What left Kongming with the most complicated feelings was Zhang Jiao himself.
Speaking of the chaos of the present age, it was impossible to avoid the man who declared that the Azure Heaven was dead.
The Yellow Turbans swept across the land, the Son of Heaven lost his footing, military authority was released to the provinces, and the former provincial inspectors gradually became de facto regional lords.
Only then did the curtain truly rise on the age of contention.
If one were to assign blame for the chaos of the age, Zhang Jiao should be named first… right?
Yet later generations called it the Yellow Turban Uprising.
An uprising meant raising righteous troops to punish traitors, wielding moral authority to strike against rebellion.
The Great Han branded them rebels, yet more than a thousand years later, posterity deemed them a righteous army.
Why was that?
Fortunately, this question was not complicated for Kongming.
Back when he was in Gong'an County, the people gathered there could be said to come from all under Heaven.
Among them were northerners fleeing Cao's southern advance, Jingzhou natives displaced by war, Jianghuai people who followed Lei Xu to defect, and beyond these major groups, people from Jingnan, Jiangdong, and the Jing tribes could all be seen.
After land redistribution, the acquisition of the curved plow, instruction in farming techniques, and the teaching of composting, and after a successful harvest, the people who came to thank Kongming could no longer hold back their words.
The fragments of their accounts sketched a vivid picture of the late Han, and together with Lord Xuande, who had personally experienced the suppression of the Yellow Turbans and survived to the present, Kongming reached only one conclusion.
The rise of the Yellow Turbans was reasonable.
The lives of common people in chaotic times could truly be described as submerged in water and fire.
[Lightscreen]
[Talisman water involved writing characters or drawing talismans on bamboo slips or silk, burning them into ash, then mixing the ash with water for the sick to drink.
This was Zhang Jiao's most widely known method.
Cinnabar script meant using vermilion to write talismans to expel plague demons.
This is something commonly seen in modern film and television.
However, cinnabar script in the late Han differed slightly from modern depictions in that it was meant to be eaten.
The practice of swallowing cinnabar characters is recorded in the Taiping Scripture and was one of Zhang Jiao's primary methods of manifesting divine power.
Viewed today, the reasoning is not complex.
The main component of cinnabar is mercury sulfide.
If consumed raw, there is a chance of heavy metal poisoning.
Excitability, agitation, anxiety, and intense emotional fluctuations are its primary symptoms.
To ancient people, these outward signs were indistinguishable from communion with spirits and gods.
Thus, when facing epidemics, the methods of the Way of Great Peace could, in a certain sense, be considered remarkably effective.
After all, even someone gravely ill would experience a burst of vitality after being administered a potent toxin.
As for whether they could survive afterward, that depended on the patient's own sincerity and had nothing to do with talisman water or cinnabar script.
From the first major epidemic in 171 during the late Han, to Zhang Jiao's uprising in 184, epidemics never ceased for thirteen years.
Four outbreaks were recorded in history under the name of Great Pestilence.
Traditional medicine of the late Han could essentially be regarded as experiential medicine, requiring the accumulation of large amounts of clinical experience and prescriptions to derive effective treatments.
This characteristic made traditional medicine extremely weak in the face of epidemics over short periods of time.
As a result, the Way of Great Peace, with its conspicuous results, rapidly occupied the market.
The Zhang brothers seized the opportunity and dispatched eight capable disciples to travel the land, widely distributing talisman water and cinnabar script to spread the teachings.
By the time Zhang Jiao raised his banner in 184, the entire realm responded, formally tolling the death knell of the Han dynasty.
Although the Way of Great Peace was involved, the Yellow Turban Uprising was, in essence, still a peasant uprising.
Limited by the historical constraints of peasant revolts, it ultimately failed, and Zhang Jiao followed the same path as Gan Zhongke.
Zhang Jiao's life ended there, but Daoism, already beginning to take shape, started rolling forward through history.
If one broadened their view slightly, from the contention of the Hundred Schools to the sole reverence of Confucianism, the ultimate target of scholarly schools was always the ruling class.
Serving politics was the primary objective, and thus the joys and sorrows of the common people were often ignored.
For commoners suffering through disasters and epidemics in chaotic times, talisman water and cinnabar script may have been ineffective, but the Way of Great Peace's promise of a peaceful world became the best spiritual anesthetic for the poor.
This was one of the original foundations upon which Daoism established itself.
After Zhang Jiao caused upheaval, the Way of Great Peace was strictly banned.
Other Daoist branches such as the Way of Five Pecks of Rice and the Way of Ghosts were also implicated.
Though they continued to circulate among the people, among the aristocratic classes of the Wei and Jin periods, Daoism was viewed through a tinted lens.
It was at this critical moment that Buddhism formally entered the stage.
The upper social strata abandoned by Daoism were rapidly filled by Buddhism, which adopted a top-down missionary route.
Thus began the era of Buddhist and Daoist coexistence amid chaos.
And within this turmoil, there was one more direct change.
The shackles of Confucian classical learning were shattered jointly by Buddhism, Daoism, metaphysical thought, and epidemics.
The doctrine of sole reverence for Confucianism, established under Emperor Wu, was cast down into the dust.]
"If the Way of Great Peace could truly cure epidemics, then…"
Liu Bei shook his head, his interest fading.
Though his view of the Yellow Turban Uprising had shifted, his opinion of certain Yellow Turbans had not.
Using talisman water to extort wealth and cinnabar script to seize land and homes was what was commonly seen in the countryside.
Perhaps Zhang Jiao initially wished to establish a peaceful world, but the various channel commanders acted independently, the rural Yellow Turbans were a mixed bag, and the Han generals sent to suppress them were all seasoned veterans.
For many reasons, the people only suffered more, and the peaceful world spoken of in the countryside grew ever more distant.
At this moment, Liu Bei instead grew curious about later generations.
With methods like those, did later ages truly have a peaceful world?
Zhang Fei understood his elder brother's meaning.
If the Way of Great Peace could truly cure epidemics, how could great plagues continue without end?
This reminded him of an old incident.
"When I broke through Yangping Pass and entered Hanzhong, I also saw followers of the Way of Five Pecks of Rice," Zhang Fei said.
"More than a hundred of them pretended to summon spirits and blocked the army's advance. They claimed they had invited ghost soldiers of the Great Dao to assist them, and that our army was doomed."
"Oh?"
Ma Chao, who had been sulking, suddenly showed interest.
"What happened? What did these ghost soldiers look like?"
Ma Chao had grown up in Yong and Liang.
There, fists were the only hard truth.
Thus, when chaos arose in Yong and Liang, it was always direct and head-on.
Han Sui was a typical example. A man who could be forced back by a single sentence from Strategist Pang somehow managed to dominate Yong and Liang for decades.
Schemes were already rare in those lands, and methods of commanding troops through ghosts and gods were even more fascinating to Ma Chao.
Could these ghost soldiers withstand the charge of Yongliang iron cavalry?
He was destined to be disappointed.
Zhang Fei burst into laughter.
"I was curious too, so I ordered two thousand soldiers to surround them and waited for the ghost soldiers to appear."
"Before half an hour passed, those followers of the Way of Five Pecks of Rice collapsed and surrendered, begging for rice and meat to eat."
Pang Tong knew of this matter as well.
Hearing this, he sighed.
"What ghosts or gods lending aid?"
"They were nothing more than poor people seeking a single meal to keep themselves alive."