Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Can’t a strategist ascend the throne? Volume 1: The Yellow Turban Rebellion, The Clear Voice of a Young Phoenix Chapter 01: Yellow Turbans in Yanzhou

Book:


Can’t a Strategist Ascend the Throne?

Chapter 001

In the sixth year of Guanghe, summer drought, poor autumn harvest, and severe winter cold caused wells in Beihai and Donglai to freeze over a foot thick.

In February of the seventh year of Guanghe, the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out.

Qiao Yan faintly heard voices pulling her out of unconsciousness.

At first, someone was saying, “What if the plague returns? We should just abandon her early.” Then came the sound of slogans fading into the distance.

The slogans were chaotic, but she vaguely caught, “The Blue Heaven is dead, the Yellow Heaven shall rise,” and “In the year of Jiazi, the world will be at peace.”

But these two phrases were terrifying enough!

Qiao Yan jolted awake.

The stench of decay and blood, mixed with dust, hit her, making her cough.

When her vision cleared and she saw her surroundings, she realized the smell wasn’t her biggest problem.

She was on a dried-up marshland mound.

The mound, once covered with plants, was now barren, leaving only sand and… corpses.

It wasn’t yet summer, so the bodies, dead for only a day or two, weren’t too decomposed.

The nearest corpse was emaciated and dehydrated, with a swollen face—a clear sign of starvation.

And it wasn’t just one person!

Qiao Yan propped herself up and looked around, nearly vomiting at the sight of the scattered corpses.

But her empty stomach had nothing to expel, only bile.

She dug her fingers into the sand, using the sharp grains to distract herself from the gruesome scene, trying to stay calm.

The sharp pain confirmed this wasn’t a dream.

This was real.

Indeed…

If this were a dream, the details were too vivid to be imagined.

But seeing the “peaceful” bodies—mostly the elderly or those like her, afflicted with disease—it was hard not to feel shaken.

The slogans were even more chilling.

They were iconic.

“The Blue Heaven is dead, the Yellow Heaven shall rise”—the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

“In the year of Jiazi, the world will be at peace”—the year of the rebellion’s outbreak.

This was undoubtedly 184 AD, the late Eastern Han Dynasty!

Realizing where she was, Qiao Yan knew that no matter how well-versed she was in Three Kingdoms history, living in this era was a different story.

This was a time of immense suffering.

Locust plagues, droughts, severe cold, and epidemics cycled through the late Han to Western Jin periods, making “unburied bones, rampant plagues, and cannibalism” almost normal.

But Qiao Yan didn’t have the luxury to dwell on that now.

She needed to figure out her current situation…

Confirming that this place was a makeshift burial ground and no one would notice her “resurrection,” she cautiously retreated to a sheltered spot, shifting her gaze from the surroundings to her own hands.

Qiao Yan frowned.

These weren’t the hands of a commoner.

Though pale, they seemed deliberately smeared with dirt to blend in.

Where the dirt had flaked off, the skin beneath was smooth and fair—clearly well-cared for.

The scars on these child’s hands were recent.

Even though her clothes and straw sandals were no different from the peasants around her, it was clear this body wasn’t that of a farm girl.

[Of course, she’s not a farm girl. This is the identity I carefully selected for you.]

“Who!”

The sudden voice startled Qiao Yan.

But she quickly caught two words in its message—

System.

Qiao Yan froze.

Who hasn’t read a few web novels?

Especially since, without supernatural intervention, she should have been buried alive in an archaeological collapse, not waking up in a ten-year-old girl’s body.

The voice continued, unfazed by her shock, [Don’t be nervous, I’m Strategist System 068.]

Strategist System?

Before Qiao Yan could ponder, a flood of memories interrupted her thoughts.

These were the memories of the girl whose body she now inhabited.

Perhaps by fate, the girl was also named Qiao Yan.

As she had guessed from the hands, she wasn’t from a common family—

She was Qiao Xuan’s granddaughter.

Qiao Xuan, who once praised Cao Cao as a “talent of the age,” wasn’t just a judge of character. He was a renowned official in the late Eastern Han, having served as Grand Herald, Minister of Works, and Minister over the Masses, until illness forced him to retire as Grand Commandant.

And he wasn’t just a civil official.








At the end of Emperor Huan’s reign, he once served as the General of Du Liao to fight against the barbarians, achieving numerous military successes during his three-year tenure.

Truly, he excelled both in civil and military affairs.

Although he shared the surname Qiao, Qiao Xuan had no relation to the famous Qiao sisters. He only had two sons.

When his younger son was ten, he was kidnapped by bandits in the capital. To eradicate the rampant banditry and the practice of kidnapping nobles’ children for ransom, Qiao Xuan insisted that the officials handling the case not consider his son’s safety.

Thus, the bandits were executed, and his younger son also perished in the incident.

His elder son, Qiao Yu, was the father of this “Qiao Yan.”

