Someone once asked Zhang Jiao: If you transmigrate into ancient times as a landowner and serve only pickled mustard greens with rice porridge, will you get beaten to death?
Zhang Jiao replied: You'll be robed in yellow and ascend to the throne.
She closed her eyes, then opened them, and she'd transmigrated.
She wasn't an aristocrat or a landowner, but a little Taoist novice in a temple who happened to have the same name. She went three days with nine meals missed.
Luckily, she bound herself to a supply System, and could scrape by on pickled mustard greens and rice porridge every day.
Then she learned that the emperor had died, and been given the posthumous title Huan: Emperor Huan of Han.
Zhang Jiao. Emperor Huan of Han.
So the rebel was me all along?!
The emperor was incompetent and inept, and the people were desperate. Even a little Taoist novice like her was being forcibly conscripted into the army.
If they wouldn't let commoners live, then to hell with this life.
That night, Zhang Jiao rushed into the main hall, tore a strip of yellow cloth from the altar table, and tied it around her head:
"The azure heavens are dead; the yellow heavens shall rise. I, Taoist Zhang Jiao, call upon the Han to meet its end!"
She had no special skills, just one advantage:
"Everyone who joins me gets all the rice porridge and pickled mustard greens they can eat every day!"
At first, the refugees wondered: Is this a last meal before execution?
Later, the refugees asked: Great Sage and Virtuous Teacher, who are we fighting today?
Later still, the refugees rounded up a group of strategists and kidnapped a group of generals. "The best talent in the realm belongs with our Great Sage and Virtuous Teacher!"
Not long after, Zhang Jiao spat out a mouthful of fish:
"Stop stuffing strips of cloth into fish bellies. They all taste like ink."
"Use those big rocks to lay foundations and build houses. Stop carving weird things into them and tossing them in the river."
"Tell those foxes to stop howling in the middle of the night. I can't get any sleep."
PS: 1. Inspired by a certain discussion: "If people forced to do corvee labor in ancient times were only given rice porridge and pickled mustard greens, would they rebel?"
2. The heroine will lead a rebellion and become an empress. There is a male lead, so please don't read if that's not your thing.
3. Thanks to Bishui Gugu for the cover character design.
Theme: Make sure everyone has enough to eat