The Yellow Turban Rebellion and Cao Liu's Appearance: How Does the Change in Political Power Structure Give Heroes a Place to Stand Out?

The first big scene at the beginning of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is to pacify the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

The story begins here, which is very historical. The Yellow Turban Rebellion itself, though quickly put down. However, the political structure of the Eastern Han Dynasty changed because of this, and the original imperial court monopolized the various powers in its hands and had to be delegated to the local and military, so there were various new variables, and the founders of the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu also had the opportunity to come out.

What the Yellow Turban Uprising is all about

Let's take a brief look at what the Yellow Turban Rebellion was all about in history.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the whole society was filled with a sense of the end of the world, and many people felt that this world was very wrong. In this atmosphere, Zhang Jiao spread the Taiping Road, and the effect was particularly good.

Especially the several great plagues at that time also helped Zhang Jiao. It is recorded in the history books that Zhang Jiao used Fu water to treat people's diseases, and the effect was very good, and many people believed in him.

It stands to reason that Fu Shui cannot cure diseases, how is this effect achieved?

It can only be said that the effect of psychological suggestion is very powerful, and Zhang Jiao will also have some other illusions that confuse people. It is also natural to spread ten, ten to hundred, and the more it spreads, the more God it is.

In addition, most plagues do not have a high mortality rate, and even without any treatment, many patients can be cured slowly if they are cared for. The problem is that many times a person is abandoned once he is infected with the plague, so in the end he may not die of an infectious disease, but of starvation and cold.

One speculation is that Zhang Jiao and a group of core believers around him, who are willing to take care of the sick, have allowed more people to survive. But at that time, people would not understand this from a medical point of view, but would say: This is the magic of their Taiping Dao. Therefore more and more people believed in him.

However, although Taiping Dao was widely spread in this way, it gained hundreds of thousands of followers. However, to use this as a basis for planning large-scale military operations would show that the rigor and operational efficiency of the Order are still far behind.

The middle school history textbook says that "a great organized and prepared peasant uprising led by Zhang Jiao and others has finally broken out." This is of course true, but there was organization before the outbreak and there is not much organization after the outbreak occurs. The Yellow Turban Army in various places fought separately, and soon formed three different theaters of war: Hebei, Yingchuan, and Wancheng.

Even, Zhang Jiao gives people the impression that he is a person who has no concept in military affairs. For example, after the Yellow Turban Army raised troops, Zhang Jiao asked a large number of Taiping Taoist believers in Jingzhou and Yangzhou to concentrate in the Yecheng area of Hebei Province, which was completely incomprehensible from a military and political point of view. From the perspective of rebellion, shouldn't these people let them go straight to Luoyang? What are you doing all the way to Yecheng?

The response of the Eastern Han court in history

In contrast, the response of the Eastern Han court was much more effective.

The empress's elder brother, He Jin, was appointed as the Great General, that is, the highest military governor in the country. However, if the general sits in the rear, there are other people who actually command the battle at the front. The most important ones are three: Huangfu Song, Zhu Jun, and Lu Zhi.

At that time, although the government was corrupt, the army was still very combative. Especially in Liangzhou and Bingzhou in the northwest region, and Youzhou and Jizhou in the northeast, because they have to resist border troubles, the army is a division of a hundred battles. There is also Yangzhou in the southeast region, there is a Danyang County, where the "Danyang soldiers" are also very brave and good at fighting.

The most elite troops, all in the border areas, is well understood.

Huangfu Song is from Anding County, Liangzhou, Lu Zhi is from Zhuo County in Youzhou, and Zhu Jun is from Huiji County, Yangzhou. The three happened to be from the northwest, northeast and southeast respectively.

Among these three people, except for Lu Zhi, who was removed from his post because he refused to give gifts to the eunuchs, Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun were both outstanding in battle. The Yellow Turban Army in Hebei was pacified by Huangfu Song, Yingchuan was the joint force of Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun, and the Yellow Turban Army in Nanyang was mainly pacified by Zhu Jun.

And we are familiar with Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan's father Sun Jian, what role did they play?

Sun Jianli has very important military exploits. Sun Jian was a native of Fuchun, Wu County, that is, a native of Fuyang District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province today; Zhu Jun is a native of Shangyu County, Huiji County, which is now Shangyu District, Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Speaking of two counties, the two places are not far apart. Sun Jian came from a humble background but was very capable of fighting, Zhu Jun had heard about it a long time ago, so when he put down the rebellion, he specially recruited Sun Jian as his own attacking force. It was in this process that Sun Jian got the first pot of gold in his life.

In the year of the pacification of the Yellow Turban, Cao Cao was just thirty years old, and the official worshiped the Captain, which was an official of 2,000 stones, and his administrative level was the same as that of a senior magistrate like the county guard. Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun attacked the Yellow Turban Army in Yingchuan, and the army led by Cao Cao arrived when the victory of the government army was decided, joined the encirclement and suppression, and expanded the results of the battle. For a high-ranking cadre like him, this is a logical way to brush up on his resume.

Liu Bei's status was still very humble at that time, he also participated in this war, and his experience included a lot of blood, sweat and hardships of a grassroots general, but after all, he did not interfere with the overall situation of the war.

Description of the folk Tales of the Three Kingdoms

This is history, but if you look at the folk tales of the Three Kingdoms, it's a completely different flavor.

"Three Kingdoms Zhipinghua" said that the Yellow Turban Rebellion was huge, which attracted great attention from the imperial court, and it was Huangfu Song who was appointed as the commander of the counterinsurgency, but he ignored the Eastern Han Dynasty official system that was already very unfamiliar to the Yuan Dynasty, and called him "Prime Minister".

The imperial court encouraged the people to join the army, so they introduced the story of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei Taoyuan, which is not in the official history, and everyone is familiar with the plot today.

Liu Guanzhang led a small detachment and swept all the way, this small army of several thousand people, broke more than 5 million yellow turban thieves. Under their attack, the three Zhang Jiao brothers "died in the chaos" one after another. In short, the pacification of the Yellow Turban is the credit of their brothers. And Zhang Fei's contribution is particularly great, and it can be felt that most of the so-called respect for Liu Bei is reflected in liking Zhang Fei. Folk literature, I especially like this kind of character with a rough personality, and a person who goes crazy will go to most of the world.

According to the records of the historical books, there was an incident in which Liu Bei whipped the postal superintendent, and the revision of "Three Kingdoms Zhipinghua" was not to replace the person who beat the postal superintendent with Zhang Fei, but to change this incident from a local news to a major event that affected the fate of the country.

When reporting military merits, Liu Bei had no money to give gifts to the eunuchs in power and was humiliated. So Zhang Fei broke out and knocked down two front teeth of the big eunuch.

Of course, there was no reward now, so Liu Bei stopped "Uncle Dong Cheng" to cry out for grievances, and with the help of Dong Cheng, he got the position of Anxi County Lieutenant. ——Dong Cheng is undoubtedly Dong Cheng in the history books, plain dialect and miscellaneous dramas are oral literature, and homophones are very common, especially considering that most of the storytellers and drama actors do not have a high level of education, and it is very necessary to replace the more obscure words with the most commonly used words.

After arriving in Anxi County, Liu Bei was made difficult by Taishou. So Zhang Fei entered the Taishou Mansion at night and killed all the men and women of his family. ——Pinghua is a synopsis for storytelling, and the text is simple. I suspect that in the past, when storytellers performed live, they would probably describe in detail how Zhang Fei killed people one by one, just like the plot of Wu Song's blood-spattered Mandarin Duck Tower in "Water Margin".

This matter reached the imperial court, so the ten permanent servants sent the superintendent to hear the case. The post supervisor was beaten to death by Zhang Fei again, and his body was divided.

