In a previous article, we discussed how the author of Romance of the Three Kingdoms was unfair in his evaluation of the Yellow Turban Uprising. Writing from the standpoint of the landlord class, his perspective on the peasant uprising was inevitably biased.
In the first chapter of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Yan faces an invasion of Zhuojun by Cheng Yuanzhi’s 50,000-strong Yellow Scarves army, yet he only sends Liu Bei to lead 500 troops to confront them.