Prologue: The Red Turbans
In 1351, the Yellow River burst through the Baimao Dyke in Henan. Its muddy torrents swept across the land, drowning farmland and leaving millions homeless. Toghto, a Yuan dynasty chancellor, ordered 150,000 laborers to be conscripted, with Jia Lu, the Minister of Works, in charge of controlling the river. It should have been a project for the good of the country and its people, but it went awry as officials at every level took their cut. The laborers went hungry, and overseers rained down blows with their whips. Worst of all, workers digging in the old riverbed unearthed a stone figure with one eye. Carved into its back were the words: “A stone man with one eye will stir rebellion beneath Heaven when the Yellow River is moved.”
The figure had been buried by Han Shantong and Liu Futong, leaders of the White Lotus sect. Word spread quickly among the laborers, and unrest took hold. In May, Han Shantong gathered three thousand men at Bailuzhuang in Yingzhou. They sacrificed a white horse and a black ox to Heaven and Earth, proclaimed Han to be the eighth-generation descendant of Emperor Huizong of Song, and raised the banner: “With three thousand valiant warriors, we march straight to Youyan; when the dragon ascends the throne, the Great Song’s reign shall begin anew.” But news of the uprising leaked, and Han Shantong was captured and killed.
Liu Futong escaped the encirclement, led his followers in capturing Yingzhou, and set the great blaze of peasant uprisings at the end of the Yuan dynasty alight. The rebels wrapped red cloth around their heads and became known as the Red Turban Army. Across the lands between the Yangtze and Huai Rivers, people flocked to join them. Amid this surging tide, the fate of a young man named Zhu Yuanzhang was quietly changing.
