Ze Rong

Ze Rong (died 195) was originally a general and active occultist serving under the warlord Tao Qian in the late Eastern Han dynasty. When the Yan Province warlord Cao Cao attacked Tao, Ze left his post and traveled south, killing local officers and plundering the cities along the way, and finally established himself a minor warlord of Yuzhang.

Service under Tao Qian

Ze Rong was a native of Danyang, and became a leader of a Buddhist sect in his early life. He began his career under the Xu Province warlord, Tao Qian, when he led his cult to join forces with the latter, for whom he served as a logistic officer, and was tasked to oversee the transportation of materials for Guangling (廣陵), Xiapi (下邳), and Pengcheng (彭城). However, he and his followers attacked Tao's troops, and seized the supplies for personal usage. Since then, he entered into a semi-independence and monopolized the logistics affiliated with the 3 commandaries. He then constructed a large Buddhist temple in Xiapi, which had a capacity of 3000 people, and recruited followers around the area. Furthermore, he had bronze and gold melted to build luxurious Buddha statues, food and wine prepared for fellow occultists, and several tens li of cotton to cover the road. The budget for the commandaries totaling thousands of million was all consumed by Ze. Nevertheless, more than 5,000 households and numerous monks and nuns moved into the city, and pledged allegiance to Ze. Therefore, Tao never severed ties with Ze, because he valued Ze's influence and his powerful cult.