The matter was so big that Liu Bei went to Taihang Mountain to be a robber. The Yellow Turban Rebellion is so terrible, and the people who can pacify the Yellow Turbans must be much more terrifying.

In the imperial court, Uncle Dong Cheng jumped out again, saying that in order to recruit Liu Bei, we should kill the ten permanent servants.

So, the emperor killed the ten permanent servants and named Liu Bei as "Pingyuan County Cheng".

This large plot has big ups and downs, which can be said to be extremely exciting. It is entirely centered on Liu Bei, who has obviously become the center of history. The only regret is that after tossing for so long, I originally thought that Liu Bei should be crowned a "one-word side by side king", but the official position he obtained was only a county prince, which caught people off guard.

Friends who love to listen to storytelling should feel that although most of these plots have not been seen in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", there are often similar episodes in other robes and ribbon books. Also, I recently read some articles saying that traditional novels often have to let the protagonist be suppressed for a long time before giving him an outburst, but modern Shuangwen likes to let the protagonist go back immediately, in fact, compared with the routine of folk storytelling, you will find that Shuangwen is definitely a part of traditional culture.

The treatment of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

After reading the historical records and the folk stories of the Three Kingdoms represented by "The Tales of the Three Kingdoms", you can have a more accurate grasp of the positioning of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

First, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" helped Liu Bei brag a lot. Like what Zhang Fei picked Deng Mao, Guan Yu beheaded Cheng Yuanzhi, Liu Bei set up a surprise soldier to defeat the Yellow Turban, and used pigs, sheep and dog blood to break Zhang Bao's demon technique...... All these things are not found in the history books.

Second, compared with "The Tales of the Three Kingdoms", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" brags very restrained, because these victories are written lively, but it can be seen that the scale is not large, and it is Huangfu Song, Zhu Jun and others who really pacified the Yellow Turban Army, and this historical fact "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is still fully respected.

In fact, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" added drama to Liu Bei, mainly not to exaggerate his exploits, but to make Liu Bei run around.

Historically, the place where Liu Bei fought was not far from his hometown, but in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Liu Bei's scope of activities is large, Hebei, Yingchuan, and Nanyang are three independent war zones, Liu Bei ran all over the place, especially between Hebei and Yingchuan, or turned back and ran.

Let Liu Bei run all over the scene, you can use Liu Bei's eyes to take readers to see the overall situation of the Yellow Turban, which is much stronger than the author's direct introduction to the reader from an omniscient perspective, and the immersive feeling is much stronger. Moreover, as soon as he ran like this, Liu Bei recognized Cao Cao in the first chapter of the novel, and at the beginning of the second chapter, he recognized Sun Jian again. The founding characters of the Three Kingdoms, in the beginning of the novel, all appear.

It is common for facts to be more bizarre, magical and illogical than novels, but the relationships between characters in reality are often loose lines, and novelists have to weave these threads into a more intricate and dense web.

Cao Cao's youth

"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" wrote that when Liu Bei and Cao Cao appeared, they used the technique of interpolation to introduce the early experiences of Liu Bei and Cao Cao.

Let's talk about Cao Cao first, the historical figure Cao Cao's information is relatively rich, and it has been studied more thoroughly by researchers.

Cao Cao's grandfather, Cao Teng, was a very powerful eunuch in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Born in such a family, Cao Cao's starting point in life is naturally completely incomparable with ordinary people. Cao Cao raised filial piety at the age of 20, and the system of the Eastern Han Dynasty was roughly every 200,000 people, there was a quota for filial piety, in other words, there were more than 200 filial piety in the world every year. Cao Cao's family conditions are good, so it is natural that he will occupy a place. The following year, he was recommended by Sima Yi's father, Sima Fang, to be the lieutenant of northern Luoyang.

