HISTORY CIA-1

Samrin Raffi
2230965

Submitted to
Dr Loung Nathan

BA History, Economics and Political Science

Department of International Studies, Political Science and History

School of Humanities and Social Sciences

(August, 2023)
 BYGONE ERAS: Transition from ancient to modern

(japan and china)

TRACING THE HISTORY OF YELLOW TURBAN REBELLION IN CHINA

AND THE JAPANESE BIOLOGICAL WARFARE IN UNIT 731

ABSTRACT

This research paper delves into two significant events in East Asian history, namely
the Yellow Turban Rebellion in ancient China and the infamous Japanese biological
warfare program known as Unit 731 during WW II.
The paper examines the context and causes of the Yellow Turban Rebellion during
the late eastern Han Dynasty, the paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of
the causes that led to the uprising, examining the socio-economic, political and
religious factors that fueled discontent among the peasant population, it also
analyses its impact on China's political landscape and societal dynamics shedding
light on the ideological foundations and charismatic leadership that led the rebellion.
The study also investigates the military campaigns launched by the imperial
government to suppress it and the aftermath that reshaped the power dynamics
within the ruling elite.
Furthermore, the study explores the formation and operations of Unit 731 by the
Japanese imperial army in china highlighting the atrocities committed during World
War II, including the development and deployment of biological weapons.
Through these historical events, the paper aims to offer a comprehensive
understanding of their implications on the region's history and the enduring
consequences they have had on East Asia's collective memory and international
relations. Through a meticulous analysis of primary and secondary sources, this
research contributes to a deeper appreciation of the complexities of historical events
that continue to shape the region's narrative and social fabric.
 INTRODUCTION : YELLOW TURBAN REBELLION

Daoist rebels in central china, in the year 184 CE, which was a jiazi year on the
Chinese calendar spread a popular slogan “ The Azure heaven is already dead; the
yellow heaven must rise”, this marked the beginning of the yellow turban rebellion
which proved as a catalyst to the ending of the golden age in Chinese history, the
eastern Han dynasty ( 206 BCE-220CE )
The yellow turbans was a peasant revolt who wore yellow scarves and rose against the
failing regime of the Han dynasty in ancient china, it also held religious significance as
it was under the influence of Daoist preachers and teachings, the rebellion resulted in
the Three Kingdom Period (220- 280 CE) of Wei, Shu-Han and Wu, the fall of the Han
dynasty was followed by a period which was a long chaotic period of division, political
instability, constant warfare and civil war that lasted up to many centuries in the
Chinese imperial history.
The significance of this rebellion not only traces the first mass rebellion by the Chinese
people against one of the most powerful dynasties but also gives us insights into the
various challenges and inefficiency in the framework and functioning of the Chinese
imperial court and administration during ancient times.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

DAOIST PHILOSOPHY (Religious cause)

During the Han dynasty, Confucianism and Daoism existed as the dominant religious
philosophies alongside Buddhism. Many beliefs from the elite culture were a part of
popular religious Daoism, one of these beliefs was the five phase theory that was
believed to explain the changes in human history and universe. According to this theory
each historical epoch was dominated by one of these phases- wood, fire, earth, metal,
water and each phase was believed to be defeated by the one following it, The Han
dynasty identified itself with the fire (red) phase.
This theory suggested a cyclical view on history wherein each dynasty would end and a
new one would take its place when its phase generates the other in this cycle. A Daoist
priest named Zhang Jue (Lord general of heaven) was the founder of this rebellion,
along with his two brothers Zhang Bao (Lord general of Earth) and Zhang Liang ( Lord
general of people), they were recognized as healers of the sick and impoverished in the
central plains through performing Daoist rituals, Zhang Jue claimed to posses the
knowledge of the scripture Taiping Jing, the commoners saw them as their only chance
at redemption.
.
 At the beginning, Zhang jue from Julu proclaimed himself the Master of Great
Virtue and revered the way of the Yellow Emperor and Laozi. He gained
followers, who had to worship on their knees and admit their faults. He used spells
and water talismans, saying they were for the purpose of curing illness. The sick
recovered, and the common people had faith in him (Fan Ye et al.,445 CE).
Zhang jue influenced the masses to overthrow the corrupt imperial government to give
way to the new historical era of the phase of earth (yellow) which was believed to be a
phase of great peace, he gathered thousands of followers and taught them that in 184 CE
that china would enter into a new era of peace and prosperity. They envisioned a yellow
sky that marked a new rule which also inspired their headwear.

