The Fall of the Han

By the late second century AD, the Han dynasty — which had ruled China for four hundred years and governed perhaps sixty million people — was rotting from within. A series of child emperors left power in the hands of warring court factions: the consort families who controlled the harem, and the eunuchs who controlled the palace. Plagues swept the empire in the 170s and 180s, killing millions. Tax revenue collapsed. Peasants starved while officials plundered.

In 184 AD, a Taoist healer named Zhang Jiao promised his followers that the Han's 'blue sky' was dying and the 'yellow sky' — a new age of equality — would replace it. Hundreds of thousands of desperate peasants tied yellow scarves around their heads and rose simultaneously across the north. The Han court, lacking loyal armies, authorized local strongmen to raise private forces. Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Jian — the fathers and founders of the three future kingdoms — fought their first battles as volunteer commanders. The rebellion was crushed, but the precedent of warlords commanding personal armies would prove fatal.

What followed was a decade of escalating chaos. The warlord Dong Zhuo seized the capital, burned Luoyang, and was eventually murdered by his own bodyguard, the warrior Lü Bu. A coalition of eastern lords dissolved into mutual warfare. By the mid-190s, Cao Cao had secured the puppet Han emperor and was using imperial authority to legitimize his conquests. Liu Bei wandered from patron to patron, losing every territory he held but inspiring loyalty wherever he went. Sun Jian's sons were building a power base in the south. The stage was set for the three-way struggle that would define the age.