In the usual county seats, there are two county lieutenants for the large ones and one county lieutenant for the small ones. However, Luoyang City is the first county of Dahan, which is divided into four parts, southeast, northwest and northwest, and is managed by four county lieutenants. The northern lieutenant of Luoyang is the county lieutenant who is responsible for the security of the northern part of Luoyang City.

Then there is the famous story, Cao Cao hung more than ten five-colored sticks outside the gate of the official office of the lieutenant in northern Luoyang, saying that whoever dared to violate the law would be beaten to death. A few months later, the uncle of the eunuch Jian Shuo, who was favored by Emperor Ling, went out late at night, was caught by Cao Cao, and beaten to death. The entire city of Luoyang was shaken, and the level of law and order was greatly improved for a while.

There is a more coincidental place here, Cao Cao is six years older than Liu Bei, and Liu Bei is fifteen years old this year. Fifteen-year-old Liu Bei studied with the great Confucian Lu Zhi, and the place where Lu Zhi taught was in the Wushi Mountain near Luoyang, that is to say, Liu Bei should have felt the shock caused by Cao Cao up close.

There is an even more coincidental thing, the person who served as Luoyang Ling this year, that is, the person led by Cao Cao, was born in the Lujiang Zhou family, called Zhou Yi.

Zhou Yi's son happened to be born this year, and as a subordinate, Cao Cao is likely to go to congratulate him and see this baby who has just fallen to the ground.

The boy is very pretty. Even if it was just out of politeness, Cao Cao would praise the child a few words.

Cao Cao didn't know what painful memories this boy would bring to himself when he grew up and set a fire.

The boy's name is Zhou Yu.

So when you think about it, it's been a really amazing year.

However, no matter how good the reputation Cao Cao earned himself for this behavior, he offended the eunuch group in power, but after all, he was a child within the group, and the eunuch could not kill him, so he drove him to the local area as a county magistrate.

Then Cao Cao's county magistrate didn't last long and was dismissed. But a few years later, it is said that because he was well read and proficient in Confucian classics, he was given the position of "councilor", an official who was responsible for commenting on current affairs.

So what kind of lofty theory did Cao Cao make? First, he demanded the rehabilitation of the scholars who had been killed because of the scourge of the party. Second, he accused the then three dukes of collusion with the eunuchs.

To put it simply, Cao Cao continued to work against the eunuch group, and from the perspective of his background, he belonged to this group, but he just wanted to work against the eunuch group. In his later years, Cao Cao recalled his youth, and he said proudly, "I disobey all the permanent servants and think that the strong and powerful are angry".

This is the complexity of the young Cao Cao. He is the son of a very idealistic privileged class, and it is precisely because he is a privileged class that his idealism can be supported. In other words, it is precisely because he is protected by privilege that he can be anti-privileged. Cao Cao's father should also be heartbroken for this son, don't be a shit-stirring stick for me, in the end, I have to rely on Lao Tzu to wipe your ass!

"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" does not show this complexity of Cao Cao, but only emphasizes that he is from the eunuch group, which is shameful. This can be regarded as a kind of scandalization of Cao Cao, but on the other hand, such a family background has given Cao Cao how many resources and how much convenience has been provided for Cao Cao's actions, and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" does not mention it, giving people the feeling that Cao Cao solves various problems by relying on personal ingenuity, and there is zero capital outside of ability. From this point of view, it may also be considered that "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" also has a kind of beautification of Cao Cao.

Liu Bei's youth

Let's look at Liu Bei again.

Liu Bei is said to be the son of Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty, after Liu Sheng, King Jing of Zhongshan, Sima Guang was skeptical of this statement. Therefore, Sima Guang wrote about the place where Liu Bei was called the emperor in "Zizhi Tongjian", and specially added a long comment to explain why "Zizhi Tongjian" used Cao Wei's era name to record the year, instead of Liu Bei's year name.