Qiao Xuan was known for his integrity and righteousness. In the past, he had recommended someone with whom he had personal grievances for a high-ranking position, yet he refused to use his political connections to benefit his own son. As a result, Qiao Yu’s career was limited, and by his fifties, he had only reached the position of Magistrate of Rencheng.

Perhaps it was a family tradition for the Qiao family to have limited connections, as Qiao Yu only had this one daughter in his forties, who was frail from a young age.

If that were all, it wouldn’t be a problem.

The Qiao family’s ancestral estate was in Suiyang, Liang State, making them a prominent family in Yanzhou. A few years later, Qiao Zhao, who would become the Governor of Yanzhou, was a cousin of Qiao Xuan and a contemporary of Qiao Yu.

With such a family background, supporting a frail girl was not difficult.

However, in the second month of the seventh year of Guanghe, Qiao Xuan fell seriously ill.

News from Luoyang indicated that this illness was far more severe than the one seven years ago that had forced him to retire. Qiao Xuan, now over seventy, was barely clinging to life.

In the Han Dynasty, filial piety was highly valued. With his father gravely ill and near death, Qiao Yu naturally had to resign his post and head to Luoyang, bringing his wife and only daughter with him.

Yet, it was also in this February that the Yellow Turban Rebellion erupted.

The main forces of the Yellow Turban Army divided into three routes.

One route was active in Ji Province under the leadership of General of Heaven Zhang Jiao, another in Nanyang under Zhang Mancheng, and the third in the southern part of Yanzhou, in the regions of Runan, Yingchuan, and Chen Commandery in Yu Province.

As Qiao Yu traveled west with his wife and daughter, they encountered the Yellow Turban forces in Yanzhou, responding to the call of Rebel Leader Bo Cai to head south.

At this time, the capital was in turmoil due to the Yellow Turban uprising, with amnesties granted, commanders selected, and troops recruited from all directions. The chaos in Yanzhou was not something that could be resolved quickly.

Qiao Yu, traveling lightly with few guards, intended to reach the capital swiftly, but this made him a victim of the chaos.

Qiao Yu died, but thanks to the protection of his guards, Qiao Yan and her mother managed to escape the encirclement.

They attempted to return to Rencheng for safety but encountered another Yellow Turban force in Shanyang, led by Bu Ji, who was gathering forces from Pei County to Dong Commandery in Yanzhou.

There was no escape.

The Yellow Turban Army confiscated the refugees’ food, forcing these homeless people to join the Moth Bandits, forming a northward wave.

Qiao Yan and her mother were no exception.

Forced to march under threat, with only two pieces of bread as daily rations and the collapse of order, it was a terrifying experience for a noblewoman who had just lost her husband.

Though they had no carriage and wore commoner clothes, making them less conspicuous, and had a few servants protecting them, their lives were temporarily safe. However, being forced to head to Dong Commandery instead of returning to familiar territory—

Qiao Yan’s mother fell ill when they passed Juye City outside Daye Lake.

In her severe illness, seeing Juye City quickly fall from within and become a stronghold for the Yellow Turban Army, she was deeply shaken.

“Qiao Yan” listened to her mother’s lament that if Juye was like this, Rencheng might not be safe either.

The slogans shouted by the Yellow Turban Army made it seem as though the Han Dynasty was on the verge of collapse.

Thus, in “Qiao Yan’s” memory, her mother, after falling ill, seemed to have a hole draining her life force, rapidly deteriorating.

Even with her strong maternal will, she only lived until early March.

Later, “Qiao Yan” herself fell ill.

…And then, this is what Qiao Yan saw when she woke up.

She slowly gathered her strength and climbed up the mound where bodies were discarded.

Looking into the distance, she saw the dried-up lake extending northward, with faint reflections of sunlight on the water, a corner of Daye Lake.

It was supposed to be early spring.

But as the sun set, there was no sign of spring, only desolation and death.

Only the voice of the Strategist System made Qiao Yan feel that the surroundings were not entirely lifeless.

[Now that you know the situation, you should understand why I said this identity was carefully chosen, right?]

Qiao Yan, looking into the distance, replied, “The Book of Wei records that Qiao Xuan once told Cao Cao, ‘I am old, and I entrust my wife and children to you.'”

Qiao Xuan would die this year, and Qiao Yu perished in the Yellow Turban chaos, leaving only this granddaughter to be entrusted.

According to the Han Dynasty’s tradition of entrusting wives and children, Qiao Yan was part of this arrangement.

At this time, Cao Cao and Huangfu Song were leading troops from the capital to quell the Yellow Turban rebels in Yingchuan. Once Yingchuan was pacified, they would head to Yanzhou to suppress the Yellow Turban forces in Dong Commandery.

Strategist System, strategist…

If she were to truly become a strategist under Cao Cao, now would be the best time to make contact.

But…

“Have you considered that Huangfu Song’s march to Dong Commandery is in June, three months from now?”

[…]

Qiao Yan knew the system could see her surroundings, but she still turned around on the high ground to ensure it fully grasped the devastation around her.

“First, I need to survive these three months.”