Yellow Turban Rebellion

In 184 CE a peasant uprising inspired by a Taoist religious movement swept across Han China, starting the slide toward the collapse of the dynasty.

Overview

Famine, land concentration, and court corruption had impoverished the Chinese peasantry. Zhang Jue led the Way of Supreme Peace, a Taoist movement that promised a new era and gathered hundreds of thousands of followers, who wore yellow headscarves as their emblem. The rising broke out across several provinces in 184 CE. Imperial armies crushed the main rebel forces within the year and Zhang Jue died, but revolts flared for two decades. To fight the rebels the Han court gave regional commanders large armies, and these warlords, among them Cao Cao, soon overshadowed the throne. The dynasty fell in 220 CE, opening the Three Kingdoms period.