The ministers are foolish and honest enough to know the righteousness of the previous generations, and they think that Gou cannot unify Kyushu, and they all have the name of the Son of Heaven, and there is no real one. …… However, when the world is divided, it is not possible to know things in the order of years, hours, months, and days...... Instead of respecting one and humbling the other, there is a distinction between right and wrong. Zhaolie's Han, although after King Jing of Yunzhong Mountain, and the clan is estranged, can not record the number of his life, but also Song Gaozu called Chu Yuan Queen, Southern Tang Liezu called Wu Wang Kehou, right and wrong are difficult to distinguish, so they dare not compare Guangwu and Jin Yuan Emperor, so that the legacy of Shao Han is also.

Sima Guang said that he did not think that Cao Wei was orthodox, but Liu Bei's situation was also very suspicious, so he did not recognize Liu Bei's qualifications to inherit the Han Dynasty.

Indeed, after a person surnamed Liu, who claimed to be Liu Sheng, the king of Zhongshan, it was indeed difficult to prove that his statement was credible. Because Liu Sheng has never done anything serious in his life, he has worked tirelessly and has given birth to more than 100 sons. Then there were children and grandchildren, and there were sons, and they could not be counted.

However, the Han Dynasty's statistics on the Han clan relatives are still relatively serious. Liu Bei's identity, when the Three Kingdoms were established, Cao Wei did not question it, and after the Three Kingdoms returned to Jin, Chen Shou said that Liu Bei was a descendant of Liu Sheng, the king of Zhongshan, and it was also allowed. It shows that Liu Bei's bloodline and recognition at that time were still relatively high.

Of course, even if it is true, this identity is not very valuable, and there are hundreds of thousands of Han clan relatives like him in the world. The system of the Han Dynasty would no longer give him any privileges for distant relatives of such an emperor.

Compared with Cao Cao, Liu Bei's background is very humble, of course, compared with ordinary people, he can still be regarded as a marginal person of the privileged class.

Liu Bei's grandfather, Liu Xiong, was filial piety and a county order, but his father Liu Hong died early, which led to Liu Bei having to weave straw mats and straw shoes with his mother when he was a child.

But the role of the family soon came into play.

Liu Bei has an uncle Liu Yuanqi who is the same as the sect, who is particularly optimistic about Liu Bei and often supports him. Liu Yuanqi gave Liu Bei as much money as he gave his son. His wife couldn't stand it, Liu Yuanqi said: Liu Bei is not an ordinary person, but the hope of our whole family.

From this trivial matter, it can also be seen why the clan has always been the most important social organization in traditional Chinese society, and why there are often powerful emperors like Emperor Qin and Han Wu who want to destroy the clan power, but the clan can always resurrect.

The clan's ability to resist risks is indeed much stronger than that of an isolated small family. Small families have lost their breadwinners, and there are clans to provide financial support; The small family feels that their son is not good enough, and can discover the same children as the children of the same clan.

Until reading the memoirs of the characters of the Republic of China, we can often read such stories.

Then Liu Bei showed a particularly excellent trait, that is, likable.

The uncle of the same clan funded Liu Bei to study, and then Liu Bei worshiped the disciple of Lu Zhi, the top scholar at that time, but Liu Bei did not like to read.

This should be said to be a very wise choice, because Liu Bei will go all out to work hard in his studies, and there will be no hope.

At that time, reading was about "home learning", your father, your grandfather, your grandfather...... You are all studying this classic, and you are still studying this classic, which naturally reveals that your level is higher than others. Otherwise, even if your level is really high, you will not be recognized by others. Therefore, the Eastern Han Dynasty will have a situation of successive generations of scriptures and successive generations of ministers. Why is Yuan Shao's family so powerful? The Yuan family of Runan has a "Meng's Yi", which is closely related to the outstanding status of the fourth and third dukes.

Liu Bei went to Lu Zhi to study, just to mix in circles. Studying in a good school, worshipping a good teacher, learning knowledge is one thing, writing it on a resume to look good, and establishing a new social circle has always been a very important function.

So Liu Bei is amazing.

