There have been many peasant uprisings in ancient Chinese history, and the Yellow Turban Uprising is one of them. As a large-scale peasant uprising in history, the Yellow Turban Uprising dealt a heavy blow to the already turbulent and decayed Eastern Han Dynasty, accelerated the disintegration of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and promoted the formation of the battle for hegemony and the three kingdoms. But unfortunately, this massive uprising lasted only nine months before it failed. The reason for its failure was largely because Zhang Jiao made a wrong decision, and this wrong decision was very fatal!
I don’t know when it started. The Eastern Han Dynasty entered a vicious circle, which made the Eastern Han Dynasty fall into a completely overwhelming situation: when the emperor was young, he had to rely on his mother’s relatives. After the relatives took power, they wanted to coerce the monarch. In order to fight with the relatives, the monarch began to support eunuchs. As a result, the emperor, foreign relatives, and eunuchs were mixed together, making the Eastern Han Dynasty dark. The courtiers were addicted to power struggles, and the emperors were mostly short-lived, and the Eastern Han Dynasty seemed to be cursed.
At the same time, there are continuous natural disasters outside. Natural disasters and man-made disasters caused the foundation of the Eastern Han Dynasty to shake. Thus, the Yellow Turban uprising broke out. The Yellow Turban Uprising was extremely powerful because they had a large number of participants and enough troops. At the same time, the Eastern Han Dynasty had lost popular support under the attack of natural and man-made disasters. However, even with such advantages, the Yellow Turban Uprising was suppressed by the corrupted Eastern Han Dynasty within nine months. In fact, the reasons for the failure of the Yellow Turban Uprising can be summarized from both internal and external aspects.
Internal reasons: First, the time of the uprising was determined too early, and there was a traitor informant inside. Zhang Jiao had determined the time of the uprising a few months in advance as March 5, 184 AD, but this is an uprising involving a large number of people. It is almost impossible to keep these hundreds of thousands of people secret for a few months. To the thing. In the end, a disciple named Tang Zhou informed the Eastern Han court and confessed to Ma Yuanyi, who was working in the capital at that time. Afterwards, Ma Yuanyi was cracked by the car, and the Eastern Han Dynasty court began to vigorously arrest the followers of Zhang Jiao and ordered the hunt for Zhang Jiao. Zhang Jiao, who could no longer act first, was forced to launch an uprising one month in advance.
Second, the historical limitations of the peasant uprising. The insurgents of the Yellow Turban Uprising lacked intelligent military talents, so the war as a whole was very chaotic. The insurgents in various regions fought independently and were unable to conduct joint operations. This made the military strength extremely scattered and weak, and they could not be effective. Rescue each other. At the same time, coupled with the extreme rush during the initial uprising, many strategic deployments were simply not in place. Although the war was not defeated, the Yellow Turban uprising was still very passive. Because the events of the uprising had been known in advance by the Eastern Han Dynasty court, and the countermeasures had been developed, the Yellow Turbans still became the characters to be beaten when they had an advantage.
External reason: the opponent is too strong. Although the court of the Eastern Han Dynasty was dim at that time, the high-ranking generals in the army were still there. When facing a common enemy, everyone naturally had to fight others in groups. After seeing the strength of the uprising army, the Han Lingdi began to recruit elite soldiers from various places to suppress the uprising army, and at the same time strengthened the clan and the powerful in the local power. After being armed, the local army became a powerful force to suppress the insurgents. In addition, the military level of the Eastern Han generals was much higher than that of the generals of the insurrection army, so at that time, the Eastern Han army often won more with less. In the end, the Yellow Turban uprising was suppressed.
From the perspective of the overall process of the Yellow Turban Uprising, its failure was mainly due to Zhang Jiao’s premature setting of the time of the uprising, which caused the plan of the uprising to not be effectively kept secret. The traitor had the opportunity to inform the Eastern Han court. The court of the Eastern Han Dynasty immediately made arrangements after learning of the plan for the uprising, and launched an attack in advance, disrupting the overall rhythm of the uprising army. In the end, the Yellow Turban uprising quickly fell into failure. However, although the Yellow Turban Uprising failed, its influence on the Eastern Han Dynasty was indelible.of. In order to suppress the Yellow Turban Uprising as soon as possible, the Eastern Han Dynasty overly condoned the development of generals with real power in all parties, and a situation of princes fighting for hegemony appeared. Afterwards, the princes went through conquest and annexation, and finally formed the situation of the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu.
