One Piece has now been released almost weekly for more than 20 years, yet there are still many mysteries and most of this fantastic world still needs to be discovered, I love the research revolved around history, culture and ideology and combine them to find an Author’s inspiration or to better say, Look into an author’s mind. Today I want to show you guys my results researching about historical and literary aspects of the inspiration and origin of the Revolutionary Army in One Piece.
Our journey takes us back 2000 Year to the Han-Dynasty this era is talked about in one of the most famous if not most important pieces of literature in Chinese History, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
I will refer to the book as it is to this date still very famous in East-Asia and more so in Japan, the Dynasty warrior games for example are based on this book and era in China’s history.
In the beginning of the Book the village of Liu Bei (Important Hero of the Book) is being attacked by the yellow-turbans, the yellow turbans represent a Taoistic revolutionary movement that work against the corrupt and crumbling government of the Han-Dynasty.
There is many similarities between the Han-Dynasty and the World Government of One Piece we will observe these similarities in future theories, However looking at the Yellow-Turbans we see even more similarities to the Revolutionary Army of One Piece, so let’s have and in-depth look!
It all starts with the leader of the Yellow-Turbans Zhang Jue
Zhang Jue is being introduced in the book with the following:
“At that time, there lived three brothers in Julu Commandery: Zhang Jue, Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang. Zhang Jiao was a failure in the county level examination. He had gone into the mountains to gather some medicinal herbs, when he came across an old man; the old man had a youthful countenance, and was carrying a fat-hen walking stick. The old man beckoned Jue into a cave, presented him with a book in three volumes which had come from the heavens, then said, “This book is called The Essential Art of Great Peace. Once you have mastered its contents, you will represent the heavens in spreading this knowledge, and thereby save all of mankind. If you start to have second thoughts, there will be terrible consequences for you.” Jue enquired as to the old man’s name. The old man said, “I am the old immortal spirit from the southern lands.”[6] With that, the old man vanished into thin air. Upon receiving this book, Jue practiced night and day. Eventually, he could summon the wind and rain, and came to be known as the Great Peace Taoist. (Wikisource translation)”
After learning the arts of Taoism, Zhang Jue was able, and I quote „he could summon the wind and rain, and came to be known as the Great Peace Taoist.“
It is even said that Zhang Jue repelled whole armies by using the wind and the rain, this ability is extremely similar to Monkey D. Dragon’s ability to summon rain, wind and control the weather. With wind, thunder and rain he was for example able to help the strawhats in their attempt to escape from Loguetown.
The above quoted text from the 1st chapter of the Romance of The Three Kingdoms has even more information related to One Piece.
The Oldman presented Zhang Jue with a book in Three Volumes, in One Piece knowledge of the past and the ancient kingdom is passed on in the form of poneglyphs that appear in 3 Forms, Historical, Instructional and the Red Road Poneglyphs, to quote the old man again “Once you mastered its contents, you will represent the heavens in spreading this knowledge, and thereby save all of mankind.”
This quote can almost be directly transferred to the theme of One Piece where access to the knowledge of all poneglyphs is rewarded with the most absolute form of freedom that exists, the title of the pirate king and therefore saves all of mankind by defeating the suppression of the corrupt World Government.
So this connection seems very convincing, I have even more speculation to hint that the Revolutionary Army and the yellow turbans are indeed connected, all Leaders of the yellow turbans were known to be Healers and through healing they got in contact with people and were able to spread the message and their knowledge,
So far the biggest encounters Luffy had with the Revolutionary Army is Bartolomeow Kuma and Ivankov, both of them have some kind of ability that can allow for healing someone, Kuma was able to take out Luffys pain and give it to Zoro, while Ivankov used a hormone therapy to help Luffy through his suffering from Magelan’s poison.
*Theory by NeoRetro
