Yellow Turban Rebellion The Yellow Turban Rebellion , also translated as Yellow Scarves Rebellion , was a peasant revolt that broke out in 184 AD in China during the reign of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty . The rebellion , which got its name from the colour of the scarves that the rebels wore on their heads , marked an important point in the history of Taoism due to the rebels ' association with secret Taoist societies . The revolt was also used as the opening event in Luo Guanzhong ' s historical novel " Romance of the Three Kingdoms " . Causes . A major cause of the rebellion was an agrarian crisis , in which famine forced many farmers and former military settlers in the north to seek employment in the south , where large landowners exploited the labor surplus to amass large fortunes . The situation was further aggravated by smaller floods along the lower course of the Yellow River . The peasants were further oppressed by high taxes imposed in order to fund the construction of fortifications along the Silk Road and garrisons against foreign infiltration and invasion . In this situation , landowners , landless peasants , and unemployed former - soldiers formed armed bands ( around 170 ) , and eventually private armies , setting the stage for armed conflict . At the same time , the Han Dynasty central government was weakening internally . The power of the landowners had become a longstanding problem , but in the run - up to the rebellion , the court eunuchs in particular gained considerably in influence over the emperor , which they abused to enrich themselves . Ten of the most powerful eunuchs formed a group known as the Ten Attendants , and the emperor referred to one of them ( Zhang Rang ) as his " foster father " . The government was widely regarded as corrupt and incapable and the famines and floods were seen as an indication that a decadent emperor had lost his mandate of heaven . Because of its plan for a new beginning , the Taoist sect of Zhang Jue ( also known as Zhang Jiao ) was to prove the Han Dynasty ' s most dangerous enemy . In preparation for his revolt , Zhang Jue sent disciples out to gain support and organize followers throughout north China . They were helped by local political discontent , and by droughts and plague among the people . The rebels even had allies in the imperial court , and they were able to make their preparations while government officials were either ignorant of their intentions or intimidated by their power . Zhang Jue planned a rising throughout the empire , but before the call to arms had been issued the plan was betrayed , the rebel sympathizers in Luoyang were arrested and executed , and the revolt in the provinces had to begin ahead of time , in the second month of 184 . Despite the premature call and an inevitable lack of co - ordination , tens of thousands of men rose in rebellion , government offices were plundered and destroyed and the imperial armies were immediately forced onto the defensive . Rebels . Founders . The rebellion was led by Zhang Jue ( also referred to as Zhang Jiao , known to his followers as the " General of Heaven " ) and his two younger brothers Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang , who were born in Julu ( present - day Pingxiang County , Hebei ) . The brothers had founded a Taoist religious sect in present - day Shandong . They were healers , usually accepting patients " pro bono " who could not afford to pay them . The brothers saw the harshness of the world through their work with the peasants who were often abused by the local government , overburdened and hungry due to the heavy taxes that were levied upon them . Taoist sect . The rebels were the first but not last followers of the Way of Supreme Peace ( ) and venerated the deity " Huang - Lao " , who according to Zhang Jue had given him a sacred book called the " Crucial Keys to the Way of Peace " ( ) . Zhang Jue was said to be a sorcerer and styled himself as the " Great Teacher " . The sect taught the principles of equal rights of all peoples and equal distribution of land ; when the rebellion was proclaimed , the sixteen - word slogan was created by Zhang Jue : " The firmament has perished , the Yellow Sky will soon rise ; in this year of " jiazi " , let there be prosperity in the world ! " < br > ( 蒼天已死 ， 黃天當立 。 歲在甲子 ， 天下大吉 。 ) Since all the three brothers were healers , they spread it easily by telling their patients to spread it amongst the peasants . Religious practices . Zhang Jue used a form of Taoism to cure the sick by confession of sins and by faith healing . The religion and the politics of the Zhang brothers were based on belief in an apocalyptic change in the order of the world , and they told their followers that in the " jiazi " year , beginning of the new sexagenary cycle , the sky would become yellow , and that under this new heaven the rule of the Han Dynasty would end and a new era of government begin . The characters " jiazi " became a symbol of the coming change and later , when the followers of Zhang Jue went to battle they wore a yellow cloth bound about their heads as a badge . From this there came the term Yellow Turbans . Nearly all of the religious practices of the sect were communal activities ( collective trances , fasts ) . A typical worship service consisted largely of music and chanting , the burning of incense , and sermons or anecdotes that could be given by any member of the congregation including women and those perceived as barbarians . Several Xiongnu such as Yufuluo are known to have at least lent their support to the sect and a number of scholars have theorized that Zhang Jue may have derived some of his teachings from shamanism as he appeared as a mystical healer with a direct link to the heavens . While many of the beliefs of the early Path of Supreme Peace have been lost , it is very likely that they had some relation to the Way of the Celestial Masters , considering Zhang Jue claimed to be a descendant of Zhang Daoling . It is further worthy to note that many of the writings found in the 52 surviving chapters of the " Taiping Jing " that are found in the " Daozang " have a direct relationship to the Way of the Celestial Masters . Regardless , it is quite likely that any discrepancies found within the Way were suppressed by later Taoist sects . Military action . The rebels were mostly concentrated in three areas . The group led by Zhang Jue and his two brothers gained their support from the region just north of the Yellow River , near Zhang Jue ' s home territory of Julu and his base in Wei . A second major rising took place in Guangyang and Zhuo commanderies in You Province , in the neighborhood of present - day Beijing . The third center of rebellion was in the three commanderies of Yingchuan , Runan and Nanyang . This force had evidently been intended to co - operate with the traitors inside Luoyang in the attempt to seize the capital , but even without that support , the rebels in this region were a major threat . In the first weeks of the uprising , the government of Emperor Ling was chiefly concerned with finding and executing the traitors at the capital and with the immediate defense of the city . General - in - Chief He Jin , the half - brother of Empress He , was placed in charge of putting the rebellion down in the capital . In the third month , when these preparations had been made , three armies were sent out to deal with the rebellion . One was sent east against Zhang Jue . The other two , commanded by Huangfu Song and by Zhu Jun , were sent against the rebels in Yingchuan , Runan and Nanyang . Zhu recommended Sun Jian ' s appointment to call up troops and join his forces . With such widespread rebellion to deal with , the imperial commanders were anxious to gain any reinforcements that they could , and the territory of the lower Yangtze River , not directly affected by Zhang Jue ' s movement , was close enough to be a convenient source of recruits for the imperial army . Sun Jian rallied his troops , and he marched to join Zhu Jun ' s army with a thousand men under his command . The fighting against the rebels of Yingchuan , Runan and Nanyang was frequently fierce , with varying success . In the third month of 184 , soon after the rebellion had broken out , the rebel leader Zhang Mancheng defeated and killed the Grand Administrator of Nanyang , and in the fourth month , at the beginning of summer , the imperial army under Zhu Jun was defeated by Bo Cai in Yingchuan , while the Grand Administrator of Runan was defeated by another force of rebels . In the middle of 184 , however , the tide turned . In the fifth month Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun combined their armies to defeat Bo Cai , and in the sixth month they destroyed the rebels of Runan at the Battle at Xihua in Henan . Then the two generals went separate ways , Huangfu to join in the attack on the rebels north of the Yellow River , and Zhu to deal with the rebels of Nanyang . By this time , a new Grand Administrator had defeated Zhang Mancheng and killed him . In that campaign , however , the rebels were able to capture the capital of the commandery , Wan , and took refuge there . For the next several months , the core of the campaign was the fighting in and around Wan , until the place was finally stormed and the defenders massacred in the eleventh month , midwinter at the beginning of 185 . The capture of Wan was the last great defeat of the rebels . Their forces in the North China Plain had been destroyed in the field by the imperial armies during the summer , their strongholds were besieged and captured , and the three Zhang brothers were dead . The remaining , scattered rebels were pursued by commandery and county forces in various mopping - up operations , and in the twelfth month of the Chinese year , mid - February 185 , the government issued a proclamation of celebration , changing the era name to Zhongping ( 中平 ) , or " pacification achieved . " The rebels were defeated in February 185 , but only two months later , the rebellion broke out again . In 185 , it spread to the Taihang Mountains on the western border of Hebei and in 186 it reached Shaanxi , Hebei , and Liaoning , in 188 it reached Shanxi . In the same year , a second independent uprising took place in Sichuan , but it was not coordinated with the Yellow Turban Rebellion in other parts of the country . In 192 , the warlord Cao Cao was able to gain the submission of a rebel army after they marched into Yan Province . The rebels eventually ceased to pose a military challenge by 205 . Aftermath and impact . The Han armies had gained a glorious victory , and it was a remarkable achievement that they removed so quickly the threat of Zhang Jue ' s rebellion . The cost , however , was very high . Over wide areas the offices of the government had been destroyed , magistrates had been killed , and whole districts were cut off from the writ of the central government . The enemy had been slaughtered in the hundreds and thousands , many innocent people had been left homeless or destitute by the wars , and the economy and society over great parts of this most populous region of the empire were left in ruins and without resources . Unrest remained and bandits appeared in every district ; the government , in no position to put down all the lesser disturbances , was forced to patch up the situation as best it could . A long period of consolidation was needed to restore some measure of peace and prosperity , but that breathing space was not given . While the rebellion was eventually defeated , the military leaders and local administrators gained self - governing powers in the process . This hastened the collapse of the Han Dynasty in 220 . After Emperor Ling of Han died in 189 , a power struggle between He Jin and the eunuchs ensued in which He Jin was assassinated on September 22 , 189 . He Jin ' s chief ally Yuan Shao retaliated by setting the palace on fire and slaughtering the eunuchs . Finally , the warlord Dong Zhuo was able to gain control over the underage heir to the throne which he used as a legitimation for occupying the capital , which was ransacked on the occasion . Because of his cruelty , Dong was murdered in 192 , setting the stage for Cao Cao ' s rise to power . Despite the negativity portrayed in Luo Guanzhong ' s historical novel " Romance of the Three Kingdoms " , being a large scale rebellion against corrupted authority , several peasant uprisings in China were patterned after the Yellow Turban Rebellion or claimed to be its spiritual successors . In fiction . The rebellion is portrayed in the opening chapters of Luo Guanzhong ' s Romance of the Three Kingdoms , which portrays the Zhang brothers as sorcerors , having been provided the " Taiping Jing " from the " old immortal spirit from the southern lands " ( sometimes identified as Zhuangzi ) . Many fictional Yellow Turban figures were created for the novel , including : Though not a fictional character , Liao Hua is presented in the novel as having been a Yellow Turban in his earlier days ; this is unlikely historically , given his date of death and predicted lifespan .