9–1–16, Mehul

In 209 BC, there were two men in China named Chen Sheng and Wu Guang who were both army officers under the Qin dynasty. They were ordered to lead their bands of commoner soldiers north to participate in the defense of a small area called Yuyang. However, they were stopped halfway in the Anhui province by flooding from a severe rainstorm. At the time, the Qin dynasty was not very well-liked by the people, mainly because of their mandated ultra-harsh punishments for small “crimes.” One such law dealt with tardiness for government employees. When Sheng and Guang realized they were going to be late to their assignment, they had a conversation that has been roughly (actually) translated as follows:

Guang asked one of his men, “Wu, what’s the penalty for lateness, exactly?”

“It’s death, captain.”

“I see. And, what’s the penalty for taking up arms against the government?”

The men basically knew if they showed up to their post late, even with the valid excuse of the flooding, they would be immediately put to death, so they instead said “fuck it” and started a rebellion. What was originally less than a 100 soldiers become a revolution of more than 10,000 soldiers within three months. That rebellion is marked by historians as the beginning of the end of the Qin dynasty that fell soon after. This story is also well know as one of the most significant historical instances of the following meme: