Red Turban Rebellions
The Red Turban Rebellions were uprisings against the Yuan dynasty between 1351 and 1368, eventually leading to its collapse. Remnants of the Yuan imperial court retreated northwards and is thereafter known as the Northern Yuan in historiography.
Background
Factional strife
In the early 1300s, the imperial court of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty was split between two factions on how best to govern the empire. One faction favored a Mongol-centric policy that favored Mongol and Inner Asian interests while the opposing faction leaned towards a more Han-based "Confucian" governing style. The latter group conducted a coup in 1328 to enthrone Kusala. Kusala was literate in the Chinese language and made efforts to write Chinese poetry and to produce Chinese calligraphy. He patronized Chinese learning and art with a new academy and office in the inner court. Others at court such as the Merkit Majarday and his son, Toqto'a, also led the way in cultivating Chinese learning by establishing contacts with ethnic Han scholars and hiring them as tutors. Kusala was assassinated by supporters of his half-brother, Tugh Temür. Tugh Temür died in 1332 and was succeeded by Kusala’s six-year-old child, Rinchinbal, who died six months later. His older brother, Toghon Temür, became emperor at the age of 13. He was the last emperor of the Yuan dynasty.Military decline
By the time Kublai conquered the Central Plain, the Yuan army was composed mostly of professional Han soldiers who had once been subject to the Jin dynasty prior to its conquest by the Mongols. These soldiers, sometimes under Mongol or Inner Asian command, were garrisoned across the empire and served as the primary body of the Yuan army. Some special Mongol units were dispatched to strategic locations as needed, but not to police the empire and not on a regular basis. Most of the Mongol garrisons were located to the north around the capital of Khanbaliq. Yuan garrisons had already entered a steep decline by the end of the 13th century and by 1340, repeatedly failed to put down local rebellions. In the 1340s a bandit gang of merely 36 persons in Huashan took over a Daoist temple. For more than three months, government forces from three provinces failed to defeat them. It was only when salt-field workers, noted for their fierceness and independence in Hangzhou, were brought in to handle the situation that the bandits were defeated. From that time on the people of the realm regarded the government forces as useless and depended on local leadership for defense, contributing to the process of decentralization. At the same time the Yuan also had to contend with rebellious Jurchens, who revolted in 1343. The Jurchens resented the Mongols for having to supply them with gyrfalcons. Efforts to suppress the Jurchen rebellion failed and by 1348, at least two Jurchen groups no longer obeyed Yuan authority. Their leaders claimed to be descendants of the Jin dynasty.Natural disasters
Since the 1340s, the Yuan dynasty had experienced problems. The Yellow River flooded constantly and other natural disasters also occurred. At the same time the Yuan dynasty required considerable military expenditure to maintain its vast empire. Groups or religious sects made an effort to undermine the power of the last Yuan rulers; these religious movements often warned of impending doom. Decline of agriculture, epidemics and cold weather hit China, spurring the armed rebellion. The earliest record of an unusual epidemic during the 14th century says that in the year 1331, an epidemic occurred in Hebei and then spread elsewhere, killing 13 million people by 1333. Another epidemic ravaged Fujian and Shandong from 1344 to 1346. The epidemic returned in Shanxi, Hebei, and Jiangsu in 1351–52. Additional epidemics were recorded in various provinces from 1356 to 1360 and "great pestilences" every year from 1356 to 1362. In Shanxi and Hebei, 200,000 people died in 1358.Red Turbans
The Red Turbans first appeared in Jiangxi and Hunan in the 1330s. From there they spread throughout half of China within a dozen years, moving clandestinely into provinces affected by natural disasters. Their religious teachings created sects with broad local followings that practiced night gatherings of men and women to burn incense and worship Mile Pusa. Eventually these sects coalesced into two broad movements: the southern Red Turbans in southern Hubei and the northern Red Turbans based in the Huai River region in Anhui.The Red Turban movement traces its origins to Peng Yingyu, a Buddhist monk, who led an uprising in Yuanzhou in 1338. A rebel leader, Zhou Ziwang, was proclaimed emperor, but he was quickly apprehended by regional authorities and executed. Peng fled northwards and spread the teaching of the coming of the Maitreya, the Buddha of wealth and radiance, who would bring an end to suffering. Red Turban influence appeared in many places along the Huai River from 1340 onward.
