CLASS: China during the Three Kingdoms Era

[Gabriel Seran]

Gabriel watched the students file in slowly after him each one a little bit different from the others. It was simply enjoyable seeing them all mold together and become a single entity. Grinning mischievously he thought, how much they all think the same and they hardly realize it. He realized shortly after how alone he truly felt, in his own little world people around him but not particularly near him. Gabriel grew fierce, he needed to be strong because no one would be there the same way for him, a mission he had to complete alone.

He listened as the teacher rattled off, he didn't share a particular knowledge for Chinese history though he recognized a few great leaders that came of the period. A few he'd taken note of in his youth training to become a warrior himself. He turned to Ryuu who had just rattled off more knowledge about the subject than his mind could handle. Goddamn that kid knew his stuff. Gabriel sit quietly in the back for a while uncertain as to what to include.

[Emi Hitokata]

Just when she didn't think this class could get even worse, her "love rival" had to come in. Although she was dating Ryuu, she still thought of Emily as a threat to her relationship. She knew nothing of the silver-haired girl except that her friendship with Ryuu is really close. Too close, in fact. For now, she was going to treat Emily with suspicion.

She turned her body away from Ryuu as soon as class had started for two reasons: she had to keep an eye on the lesson, and she didn't want her boyfriend to connect the disgusted look on her face with Emily. The lights were off, and they had the chance to watch a movie called Red Cliff. Back in Japan, she had watched the movie with Japanese subtitles, so she was familiar with the story. Plus, many Japanese students were familiar with Chinese history since China has been playing a major part in Asia for thousands of years or something like that.

What was the Three Kingdoms Era again? She could have sworn that it was either sangoku jidai or sengoku jidai(Warring States period). If she had paid more attention in middle school, she would have been able to tell which is which. Actually, she shouldn't blame herself since sangoku and sengoku have similar sounds in Japanese.

Emi rubbed her eyes as soon as the video scene ended. That wasn't bad for a creepy teacher, but her mind changed as soon as he told her to stay after class. She had almost jumped out of her seat in outrage. What had she done wrong? For the next minute she sat at her seat with her head lowered and her fists clenched at her sides. The only good thing about staying after was that there would be another girl to share the nightmare.

[Matrim Gallagher]

(OOC: Sorry If I'm posting out of turn here Justin =P)

Huh.... Sara being asked to stay after class, there is a shocker. I wonder what she put for her interesting fact. Surely it couldn't be anything too strange, right? It probably wasn't... not any of my business.... but why is he asking for Emi as well? Seriously that chick like... isn't mean or vulgar... is she?

The teacher had a pretty good video that he showed. It was somewhat short but hey, one could only hope an entire class period would be spent taking notes on a film. That would be extremely nifty since Matrim really hadn't seen much. He had seen films sure, but not anything majorly epic. And as far as Chinese history goes? He was pretty much coming up on the big goose egg. He had.... wait a second didn't he go to..... he did!

I should.... keep that to myself......

Matrim felt like whistling to add to his inconspicuous behavior. But really the only people he'd talk to about that were Reira and Alex. Alex was dead and Reira wasn't here, so why even mention that strange man again? Besides Ryuu had been talking during most of this, and Matrim had lost nearly half of what he said by now.

"...destruction of Shu by Wei in 263, then the overthrow of Wei by the Jin Dynasty in 265, and the destruction of Wu by Jin in 280."

Matrim jotted down a quick note about this. Of course, his spelling was most likely horribly inaccurate since he didn't know the correct spelling for these names. On top of all of this nobody seemed to speak up. Matrim had nothing to add, he didn't know much at all about the era. Hence why he was in class learning, that was something he never got. If somebody knew so much about the subject, why be in the class to learn it? What teacher expects there students to know the material before studying--- ok so he didn't expect he just hoped. Or at least assumed that some might.

At least he probably won't be one of those types who get mad because students don't know an answer....

