Free The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities by Matthew White Page B

ambitious Sun Quan (pronounced “soon-chew-ann”)
    3. The Kingdom of Shu, led by the virtuous Liu Bei (pronounced “lyoo-bay”)
     
    Over the next century, the Three Kingdoms fought each other in shifting alliances. Heroes rose and fell. Finally, China was reunified.
    R3K
     
    The era of the Three Kingdoms has a special place in Chinese culture as a kind of Trojan War, Wild West, and Camelot all rolled into one. It was a conveniently mysterious time into which any saga could be dropped without a lot of backstory. It was a violent, chaotic era when men made their own destiny, when a person’s moral strength was tested in the crucible of war, when adventure was just down the road or over the next hill. Eventually, in the fourteenth century during the Ming dynasty, Luo Guanzhong bundled all of the accumulated stories together into Romance of the Three Kingdoms , one of the three * most important novels in Chinese literature.
    In Chinese culture, a name from the era of the Three Kingdoms will likely spark memories of a character from the novel rather than the real historical individual. Cao Cao is a scheming villain. The Zhang brothers who founded the Yellow Turbans are sorcerers and con men. Sun Quan’s sister Sun Shangxiang is the archetype of all tomboy princesses who are surprisingly skilled in the martial arts. Guan Yu, companion and blood brother of Liu Bei, was posthumously promoted to Chinese god of war, so you just know he displayed some awe-inspiring martial prowess in Romance . 1
    As with most historical novels, the characters from Romance interact much more directly than they probably did in real life, all having rich personal friendships, loves, and vendettas to drive the story forward. They can be divided into heroes and villains more neatly than real people usually can be. The story is consistently popular; the 2007 film Red Cliff directed by John Woo and based on events from the Three Kingdoms is the highest-grossing film in Chinese history. 2
    Now let’s back up and see how this age of chaos unfolded.
    The Beginning: Yellow Turban Rebellion (184–188 CE)
     
    The first version of the Han dynasty had fallen to Wang Mang (see “Xin Dynasty”) because imperial in-laws held too much power, so when Liu Xiu (Emperor Guangwu) restored the Han dynasty, he tried something different. This time the emperor surrounded himself with eunuchs, who were (literally) cut off from all family connections and presumably would be loyal only to the emperor. Unfortunately, in practice, the eunuchs proved even more selfish than the imperial in-laws because they had to enjoy their power right now , rather than bank it away for their children. During the reign of Emperor Ling (156–189 CE), a clique of palace eunuchs, the Ten Regular Attendants, controlled the government and looted the empire for their own personal gain.
    At the time, China was in the grips of a deadly epidemic, until a team of wandering Taoist healers, Zhang Jiao and his brothers, developed a cure. Considering the state of medicine in this era, if their cure actually worked, then the disease may have been imaginary or something that ordinarily went away on its own. Maybe their cure was a placebo or just a rumor. There’s even a slim chance it was some esoteric folk wisdom that is now lost. In any case, as the brothers traveled throughout the empire tending the sick, they accumulated a large, grateful following. They listened to complaints of suffering and injustice, and they offered hope. In time they became leaders of a large secret society of discontented commoners. Passwords and rituals bound them together, and every member recruited more members from trusted friends and neighbors.
    Finally the Zhang brothers rose up against the tyrannical power of the palace eunuchs. For identification in battle, the rebels wore yellow headscarves (traditionally but misleadingly translated into English as “Yello w Turbans”). They scored tremendous success in the