Queercommie Girl
14th July 2011, 23:14
The Yellow Turban Rebellion was the largest and most significant Daoism-inspired peasant rebellion in world history. Starting from 184 CE, it lasted for 21 years, and although it was finally crushed by Han Dyansty government forces in 205 CE, it dealt a severe blow to the political dictatorship of the feudal landlord class of the Han Dyansty. The Chinese Empire soon broke apart later on in the 3rd century.
The causes for this great armed peasant rebellion, from a historical materialist perspective, are basically a "feudal mirror image" of the crisis of neoliberal capitalism in China and our world today. Earlier on in the Han Dynasty, the feudal government carried out a more "keynesian-like" economic policy: major industries of the Iron Age, like the salt and iron mines, were nationalised, the power of the large landlords were strictly controlled by the feudal state. Economic re-distribution schemes were used to enrich the peasantry, sometimes the huge estates of the aristocratic large landlords would even be forcefully broken up by the feudal state so that poor landless peasants could receive some land to live on. The state also opened many public schools to better educate the masses, and strict anti-corruption and meritocratic procedures were introduced to the bureaucracy to maximise efficiency. On the international scene, foreign lands that were conquered by the Chinese Empire, like Vietnam, were ruled by a relatively lenient hand. Local rulers were given a high degree of autonomy.
The first half of the Han Dynasty, the Western Han Dynasty, was one of the greatest golden ages of Chinese antiquity. Han China developed into one of the most powerful, prosperous and advanced feudal empires in the entire world, rivaling in size and power the Roman Empire in the West which existed roughly during the same period. However, by the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty, severe problems gradually began to emerge in the feudal socio-economic structure. The feudal economy changed from a "keynesian-like" one to a "neoliberal-like" one. From the early 2nd century CE onwards, large landlords became more and more difficult to control by the state, and often their allies inside the central imperial court - the court eunuchs and the families of the empresses, would directly interfere with many official policies in the interests of the large landlords, but to the detriment of the imperial state as a whole. Greater numbers of poor peasants became landless "wandering people", there were frequent famines, and corruption as well as inefficiency greatly increased inside the state bureaucracy. Officials were now more appointed on the basis of their "connections" to the rich large landlords that dominate the economy rather than on their own merit and moral virtue. On the international level, in order to acquire more resources to feed the decadent and corrupt lifestyles of the super-rich, Han armies began to squeeze non-Han ethnicities like the Vietnamese, Koreans and the Xiongnu more harshly, leading to greater discontent from ethnic minorities. Finally at the end of the 2nd century, a qualitative critical threshold was reached, and the seemingly stable feudal world order of the Chinese Empire exploded and broke apart.
The Yellow Turbans did not follow the sexist and Sinocentric viewpoints of the official Confucian orthodoxy of the feudal Han Dyansty. A large number of women joined the Yellow Turban forces, and so did non-Han Chinese ethnicities from the North, such as the Xiongnu. Some of them had relatively prominent positions in the rebel forces, including a female witch called Mother Lu, and a Xiongnu chieftain called Yufuluo.
In the eyes of the ruling landlord class, the Yellow Turbans were literally an "evil" religious sect. The grand commander of the rebel forces was a male sorcerer called Zhang Jue who apparently received a revelation from a Daoist god which was then compiled into a book - Crucial Keys to the Way of Peace. The rebel's political slogan was literally blasphemous by the standards of orthodox Confucianism - The Azure Heaven shall die; The Yellow Heaven shall rise; In this year of Jiazi; Let there be prosperity in the world!
The Yellow Turbans were certainly no pacifists. A large number of landlords and their entire families were killed, tens of thousands of government soldiers were destroyed, thousands of government officials were captured and executed by peasant troops, and large areas of the North China Plain were devastated by over 2 decades of continuous war. However, politically the Yellow Turbans did carry out a very radical and egalitarian programme of equal land redistribution to the ultra-impoverished peasantry.