And just like that Matrim's focus was out the ballpark once more. Daydreaming about the teacher attacking the students randomly. Strangely enough in this fantasy Matrim was daydreaming while the attack was going on.

[Professor Doloyovich]

There was only one student to answer in the few minutes Klaraan gave to this question. He smiled; the boy gave a text book answer, outlining dates and names and important periods. He pushed the spacebar, a slide coming up with almost that exact basic outline.

Klaraan spoke after the boy had finished rattling off, impressing both himself and hopefully the other students.

"Good, Ryuu. The main body of conflict we will go over is the Late Han and the Three Kingdoms, and we will end on the note of the Jin unification.

So, let us begin, shall we?

The Han was a waning dynasty. Internal strife and external pressure began to slowly, yet surely, disable and destroy the decrepit dynasty. The last Ruler of the Han, Emperor Xian, abdicated when Cao Pi, son of the great Cao Cao, founder of the Wei Dynasty, took over and forced him to relinquish his seat. With Cao Pi's ascension, we have the founding of Cao Wei, or more innaccurately, the Kingdom of Wei.

However, that is some time farther ahead than what we're going to start with, so I digress;

The Han was the ruling dynasty at the beginning of the Three Kingdoms, and indeed much of the way through it. A puppet government, controlled almost entirely by Cao Cao during the later years, it was ineffectual in keeping its people happy and subjugating those that weren't. In fact, if the Han Dynasty had not had the leaders of the eventual Three Kingdoms, there is a good chance that the Dynasty would've been overthrown by one of the two major revolts towards the end of its effective government.

The first of such rebellions was the Yellow Scarves Rebellion. This is also known as the Yellow Turban Rebellion, and happened in 184 CE. This rebellion was in response to Emperor Ling, Emperor Xian's predecessor, over famine and lack of farms.

The lack of farming and food for the majority of the lower class caused many of them to seek justice, as provincial lords could not hold their territories together. Zhang Jiao, also known as the General of Heaven, banded these groups together, people who were upset at the heavy taxation and the oppressive farming prices, and asked them to join him, on their path to heaven, through the ending of the Han Dynasty.

He was joined by his two brothers, Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang, Taoist healers who were known for their generosity. Many peasant captains joined these two men, famous ones such as Deng Mao, and Liao Hua, who would go on to be one of the most prominent Generals of Shu Han.

Anyways, back to the Yellow Turbans. They were estimated to be at about 350,000-360,000 troops strong, and were wildly successful throughout the entirety of their rebellion. It was not until the armies of Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Sun Jian, Huangfu Song, and Zhu Jun, under the lead of He Jin, crushed the rebellion in 185 CE. The rebellion would come back, this time without their three normal leaders, and would continually resurface, only to be put down, throughout the rest of the Three Kingdom era.

However, there was now a glutton of able troops and able men. The leaders of these factions within the Turbans often threw their own small coup's in areas. When found out, they either were subjugated and destroyed, or in many cases involving the Shu Han, joined the charismatic Liu Bei.

Now, any Questions?"

Klaraan had lectured for quite a few minutes, and was afraid that some of them may had fallen behind. The slides had gone with him, giving basic outline points and the spellings of many of the people's names, and important dates.

He awaited any questions.

[Sara Quinn]

Sara chewed on the back of her pen while she stared blankly at the slides flicking over what he was saying. Her mind was stuck on why the hell he wanted to see her after class. She hadn't done anything wrong. She would be damned if she was going to let him boss her around. Hell no, she wasn't staying. Screw that. Especially not with that other little... Girl. See? Sara could be nice, there were a lot of other things she could have called her.

Her head rested on her hand as she tried to take in what she was hearing, but it was just so.... boring... Ughh... Who would wanna teach this stuff? She couldn't be the only one falling asleep... Right? She looked around. Seemed she might be... Well that sucked. Sara yawned and went back to chewing on her pen. She wondered if she could just get up and leave. She had no idea what this was all about, and she was completely lost. None of this made any sense. It was making her mad. Really mad. He had barely even started and she had idea what was going on. All the names and shit he was telling her... It made no sense... She dropped her head on the desk, her forehead resting against the wood. She was done trying to keep up. She was so lost.

