebellion, yellow turban rebellion total war, yellow turban rebellion documentary, yellow turban total war, yellow turban documentary, history channel, military history, history documentary, animated documentary, three kingdoms, total war three kingdoms, mandate of heaven, mandate of heaven documentary, havoc history, havocs history, world history, documentary, havoc documentary, hforhavoc documentary, total war

Id: Y-VEwiqSzSs

Length: 14min 0sec (840 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/HForHavoc]

With the Mandate of Heaven DLC just on the horizon, I decided to dive into the history behind this very short-lived rebellion during the Han Dynasty.
Let me know what you think!

[u/Sea__King]

Very well done, Havok! Top quality