Ultimately the Yellow Turbans failed and were crushed by the Han Dynasty government forces in 205 CE. The Han Dynasty army carried out brutal acts of slaughter against the peasant rebels. Every prisoner of war would be executed, and female soldiers would be raped, tortured and mutilated. But the severe destruction of the economy and infrastructure to the most prosperous regions of the Chinese heartland seriously weakened the Chinese Empire. Millions of people were killed or wounded, and local trade almost disappeared from many regions that suffered severe de-population. For almost 4 entire centuries after this event China would be divided and fragmented into various warlord-controlled domains, and successive waves of nomadic barbarians from beyond the Great Wall would sweep across the North China Plain. Orthodox Confucianism would lose its monopolistic control of Chinese ideology, and would be joined by Daoism and Buddhism, but the more "respectable" (from the point of view of the feudal landlord class) ruling class versions of Religious Daoism later on in Chinese history have generally "purged" these more radical and subversive elements of the religion, like how the established Christian Church of the Roman Empire "purged" the more subversive gnostic elements in early Christianity.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turbans
The causes for this great armed peasant rebellion, from a historical materialist perspective, are basically a "feudal mirror image" of the crisis of neoliberal capitalism in China and our world today. Earlier on in the Han Dynasty, the feudal government carried out a more "keynesian-like" economic policy: major industries of the Iron Age, like the salt and iron mines, were nationalised, the power of the large landlords were strictly controlled by the feudal state. Economic re-distribution schemes were used to enrich the peasantry, sometimes the huge estates of the aristocratic large landlords would even be forcefully broken up by the feudal state so that poor landless peasants could receive some land to live on. The state also opened many public schools to better educate the masses, and strict anti-corruption and meritocratic procedures were introduced to the bureaucracy to maximise efficiency. On the international scene, foreign lands that were conquered by the Chinese Empire, like Vietnam, were ruled by a relatively lenient hand. Local rulers were given a high degree of autonomy.
The first half of the Han Dynasty, the Western Han Dynasty, was one of the greatest golden ages of Chinese antiquity. Han China developed into one of the most powerful, prosperous and advanced feudal empires in the entire world, rivaling in size and power the Roman Empire in the West which existed roughly during the same period. However, by the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty, severe problems gradually began to emerge in the feudal socio-economic structure. The feudal economy changed from a "keynesian-like" one to a "neoliberal-like" one. From the early 2nd century CE onwards, large landlords became more and more difficult to control by the state, and often their allies inside the central imperial court - the court eunuchs and the families of the empresses, would directly interfere with many official policies in the interests of the large landlords, but to the detriment of the imperial state as a whole. Greater numbers of poor peasants became landless "wandering people", there were frequent famines, and corruption as well as inefficiency greatly increased inside the state bureaucracy. Officials were now more appointed on the basis of their "connections" to the rich large landlords that dominate the economy rather than on their own merit and moral virtue. On the international level, in order to acquire more resources to feed the decadent and corrupt lifestyles of the super-rich, Han armies began to squeeze non-Han ethnicities like the Vietnamese, Koreans and the Xiongnu more harshly, leading to greater discontent from ethnic minorities. Finally at the end of the 2nd century, a qualitative critical threshold was reached, and the seemingly stable feudal world order of the Chinese Empire exploded and broke apart.
The Yellow Turbans did not follow the sexist and Sinocentric viewpoints of the official Confucian orthodoxy of the feudal Han Dyansty. A large number of women joined the Yellow Turban forces, and so did non-Han Chinese ethnicities from the North, such as the Xiongnu. Some of them had relatively prominent positions in the rebel forces, including a female witch called Mother Lu, and a Xiongnu chieftain called Yufuluo.
In the eyes of the ruling landlord class, the Yellow Turbans were literally an "evil" religious sect. The grand commander of the rebel forces was a male sorcerer called Zhang Jue who apparently received a revelation from a Daoist god which was then compiled into a book - Crucial Keys to the Way of Peace. The rebel's political slogan was literally blasphemous by the standards of orthodox Confucianism - The Azure Heaven shall die; The Yellow Heaven shall rise; In this year of Jiazi; Let there be prosperity in the world!
The Yellow Turbans were certainly no pacifists. A large number of landlords and their entire families were killed, tens of thousands of government soldiers were destroyed, thousands of government officials were captured and executed by peasant troops, and large areas of the North China Plain were devastated by over 2 decades of continuous war. However, politically the Yellow Turbans did carry out a very radical and egalitarian programme of equal land redistribution to the ultra-impoverished peasantry.
Ultimately the Yellow Turbans failed and were crushed by the Han Dynasty government forces in 205 CE. The Han Dynasty army carried out brutal acts of slaughter against the peasant rebels. Every prisoner of war would be executed, and female soldiers would be raped, tortured and mutilated. But the severe destruction of the economy and infrastructure to the most prosperous regions of the Chinese heartland seriously weakened the Chinese Empire. Millions of people were killed or wounded, and local trade almost disappeared from many regions that suffered severe de-population. For almost 4 entire centuries after this event China would be divided and fragmented into various warlord-controlled domains, and successive waves of nomadic barbarians from beyond the Great Wall would sweep across the North China Plain. Orthodox Confucianism would lose its monopolistic control of Chinese ideology, and would be joined by Daoism and Buddhism, but the more "respectable" (from the point of view of the feudal landlord class) ruling class versions of Religious Daoism later on in Chinese history have generally "purged" these more radical and subversive elements of the religion, like how the established Christian Church of the Roman Empire "purged" the more subversive gnostic elements in early Christianity.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turbans