"Now, any Questions?"

Sara lifted her hand in the air, her eyes heavy with boredom. "I have one... What the hell did you just say? You lost me... Those two little shits... Ding Mow, and the other one, Lau Hau or something... Who were they fighting against? I thought the Hans, but why would they be generals of the Han army..." Her face scrunched up as she tried to think... She was just so brain dead... Ughhh. He better not think it was a stupid question, because she was serious. Chances are she had it all turned around, but hell, why not, better then asking nothing right? "Hey, there was a lot of death right? How many people died?" She seemed to perk up at this idea <3

[Trizen Takano]

Trizen chuckled softly as Aurora gave her answers. She was honest and that was something he did admire. THough the one thing he did not catch was the colour of her eyes. He tilted his head a little actually took a good look at them.

"Oh wow, they actually are orange. That is an interesting fact." He whispered to her as he took to jotting down what she had said. The sheet was filled out now, though the Prof was beginning to teach his class. The boy hoped his ears would pick up enough of the syllables to make them out later.

"Here, I'll put it on the teacher's desk." He wondered if Aurora had a Braille Note, or something that would keep track of the ongoings in the class. But this was only pondered as he took the sheet of paper and placed it on the teacher's desk. Upon his return, he leaned over and whispered again, "If they don't give you anything they could use, just ask me for my notes later. Cool?"

She could probably feel him nodding his head once as took his two steps back to his desk again. He sat down and quickly began to sketch his notes in his notebook. The boy had a bit of a knack for fitting syllables together in his mind to reconstruct sentences. Figured it was like any sort of rhythmic idea drummers had. He just had to match that with vocal tonalities and boom! You had a phrase. So, that's what he did, though writing it meant he would have to do it in shorter sentences since he was behind on the note taking. Though if push came to shove, he saw that a few students would be able to answer any of his questions. Ryuu being the seemingly reliable one.

More students spoke again and the teacher did as well. Then Sara did. Oh boy. She was... different. He wondered what happened to her. She had changed drastically from his memory of her in 259 -- not that they knew each other, but he knew of her.

'Phew... a lot of notes...' he thought as he was on his third page of jot notes.

[Ryuu]

As soon as the movie clip started, Ryuu saw Emi turn her body away from him, as he continued to cradle his hand in the palm of his hand. Once it finished, and the lights came back on, he saw Emi rub her eyes, but as soon as the teacher told her she and Sara would be staying after class, he saw her lower her head, and her fists clenched up at her sides. She was not happy, obviously. Ryuu then answered Mr. Doloyovich's question, but it seemed he was the only one to answer, as a slide came up with almost the same outline that he had said, as Ryuu jotted it down in his binder. He then began to speak, first talking about the main conflict he would be teaching, the late Han and the Three Kingdoms, and end with the Jin unification. Ryuu then wrote down notes as fast as he possibly could while Mr. Doloyovich started with the Han dynasty, and then moved on to the first of two revolts that occurred, the Yellow Scarves Rebellion. Ryuu had to write quickly, but he managed to get down the important points and names from the lecture.

"Now, any questions?" Ryuu, during the time Mr. Doloyovich had been speaking, had been taking down notes, and was already on his 3rd page of notes when he saw Sara raise her hand. "I have one... What the hell did you just say? You lost me... Those two little shits... Ding Mow, and the other one, Lau Hau or something... Who were they fighting against? I thought the Hans, but why would they be generals of the Han army..." Ryuu very much wanted to palm his face as he saw Sara's face scrunch up, but decided against it, instead settling for writing down more notes. "Hey, there was a lot of death right? How many people died?" "Try a large percentage of the population..." Ryuu muttered softly, as he paused to let his hand rest from writing, and so it wouldn't cramp up.