Rebellions
Northern Red Turbans
In 1351, a mass mobilization of workers from the farming population, numbering 150,000 in total, for a project to rechannel the Yellow River and to open the Grand Canal in western Shandong saw ripe conditions for recruitment by the Red Turbans. A Red Turban leader, Han Shantong, and his advisor, Liu Futong, successfully recruited from the disgruntled workers, resulting in explosive rebellious activity. Han Shantong was captured and executed, but his wife and son, Han Lin'er, escaped with Liu. Liu established a capital at Yingzhou in modern western Anhui at the Hunan border and proclaimed the establishment of a Red Turban government. Han Lin'er was proclaimed the "Young Prince of Radiance" hailing from Song dynasty royalty.Han Lin'er was proclaimed emperor of a restored Song dynasty in Bozhou on 16 March 1355. On 11 June 1358, Liu Futong set out to capture Kaifeng, which had been the capital of the Song dynasty. The city was only held briefly by the new Song dynasty before a counteroffensive by Chaghan Temur forced them to retreat on 10 September 1359. Han Lin'er's court fled to Anfeng where they remained until Zhang Shicheng sent an army against them in 1363.
In the northeast, the Red Turbans invaded Goryeo in 1359 and 1360. It is uncertain what exactly caused the Red Turbans to attack Goryeo but it was most likely due to material considerations. The Red Turbans in Liaodong had proven inferior to the soldiers of Chaghan Temur, who had defeated them in battle, and possibly saw Goryeo as an easier target unprotected by Mongol forces. The Red Turbans were also facing starvation and needed grain and supplies. There may have also been ethnic and political reasons. The Korean communities in Liaodong had refused to join the Red Turbans against the Yuan and in 1354, Gongmin of Goryeo contributed troops to Yuan efforts to suppress the Red Turbans. The invasions caught the unprepared Goryeo forces off guard, causing much destruction, sacking several cities, and briefly occupying Pyongyang and Kaesong. Although ultimately repelled, the havoc caused by the Red Turbans on Goryeo was substantial.
Southern Red Turbans
In the summer of 1351, Peng Yingyu and his principal military follower, Zou Pusheng, found in Xu Shouhui, a cloth peddler, the makings of a Red Turban figurehead. In September, Zou captured the city of Qishui in southern Hubei and enthroned Xu Shouhui as emperor of "Tianwan". The new state expanded southward and briefly held Hanyang, Hankou, and Wuchang before being driven off in 1352. In 1355, Zou was succeeded by Ni Wenjun as military leader. Ni took Hanyang again in 1356 and moved the dynasty's capital there. The next year, Ni attempted to murder Xu and replace him but failed. He was executed and replaced by Chen Youliang. Under Chen, the dynasty's territories rapidly expanded and in less than two years, had taken Chongqing and held all of Sichuan. In 1360, Chen murdered Xu and seized the throne, renaming the dynasty to Han. He immediately launched an attack on Nanjing but failed to take it and was forced to return to Wuchang, which he made his capital. Chen attacked Zhu Yuanzhang and was defeated, being ejected from Jiangxi in 1361. Chen made a final attempt at defeating Zhu in 1363, sending a large armada down the Changjiang into Lake Poyang. Chen and Zhu's forces engaged in a long running battle lasting over the summer before Chen was defeated and killed after suffering an arrow wound to the head. Zhu then took Han Lin'er, who had been Chen's ward since the death of Liu Futong.In Sichuan, the Red Turban commander, Ming Yuzhen, refused to acknowledge Chen Youliang when he usurped Xu Shouhui. Ming declared his own Red Turban kingdom of Ming Xia. He seemed to have governed competently, having recruited scholars and heeding the advice of a Confucian official named Liu Zhen, but failed in an attempt to take Yunnan from the Mongols. Ming reigned until he died of illness at the age of 35 in 1366. He was succeeded by his son, Ming Sheng, who surrendered to the Ming dynasty in 1371.
Historical records commonly portray the Red Turban Army as dealing with captive Yuan officials and soldiers with considerable violence. In his work on violence in rural China, William T. Rowe writes: