Han Lin'er (; d. 1367) was one of the leaders of the

Red Turban Rebellion The Red Turban Rebellions () were uprisings against the Yuan dynasty between 1351 and 1368, eventually leading to its collapse. Remnants of the Yuan imperial court retreated northwards and is thereafter known as the Northern Yuan in historiogr ...

. From 1355, he was the emperor of the Han Song dynasty. However, he only ruled the empire formally; his minister

Liu Futong Liu Futong (; d. 1363) was a leader in the Red Turban Rebellion during the late Yuan dynasty of China. He had a major presence in northern China and was killed by Zhang Shicheng in 1363. Life Liu Futong was recruited by the northern Chinese W ...

had the actual power. From 1363, he was only a puppet of

Zhu Yuanzhang The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328– 24 June 1398), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Ming, personal name Zhu Yuanzhang, courtesy name Guorui, was the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigning from 1368 to 1398. In ...

. After the Song dynasty was defeated in 1279, all of China came under the rule of the Mongol-led

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

. The Han people did not accept foreign rule and organized resistance against the Mongols. The most prominent of the anti-Mongol societies and sects was the White Lotus, a secret Buddhist organization heavily influenced by

Manichaeism Manichaeism (; in ; ) is an endangered former major world religion currently only practiced in China around Cao'an,R. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''. SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 found ...

. The leader of the White Lotus was Han Shantong, the father of Han Lin'er. A long-planned uprising broke out in May 1351 in central China among peasants gathered to reconstruct the dikes on the

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

. Han Shantong became the leader of the rebels, claiming to be a descendant of the Song emperor

Huizong Huizong are different temple names used for emperors of China. It may refer to: * Wang Yanjun (died 935, reigned 928–935), emperor of the Min dynasty * Emperor Huizong of Western Xia (1060–1086, reigned 1067–1086), emperor of Western Xia *Emp ...

and an incarnation of Maitreya Buddha. However, he was soon captured by government troops and executed in January 1355. Then, his position at the head of the movement was taken over by the young Han Lin'er. With the support of Liu Futong, the most influential of the Red Turban leaders, he was proclaimed emperor of the restored Song dynasty on 16 March 1355 in Bozhou (present-day

Bozhou Bozhou () is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Anhui province, China. It borders Huaibei to the northeast, Bengbu to the southeast, Huainan to the south, Fuyang to the southwest, and Henan to the north. Its population was 4,996,844 at ...

Anhui Anhui is an inland Provinces of China, province located in East China. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze and Huai rivers, bordering Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the east, Jiang ...

). In 1357–58, Song troops occupied considerable territories in the North China Plain, and Han Lin'er relocated with the government to the conquered

Kaifeng Kaifeng ( zh, s=开封, p=Kāifēng) is a prefecture-level city in east-Zhongyuan, central Henan province, China. It is one of the Historical capitals of China, Eight Ancient Capitals of China, having been the capital eight times in history, and ...

. In 1359, however, the Mongol army inflicted a series of defeats on the Song and drove them out of Kaifeng. Until 1362, only the province of Jiangnan, ruled by Zhu Yuanzhang and formally subordinate to Han, and a small, depopulated area around Anfeng, the center of one of the prefectures in the west of today's Anhui province, remained of the Song state. In January 1363, the army of another rebel state, Wu, made a surprise attack on Anfeng and killed the de facto leader of the Song regime, Liu Futong. Han Lin'er was saved by Zhu Yuanzhang's troops from the attack. Zhu then settled the powerless Han with his court in his territory near

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

. In January 1367, Han Lin'er drowned while sailing on the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

References

Citations

Works cited

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Han, Lin'er 1367 deaths Red Turban rebels Yuan dynasty people Deaths by drowning White Lotus people