[Aternity]

Aurora smiled and thought about how she could take notes. Handwritten notes were useless. She could always have someone record notes, or record them herself, but that would take too much time. Instead, there was one foolproof way of doing this. Her mind. Maybe regarded her as a genius...able to recall countless facts, both useful and not. It was her Qi that worked for her. Just look into the past, go back and listen to the lecture...simple and easy.

Aurora quickly thanked Trizen, bless his heart, and set down her pencil. It would be useless until she actually had to do work, and even then, she might just ask the teacher if she could come in on his time to do the assignment. She had never learned to properly write...she could read braille sure, but that was about it.

Otherwise, she sat back and listened, spacing herself out from the world. Anyone that tried to talk to her would likely get blanked for about 10 seconds, at which point she would respond...it was the nature of her disconnected mind. Both an advantage and not.

The teacher here however really knew his stuff, and Thirteen would have plenty of knowledge to recall during her exams...

"Chinese dynasties...alright..."

[Damien Kross, Jester]

With my face securely in my palm, I would turn to look at Sara with the most blatant look of stupidity I could muster... There was something very wrong with this girl... First, she gets broken apart by Orange, now she starts tripping balls in the middle of class... Wonderful... Simply wonderful Sara.

I turned back to the front of class and wondered why someone like that was even allowed into this class... It was obvious that this bitch had problems... MAJOR problems... Hmm, maybe I can make her the Whammy's Psycho of the Week. That would be cool. She might play perfectly into all this.

Thinking for a moment on the lecture, I had come to the official decision that everything being taught in this class can just be taught from the game Dynasty Warriors... Then again, hearing it from an expert puts a different feel on it- something more real- more knowledgeable.

With a sigh, I looked back to my page of notes, beginning to do a small doodle of Lu Bu waving his polearm at a bunch of running villagers. I found it hilarious... But until the lecture resumed and Sara's stupidity ended, I saw nothing wrong with letting my imagination take over my paper a bit, even if it was in the form of a crazy motherfucker riding a red horse over some villagers...

Hehe, stupid villagers...

[Adrian]

Adrian, as usual when attending class, was quiet and attentive, a quite different portrait painted of the boy than when he was just walking around campus or out of school. It would seem that the boy either was genuinely interested in learning, or was smart enough to know when to put up and when to shut up, and classes were of the latter.

Professor Doloyovich broke into his lecture, explaining the basics of the Yellow Turban rebellion, and Adrian listened, idly chucking down notes in his strange, round-a-bout way. Adrian, you see, didn't jot notes like most people. He wrote them in a very odd, conversational way. In fact, Adrian's note-taking of the first part of the lecture read something like this:

"Sao Sao (sic) was like Metallica, a master of puppets. 'Cept that he sucked, so people got pissed. Emperor Ling was a douchebag, and more poeple got pissed, too. This one guy got really up in his shit, and started a rebellion, his name was Zang Jow (sic). Dude got all the pissed off people together and brought them against Emperor Douchebag, and it was called the Yellow Turban Rebellion. They rode in and really fucked shit up good, up until a bunch of assholes teamed up to bring their asses down to earth. And that was the end of that. The remains of the turbans, like cockroaches, kept trying to stir shit up, but they never could without Zang(sic) and his homeboys.

Loo Bay(sic) turned a lot of 'em to his side later on."

As he re-read his notes, chuckling slightly at how moronic he was, something occured to him, and so he rose his hand for a question. After being called upon, Adrian's hand would lower, but one finger, his index, would remain held up as a physical cue that he was asking a question.

"I guess this is more of an observation than a question, but it seems as if these Yellow Turbans weren't really the bad guys. Doesn't it seem like they deserved the things they were fighting for?"

[Professor Doloyovich]

"I have one... What the hell did you just say? You lost me... Those two little shits... Ding Mow, and the other one, Lau Hau or something... Who were they fighting against? I thought the Hans, but why would they be generals of the Han army..."

Klaraan sighed inwardly, such that none of them would hear him. He moved around his desk and sat on it, so that he could converse with the students in a more personal way.

