Daze Village Uprising
The Daze Village Uprising (Chinese: 大澤鄉起義, July 209 BCE - December 209 BCE) was the first uprising against Qin rule following the death of Qin Shi Huang.
Chen Sheng and Wu Guang were both army officers who were ordered to lead their bands of commoner soldiers north to participate in the defense of Yuyang (漁陽). However, they were stopped halfway in Anhui province by a severe rainstorm and flooding. The harsh Qin laws stated that anyone late to show up for government jobs will be executed, regardless of the nature of the delay. Chen and Wu realized that they could never make it on time and decided to organize a band that would rebel against the government, that they would die fighting for their freedom rather than by execution. They became the center of armed uprisings all over China, and in a few months their strength congregated to around ten thousand men, composed mostly of discontent peasants. But on the battlefield, they were no match for the highly professional Qin soldiers and the uprising was in trouble in less than a year.
Read more about this topic: List Of Rebellions In China
Famous quotes containing the words daze, village and/or uprising:
“A daze had come over his mind, he had another centre of consciousness. In his breast, or in his bowels, somewhere in his body, there had started another activity.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Let us have a good many maples and hickories and scarlet oaks, then, I say. Blaze away! Shall that dirty roll of bunting in the gun-house be all the colors a village can display? A village is not complete, unless it have these trees to mark the season in it. They are important, like the town clock. A village that has them not will not be found to work well. It has a screw loose, an essential part is wanting.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“An uprising would punish only the country, and that is out of the question. But there is yet another approach, the most effective form of resistance: contemptuous compliance.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)