張角

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"The Azure Heaven is dead; the Yellow Heaven shall rise" — the prophet of the Yellow Turban Rebellion that opened the era. His Taiping sect, healing with talismans and water, gathered hundreds of thousands, and in the jiazi year 184 he raised the whole empire at once. The revolt shook the Han to its roots and put armies into the hands of the future warlords. Zhang Jiao himself died of illness that same year — but the age of chaos he unleashed ran on for nearly a century.

Key events

1. 184

   Yellow Turban Rebellion

   Zhang Jiao’s Taiping followers rise across the empire, opening the Three Kingdoms era. Liu Bei, Cao Cao and Sun Jian first made their names in the suppression.

   Liu BeiCao CaoSun JianGuan YuZhang Fei

History vs. the novelHistoryvsNovel

To the novel, a sorcerer-villain. To history, a faith healer who organized the starving and dispossessed — as much a symptom of the Han collapse as its catalyst.