He was about to answer the question before she sprung another one;

"Hey, there was a lot of death right? How many people died?"

"Well, to answer you in chronological order of your questions;

Deng Mao and Liao Hua are not important. All spellings are on the powerpoint of important people.

However, in this point, I was using the fact that Liao Hua, who started his career in the military as a Yellow Turban General, was left leaderless when Zhang Jiao died. He turned to small insurrections, but was confronted by Shu and gave his services to them. This is how he became a Shu Han, which is different from the Han, but will also be my next topic of discussion, after one more important early part of the Three Kingdoms period.

As far as grand total of the amount of deaths that occurred during this time, there is no perfect estimate. Each and every battle had many thousands of losses, including the spectacular Battle of the Red Cliffs, which saw Cao Cao lose, according to the books, over 100,000 men. This was a stark figure compared to other sources, however, the impact is just the same; there was widespread death during the battles these men fought."

Next to speak was the blond haired boy who was being a good student and taking notes. He made a pretty good observation, all considered;

"I guess this is more of an observation than a question, but it seems as if these Yellow Turbans weren't really the bad guys. Doesn't it seem like they deserved the things they were fighting for?"

"How astute... Mr. Hanlon. The Yellow Scarves believed that they were in the right, and the Han believed they were in the right.

The main reason for the rebellion can be founded in the lack of food, and the lack of confidence. If you add the two together, its not hard to understand or see why they rebelled; the Han was a corrupt and dying dynasty that was more interested in creating lavishness for its elites, and funding private armies.

So, with this little information I've given you, and with whatever background you may have, Popular Culture or not, tell me, anyone;

Who was more justified in the fighting; the Han, with the backing the Emperor and the private armies of the Warlords of the time; or Zhang Jiao, Zhang Bao, and Zhang Liang's Yellow Turban Rebellion, who fought for the people and their Path to Heaven through Taoism?"

Time to see who was awake.

[seishounohana]

Emily was fighting a terrible fight right now.

The fight against drowsiness. Man, she wished she had taken a cup of coffee from the hospital before she decided to go to school. Then again, she was already late. Hopefully, the teacher wouldn't notice her lack of paying any attention.

She concentrated though, and exerted enough willpower to stay awake to listen to the newer parts of the lecture. Man, was she going to fail this class...

Quite disappointing, for her.

"Deng Mao and Liao Hua are not important. All spellings are on the powerpoint of important people.

However, in this point, I was using the fact that Liao Hua, who started his career in the military as a Yellow Turban General, was left leaderless when Zhang Jiao died. He turned to small insurrections, but was confronted by Shu and gave his services to them. This is how he became a Shu Han, which is different from the Han, but will also be my next topic of discussion, after one more important early part of the Three Kingdoms period.

As far as grand total of the amount of deaths that occurred during this time, there is no perfect estimate. Each and every battle had many thousands of losses, including the spectacular Battle of the Red Cliffs, which saw Cao Cao lose, according to the books, over 100,000 men. This was a stark figure compared to other sources, however, the impact is just the same; there was widespread death during the battles these men fought."

... Bloodshed. A topic Emily never really liked due to personal reasons, but of course -- it was something hard to fight against back in the day.

"How astute... Mr. Hanlon. The Yellow Scarves believed that they were in the right, and the Han believed they were in the right."

As were all people. People had a different view of what is right and wrong. Personally, Emily found herself siding with the Yellow Scarves.

"So, with this little information I've given you, and with whatever background you may have, Popular Culture or not, tell me, anyone; Who was more justified in the fighting; the Han, with the backing the Emperor and the private armies of the Warlords of the time; or Zhang Jiao, Zhang Bao, and Zhang Liang's Yellow Turban Rebellion, who fought for the people and their Path to Heaven through Taoism?" Emily was still scribbling up on notes, catching up from her little drift, but she opened her mouth regardless to give her opinion.

"I find myself siding with the Yellow Turban Rebellion right now. Hunger and strife make people do many things, rebellion included. I mean... as you said so yourself, the Han Dynasty led by Cao Cao was more or less elitist."