CAUSES
POLITICAL:
In ancient china, the political structure was faulty and weak from within with several
factions within the imperial court like the eunuchs, imperial clan, officials, empresses
seeking power that led to conflicts and rivalry, by 184 CE, Han dynasty’s central
government under Emperor Ling was mainly controlled by the eunuchs who abused their
power to fulfil their interests and legitimatize their power over the emperor who was a
merely a puppet at this point, this resulted in the provincial governments being
neglected, appointment of corrupt officers and disregard for the welfare of the subjects.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC:
By 180s the corruption in the empire was rampant with peasants bearing the brunt, this
was also a perceived cause for the famines, plagues, poor agricultural yields, natural
disasters and plagues. The key areas in the Han empire including the central plains were
severely affected by a series of droughts and floods from the yellow river, this resulted in
starvation and meagre living conditions that forced the people to migrate to other places
for better standards of living which put further strain on the limited resources, the highly
corrupt bureaucracy drained the imperial treasury thereby increasing taxes that
overburdened the farmers, the centre was only concerned with extracting and preserving
the riches of the silk route and it was undeniably weakened with continuous interval
rivalry and incompetency in tending to the problems of the people.
Millions of peasants united to revolt against the imperial government, they had come to
believe that the emperor had lost the mandate of heaven [emphasis added] and it was the
responsibility of the people to restore the natural order. Decades of social unrest and
misrule culminated into the rebellion.
THE REBELLION
The yellow turban rebellion started sometime around the month of march in 184 CE led by
Zhang Jue with roughly 350000 followers rebelling against the Han imperial government,
within a short span of time the rebellion had spread throughout china and seized control of
commanderies, it primarily concentrated in the you, jing, yu and ji provinces. The alarmed
imperial Han court recruited a number of local elites, military commanders and leaders to
assist the failing dynasty in suppressing the rebellion, three of whom were Lu Zhi, Huangfu
Song and Zhu Jun and later Dong Zhuo, these generals led three separate imperial armies of
about 40000 troops to suppress the rebels in different provinces. The imperial forces were
outnumbered by the skilled yellow turbans, however Lu Zhi defeated the rebel forces in
Julu commmandery but during his military campaign he was falsely accused of treason and
was sent back to the court as a prisoner.
Zhang Jue died of illness and malnutrition in guangzong county, leaving the rebels without
a leader, meanwhile Huangu Song attacked Zhang Liang, initially unsuccessful, he decided
to trick the rebels and launched a surprise attack at night when they least expected killing
30000 rebels in the process with the rest drowning in their failed attempt of escape through
a river. Huangfu song emerged victorious, with the last of the brother Zhang Bao being
defeated at xiaquyang county against the joint forces of Guo Dian and Huangfu song. The
rebellion had largely been suppressed by early 185 CE with smaller scattered rebellions and
uprisings emerging from time to time with the same motive as the empire continued to
decay.
The yellow turban rebellion paved the way for a generation of military commanders and
regional elites who had an exclusive army under them, with their increasing autonomy they
retained their power and upgraded their titles to warlords governing entire provinces which
weakened the central authority of the Han dynasty and led to its disintegration this was
followed by a period of political disunion that later resulted in the empire being effectively
divided into three independent states under the three famous warlords Cao Cao (155-220
CE), Liu Bei (161- 223 CE) and Sun Jian (155-191 CE).

CONCLUSION
The Han dynasty finally came to an end in 220 CE after ruling china for more than 400
years, when emperor Xian, the last emperor of the Han dynasty abdicated his throne to Cao
pi. Despite this inglorious end to the Han dynasty, it is still remembered as the golden ages
in the Chinese history because of its flourishing trade and the silk route that connected
china to the west, this period even saw development in Chinese culture in the form of art
and technological breakthroughs. The yellow turban rebellion has occupied a significant
place in the Chinese imperial history highlighting underlying social and economic issues of
ancient times, although it ended in regional fragmentation, it showcased the grievances of
the common people and the need for reforms which had a lasting impact on china’s
 UNIT 731: JAPANESE BIOLOGICAL WARFARE

