廣弘明集 2.46

2.46

He also said: "The thirty-six lands are ten thousand leagues [wide], and are each three hundred and sixty square leagues." How does this differ from the thirty-six quarters of Zhang Jue? According to the "Biography of Huangfu Song" in the Hou Han shu, it states: "Zhang Jue of Julu called himself the Great Worthy Lang. He served and worshipped the Yellow Emperor and Laozi, practiced the arts of Zhang Ling, and used talismanic water and incantations to cure the myriad illnesses. He dispatched eight disciples to preach throughout the four quarters, propagating the teachings of the Dao and mutually beguiling the people. In a dozen years, their followers grew to hundreds of thousands. From the eight provinces of Qing, Xu, You, Ji, Jing, Yang, Yan, and Yu, there was none among the people who did not respond. Thereupon he established thirty-six quarters ('quarters' being titles equivalent to generals). The large quarters had over ten thousand men, and the small quarters had six thousand men. They fabricated the saying: 'The Blue Heaven is dead; the Yellow Heaven should be established. When the year is in jiazi, there will be great good fortune under heaven.' With white earth, they wrote the characters 'jiazi' on the doors of government offices in the capital. On the fifth day of the third month in the first year of the Zhongping era, those inside and outside rose up simultaneously. All wore Daoist yellow garments and donned yellow turbans; some killed people to sacrifice to heaven. At that time, the bandit hordes numbered hundreds of thousands. They first rose up in Yingchuan and threw all under heaven into disorder. All were exterminated by Huangfu Song. But the smouldering remnants have not been extinguished, and people still wear [their garments] today."