... then she trailed off, slightly unconfident but hoping she was more or less correct. After all, history was NOT one of her forte subjects.

[Emi Hitokata]

Emi had moved away from Japan for several reasons, one of them being the Japanese school system. She hated memorizing hundreds of Kanji, learning Japanese and Chinese history, and heading straight for juku after school. Mainly, she hated the juku part, but she was beginning to change her mind. Professor Doloyovich spoke so fast that she gave up taking notes after writing just one line. He also gave out dozens of Chinese names, causing the information that entered her head to turn into a jumbled mess. She was used to hearing the Japanese pronunciations of the names, so Yellow Turbans and Shu Han were unfamiliar to her even though she might be able to understand better if the characters were written down somewhere.

She wasn't the only one who was having trouble understanding the class. Sara appeared to be worse off than she was, and her question nearly made the Japanese girl pee in her pants. She covered her mouth and buried her head in her notebook to stifle her laughter.

This class was incredibly boring. The teacher spoke too fast and used difficult vocabulary. Plus, she wasn't that huge of a fan of Chinese history. Emi composed herself and stared at the nearly blank page in her notebook.

When time does this class end again? She glanced at the clock and sighed.

[Ryuu]

"Deng Mao and Liao Hua are not important. All spellings are on the powerpoint of important people. However, in this point, I was using the fact that Liao Hua, who started his career in the military as a Yellow Turban General, was left leaderless when Zhang Jiao died. He turned to small insurrections, but was confronted by Shu and gave his services to them. This is how he became a Shu Han, which is different from the Han, but will also be my next topic of discussion, after one more important early part of the Three Kingdoms period. As far as grand total of the amount of deaths that occurred during this time, there is no perfect estimate. Each and every battle had many thousands of losses, including the spectacular Battle of the Red Cliffs, which saw Cao Cao lose, according to the books, over 100,000 men. This was a stark figure compared to other sources, however, the impact is just the same; there was widespread death during the battles these men fought."

Ryuu then saw the blond boy raise his hand, once he had been called on, his hand would lower except for his index finger, which stayed up, as he asked his question, and Mr. Doloyovich answered, as Ryuu took down what he said. "So, with this little information I've given you, and with whatever background you may have, Popular Culture or not, tell me, anyone; Who was more justified in the fighting; the Han, with the backing the Emperor and the private armies of the Warlords of the time; or Zhang Jiao, Zhang Bao, and Zhang Liang's Yellow Turban Rebellion, who fought for the people and their Path to Heaven through Taoism?" Ryuu wrote down the notes, but looked up and over at Emily. "I find myself siding with the Yellow Turban Rebellion right now. Hunger and strife make people do many things, rebellion included. I mean... as you said so yourself, the Han Dynasty led by Cao Cao was more or less elitist."

"I find myself in agreement with Emily, in siding with the Yellow Turban Rebellion," Ryuu spoke up, as he leaned back in his desk, "If the Han dynasty was more interested in creating lavishness only for those higher up on the social ladder, and not those who are not as well off, there is bound to be resentment, which in turn, will lead them to rebel. Starvation is a powerful motivator, and will spur on anyone to do what they need to, to feed and provide not only themselves, but their family as well. We all want something, but do not have the means to acquire it, not yet at least..." Ryuu would then trail off before he leaned back once more in his chair.

[Aternity]

Jeebus.

Everyone was on a roll, many of the people were giving great answers, and while Thirteen was forming opinions on each of the groups, the others gave their answers, and she? Well, she just kept thinking, thinking on what to say. She had so many ideas, but none wanted to make it out of her mouth. Sad really.

Ryuu had good taste in history, and everyone was asking the right questions. For a first class, the teacher was awfully brutal, not in his physical ways, but instead in his mental stimulus package. Wait. She just got an idea.

"Can we disagree with both ideas? The rebellion had suitable reason certainly, but based on other examples of successful rebellion, all that has come from it is either more of the same, or civil instability."