•The passage that follows, taken from the opening chapter of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, concerns events leading up to the revolt of the Yellow Turbans in a. d. 184. The Yellow Turbans were a splinter group who had adopted an extremist version of Taoism (DOW-izm). This philosophy was based on the teachings of Lao-tzu (low-DZU; c. 500s B. C.), who held that the key to peace was inner harmony and contact with nature. Taoism did not become established as a religion until the time of Chang Tao-ling
(chahng dow-LING), who supposedly lived for 122 years, from c. A. D. 34 to 156.
•Spellings of Chinese names vary, and though in the late twentieth century scholars adopted a new system, historians of premodern China tend to use the old-fashioned spellings. Thus in most historical texts, the name of the emperor Xian (ZHAHN; ruled 189-220) would be shown as Hsien (SHEN); however, this translation uses the new spellings.
• In China, a person's first name is their family name. Thus Zhang Jue (ZHAHNG ZHWAY) may have been a grandson of Chang Tao-ling, whose name would be spelled Zhang Daoling according to the new system. The "Book of Heaven" supposedly given to Zhang Jue by a mysterious hermit (someone who lives separate from other people) was probably the Tao te Ching (dow-day-KEENG) or Way of Virtue, a Taoist scripture.
• The city of Luoyang (lwoh-YAHNG), in east central China, served as capital to a number of dynasties. As such it contained the imperial palace, which included areas with grand-sounding names such as the Hall of Virtue and the Dragon Chamber. The dragon was a symbol of Chinese emperors. Imperial eras also received impressive names, such as "Radiant Harmony"; however, there was not necessarily a close relationship between the title and the actual character of the period. Thus the era of "Radiant Harmony," the beginning of the end of the later Han dynasty, was anything but radiant or harmonious.
• The following passage contains numerous references to magic and supernatural occurrences. Not only was Zhang Jue a sort of magician—something that had very little to do with the original teachings of Lao-tzu—but Emperor Ling also witnessed the sudden appearance of a serpent in his palace. It is not important whether such things were "real" or not; what is important is that the people believed that they were real. Much the same could be said about the natural disasters depicted, which the Chinese interpreted as a sign from heaven that the Han dynasty was about to fall. Modern people would probably say that the disasters were not a sign, but that they did hasten the dynasty's fall simply by causing problems in the empire;
However, it is important to view these events not through modern and Western eyes, but through the eyes of Lo Kuan-chung's readers.
World History