First, he made a good friend who also doesn't like to read, named Gongsun Zhan. Gongsun Chan is a son of a wealthy family, but his mother is a lowly person, so he has no share in the family business, so he can only go to the county to be a small official. Gongsun Zhan is also very powerful, when he is a small official, he makes the leader like him, so he recruited him as a son-in-law and sent him to Lu Zhi to be gilded. Liu Bei made a friend of Gongsun Zhan.

Second, although Liu Bei doesn't like to read, he has not lost the favor of his teacher. The teacher, Lu Zhi, was the biggest celebrity at that time, and then Liu Bei quickly established a good reputation in the celebrity circle. We will see later, Yuan Shao, Chen Ji, Zheng Xuan, Kong Rong, Chen Deng...... These world-famous celebrities saw Liu Bei and liked it very much. Celebrities in the late Han Dynasty were people who had a lot of social resources, and Liu Bei got along well with these celebrities, so he could get a lot of support. Of course, we will also see that local middle-level celebrities often hate Liu Bei. There is no way to do this, Liu Bei belongs to a poor family, Liu Bei has achieved a class jump, and the middle celebrity will feel very offended. This is niche competition.

Third, when Liu Bei returned to his hometown, he was especially supported by delinquent teenagers. Liu Bei enjoys horseback riding, dog walking, beautiful clothes, pop music...... is especially good at playing.,Belongs to the person who can make young people with hormones rush to worship when they see it.,It can also be said that he was born with the temperament of a big brother in the underworld.。

Liu Bei and Cao Cao compared

Liu Bei is different from Cao Cao, he is a person who is born without many resources, but firmly grasps and makes full use of all the resources that can be gathered at hand.

Therefore, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is written as the image of a good old man, should it be said to beautify Liu Bei or weaken Liu Bei? Morally it is beautified, and ability is weakened.

Take Liu Bei's whipping of the post supervisor as an example: Liu Bei got the position of lieutenant of Anxi County because of his contribution to pacifying the Yellow Turban. The superintendent came and wanted to find fault with Liu Bei and remove Liu Bei from his post. This was a special policy of the Eastern Han Dynasty at that time: there were so many posts in the officialdom, Liu Bei who relied on military merits to become an official occupied some posts, and those who relied on family and relationships could get fewer posts, and they felt that they had suffered a loss, so they wanted to eliminate Liu Bei. The rebellion had just been put down, and another disaster could occur at any time, so crossing the river and demolishing the bridge at this time would have a great blow to people's hearts, as you can imagine. But at the end of the dynasty, when the privileged class just ate and wiped it off, it was so short-sighted.

At that time, Liu Bei had a premonition that something was wrong, so he was angry, rushed to the residence of the superintendent, tied up the superintendent, and paid attention to Liu Bei's approach: take the superintendent outside the border of Anxi County, untie his own seal and hang it on the superintendent's neck, beat the superintendent severely, and then walked away.

At that time, under such circumstances, Liu Bei was able to go out to supervise the post, which was able to arouse the resonance and applause of a large number of officials from practical backgrounds. And Liu Bei did things beautifully: first, the county lieutenant has the responsibility of maintaining law and order in the county, Liu Bei dragged the superintendent outside the boundary of Anxi County, saying that you were beaten, but it was not my responsibility in Anxi County; Second, I don't beat you as an official, I am just a common man, and I will beat you as a common person.

In short, Liu Bei can be said to have done reasonably, forcefully and responsibly. "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" changed this matter to Zhang Fei's doing, and Liu Bei is higher morally, but Liu Bei's exciting temperament has also been changed.

Therefore, the treatment of Cao Cao and Liu Bei in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" may indeed subjectively want to scandalize Cao Cao and beautify Liu Bei, but in fact it is more of a simplification.

• (This article is the author's personal opinion and does not represent the position of this newspaper)

Liu Bo

Editor-in-charge: Chen Bin