The Emperor of the Ming spoke with blunt candor.
Zhu Biao was momentarily speechless, then curiosity took over.
"Father, was there truly nothing remarkable about that one-eyed stone figure?"
At this, Zhu Di and Zhu Zhen also lifted their heads, eyes full of interest. Even Zhu Su set aside his book and listened attentively.
The incident of the stone figure stirring the Yellow River had occurred in the eleventh year of Zhizheng. When Zhu Biao, the eldest, was born, it was already the fifteenth year of Zhizheng. Moreover, the stone figure had been unearthed from the Ying River, far from Yingtian Prefecture. None of the brothers had ever seen it.
And only today, hearing the luminous screen recount the matter, did they suddenly realize something: after the uprising began, there seemed to be no further record of that stone figure.
"What marvel did you expect it to have?" Zhu Yuanzhang replied with clear disdain.
"Those who saw it said its features and limbs were complete, lacking only one eye. It merely matched the rumor and prophecy. Once events began, the stone vanished. Most likely it was discarded. If it possessed even a fraction of the wonder of this screen, how could it have been lost?"
He paused, then could not help adding with a trace of satisfaction, "Since this screen has favored us, does that not prove that I am the one who has received Heaven's mandate?"
Zhu Biao did not let him enjoy the thought for long.
"But Father, you yourself said the screen only manifested its marvels after being placed in Mother's Kunning Palace. It stood in Huagai Hall for so long before without any sign of strangeness."
"It seems the one favored is Mother. Perhaps later generations could not bear to see harm befall her."
Zhu Yuanzhang's beard visibly twitched.
"Well… husband and wife are one body. If it favors the Empress, how is that any different from favoring me and the Ming?"
In the end, it was Empress Ma who stepped in with quiet amusement and smoothed over the minor verbal contest between father and son. Only then did the Emperor resume the earlier topic.
"In those early days, there were many versions of what was said about the stone. Some even claimed the inscription read, 'With one eye upon the stone man, all under Heaven will rebel.'"
"But none of that is as clear as the judgment of later generations. What power could a trick of superstition truly possess? It was not the prophecy that overturned the realm. It was resentment among the people."
"Toqto'a at least tried to find solutions. But Yuan officials…" He let out a cold sound of contempt.
"The court allocated grain and wages. At the provincial level a portion was withheld, at the clerical level another portion was shaved off. What reached the laborers was less than a tenth. How could there be no resentment?"
"And before they were conscripted for the river works, those same laborers had long been crushed under harsh taxes. From resentment comes anger."
He looked at Zhu Biao.
"You must take this as warning."
Zhu Biao bowed solemnly. "I understand."
---
[Lightscreen]
[Under Yuan rule there were many ethnic groups, and the Mongol elite themselves held a mixture of beliefs. As a result, the state interfered little in religious affairs. Folk sects flourished, and commoners believed in all manner of teachings. By modern standards, most would likely be labeled heterodox cults.
In the turbulent and restless final decades of the Yuan, these sects grew increasingly active. Among them, Han Shantong stood out.
His family had long adhered to the White Lotus Teaching, a branch derived from the Pure Land school of Buddhism during the Southern Song. Its doctrine was simple: abstain from alcohol and the five pungent vegetables, recite the Buddha's name, and one could be reborn in the Western Paradise.
Beyond that, it imposed few restrictions. Marriage, children, even eating meat or fighting were not strictly forbidden. It was a practical and accessible faith, popular among the common people. The threshold for belief was low, and who could say that one might not truly attain rebirth?
By the end of the Yuan, however, Han Shantong felt such passivity was insufficient. Drawing from the many sects then circulating, he fashioned something new.
He adopted a strict vegetarian diet and preached that Maitreya would soon descend to save the world. As for himself, he declared that he was the reincarnation of the Peacock Wisdom King.
His dietary discipline was borrowed from Manichaean practice. The proclamation of Maitreya's descent drew upon widespread popular belief. Some modern scholars suggest that this strain of Maitreya devotion may even have absorbed elements from foreign messianic traditions, forming a curious synthesis. The claim of being the Peacock Wisdom King came from Tibetan Buddhism, then favored among Mongol elites, where that deity was counted among the Five Wisdom Kings.
The intention behind this patchwork of doctrines was plain enough. It was meant to mobilize.
Of the many sects at the end of the Yuan, those with organized structures and a record of rebellion were chiefly the White Lotus, Manichaean communities, and Maitreya believers. Manichaeism in particular had a long rebellious history. As early as the Tang, Chen Shuozhen had gathered followers under its influence and proclaimed herself emperor. Though her uprising failed, later rebels such as Fang La drew upon the same tradition. By the Yuan period, Manichaeism was more commonly known as the Ming Cult.
Because Han Shantong's teachings carried such obvious political overtones, he was soon arrested and exiled to Bailuzhuang in Yongnian. There he met Liu Futong, a man who likewise believed the Yuan was doomed and who possessed considerable resources.
Both were later conscripted into the labor force for the river project. Under such conditions, rebellion became almost inevitable.
After the stone figure was unearthed, a scholar within their ranks named Sheng Wenyu advised Han Shantong to set aside, for the moment, the claims of Maitreya's descent and the Peacock King's reincarnation. A different identity, he suggested, would be more useful: eighth-generation descendant of Emperor Huizong of the Song.
Han Shantong himself was taken aback. He had lived most of his life without knowing, as he joked, that he bore the surname Zhao.
True or not, from that point the rebels adopted the slogan:
Three thousand tiger-warriors shall march straight to You and Yan;
The dragon shall rise to the Ninth-Five, and the Great Song shall be restored.
They cloaked themselves in the legitimacy of reviving the Song dynasty.
The logic behind this fabrication was simple enough. Emperor Huizong had died in captivity in the north after nine years under Jin rule. There was no one left to verify or refute such a lineage.
Yet Huizong's name carried little real deterrent power. When the local magistrate heard of the uprising, he gathered troops and crushed it in a single charge. Han Shantong was swiftly dispatched to join his supposed ancestor.
Liu Futong fought his way out with Han's son, Han Lin'er, and fled to Fuyang in Anhui. There, their fortunes began to shift. Recruitment went smoothly. More importantly, uprisings under the banner of the Red Turbans were breaking out across the realm.
In Xuzhou there were Sesame Li and Peng Da. In Fengyang, Guo Zixing. In Nanyang, Wang Quan. In Xiangyang, Meng Haima. Most adopted the Red Turban name.
Among them, the most audacious was Xu Shouhui in Hubei, who, supported by Maitreya belief, directly proclaimed himself emperor.
If the Ming Cult rebels tended to build their organizational framework before making grand claims, the Maitreya believers often aimed straight for the throne. A typical example was Peng Yingyu, who had earlier persuaded Zhou Ziwang in Yuanzhou to declare himself emperor under the name Zhou. That uprising was crushed, Zhou Ziwang executed, but Peng Yingyu escaped. Fifteen years later, he would repeat the pattern with Xu Shouhui.
Before the river works began, Toqto'a had confidently assured the court that no rebellion would arise.
Now Red Turban armies were appearing throughout the realm. And the last grand chancellor of the Yuan had begun the final descent of his own career.]