INTRODUCTION

By the 20th century, the Japanese in china behaved much like Nazis in Europe, with the
beliefs of racial superiority and Japanese ethnocentrism there was disregard for any race
or ethnicity that wasn’t Japanese. In 1931 japan invaded Manchuria and in 1936 the
Japanese imperial army soon conquered eastern part of Chinese coastal territories , as
they soon gained access to china, the Chinese under japans imperial rule had to face
inexplicable atrocities, like the Rape of Nanking in 1937. By 1930s and early 1940s,
japan had become a fascist state. During wartime, Chinese deaths have been estimated to
come up to 10 to 20 million people, civilians and army personnel alike.
China had become a laboratory, its people were not only subjected to modern warfare
but also were used as subjects by the Japanese military to learn about chemical and
biological weapons, the military established biological warfare programs throughout
china, in these Japanese scientists and doctors performed gruesome experiments on
thousands of prisoners of war who were mostly Chinese in the name of science, as Mark
Felton (2012) rightfully remarked “was nothing less than a horrific amalgam of sadism,
murder and science gone very wrong”.
ITS ESTABLISHMENT
Unit 731 was a covert unit of japans Manchuria based Kwantung army, in Harbin, china,
its official name was the epidemic prevention and water supply department, established
by the Japanese imperial army in 1937 by the legitimate intentions of the Japanese
government. The units were used as testing grounds and field labs for the creation of
biological weapons, which was a clear breach of the 1925 Geneva Protocol that forbade
the employment of biological and chemical weapons in conflict, to test these weapons on
urban populations and the fact that they used humans as test subjects for these
experiments, they developed Unit 731 and the other covert organisations because of this.
ISHII SHIRO
The unit was under the supervision of lieutenant general Ishii Shiro who was an army
surgeon interested in the field of weapons of mass destruction, he was the mastermind
and the chief medical officer of this biological warfare, he was convinced of the need to
develop biological weapons when it was condemned by the great powers reflected by the
signing of The Geneva Convention of 1925, he argued that if the fear of a biological
warfare instilled such dread, then japan should spare no effort in developing highly
potent biological weapons for using lethal diseases against wartime enemies.
His efforts and unyielding pursuit of scientific advancements shifted the course of
Japanese research, the unit under his command primarily aimed to devise effective
methods of germ warfare through human experimentation, where thousands were
subjected to unimaginable horrors, including exposure to lethal pathogens, infection trials
and vivisections.
EXPERIMENTS
Using human test subjects, Japanese scientists at Unit 731 injected various pathogens
into individuals to observe their reactions in the human body, with the goal of creating
new diseases. These victims, referred to as "Maturas" or "wooden logs," were subjected to
horrendous procedures like vivisection while still alive. In gruesome experiments, rats
infected with bubonic plague were released onto the victims to study the infection's
effects.
Many of the scientists and workers saw Unit 731 as a necessary evil, driven by the belief
that such atrocities were essential to winning the war.
Moreover, the scientists in Unit 731 conducted cruel experiments involving pregnancy
and rape. Male prisoners infected with syphilis were forced to rape female and male
prisoners to observe the spread of the disease. Female prisoners were forcibly
impregnated, and experiments were conducted on both the mother and the foetus to study
the effects. In some cases, the mother would undergo vivisection to examine the foetus’s
development. These unethical and inhumane practices highlight the depths of the horrors
committed at Unit 731 in japans dark history.
CONCLUSION
Unit 731, is often recognized as the Auschwitz of the east, rightly so. The biological
warfare and experimentation caused immense suffering and death of countless
individuals. Although war crimes like human medical testing by German Nazis in
concentration camps are much known to the world, Japanese atrocities and their inhuman
experiments during WW II lack awareness, much because of various historical factors
like Japanese denials, American cover ups and inadequate responses from Chinese
governments because of which justice has not been served for the victims, their families
and perpetrators of these medical atrocities.
Ishii and other high ranking members involved in unit 731, in actuality, post-war were
granted immunity from persecution in the Tokyo trials in exchange for the experiment
data that he could provide that was perceived to be useful by the Americans, ishii shiro
and his colleagues continued on their stable careers with impunity, whereas Nazi doctors
who were involved in atrocities were faced with charges and sentenced.
Today, the events of unit 731 serve as a grim reminder of the dark side of Japanese history,
prompting reflections on the moral responsibilities and ethical dilemmas surrounding research
and warfare in the name of scientific progress and military advantage inspired by a false sense
of nationalism.
The psychological and physical abuse of the prisoners of war from 1937 to 1944 and the
consequent refusal of japan to officially accept its war crimes in china for many years without
any compensation still shape the region’s international relations and narrative.

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