Peasant Uprisings at the End of the Yuan

In the middle and late Yuan, struggles for the throne within the ruling circle were fierce, with eight emperors in over twenty years, politics was highly corrupt and official graft was rife. Together with severe ethnic oppression, intense land annexation and repeated Yellow River floods, famine struck year after year and the people could not survive. In 1351 the Yuan conscripted 150,000 laborers to repair the Yellow River, and the workers were badly mistreated by officials. The White Lotus leaders Han Shantong and Liu Futong secretly buried a one-eyed stone figure in the riverbed, carved on its back with the words "Do not say the stone man has only one eye; it will stir up the Yellow River and the realm will rebel". When the workers dug it up, unrest spread. Han Shantong and Liu Futong seized the chance to launch an uprising at Yingzhou (present-day Fuyang, Anhui), and the rebel army, wearing red headscarves, was called the "Red Turbans". Peasants everywhere responded, and several anti-Yuan forces appeared in the Jianghuai region, including those of Xu Shouhui, Chen Youliang, Zhang Shicheng and Fang Guozhen. In 1355 Liu Futong set up Han Shantong's son Han Lin'er as emperor with the state name Song, and later sent armies north in three columns, at one point capturing the Yuan upper capital and dealing a heavy blow to Yuan rule. Zhu Yuanzhang was originally a Red Turban commander under Guo Zixing; after Guo's death he took over his troops and in 1356 captured Jiqing (present-day Nanjing), renaming it Yingtian Prefecture. He took the advice of his adviser Zhu Sheng: "Build high walls, store up grain, and be slow to proclaim yourself king."