retreat, his route was temporarily cut off by Ma Wu who allowed him to escape, not wanting to offend the government more than the rebels had done already. Instead, the Lülin rebels roved near the area, capturing many women, and then returning to the Lülin Mountain. By this point, they had 50,000 men. Chimei (赤眉) refers, as an umbrella term, to one of the two major agrarian rebellion movements against Wang Mang's Xin dynasty, initially active in the modern Shandong and northern Jiangsu region, that eventually led to Wang Mang's downfall by draining his resources, allowing the leader of the other movement (the Lülin), Liu Xuan (Gengshi Emperor) to overthrow Wang and temporarily establish an incarnation of the Han dynasty under him. Eventually, Chimei forces overthrew Gengshi Emperor and placed their own puppet emperor, Liu Penzi, on the throne briefly, before the Chimei leaders' incompetence in ruling the territories under their control, which matched their brilliance on the battlefield, caused the people to rebel against them, forcing them to try to withdraw home. When their path was blocked by Liu Xiu (Emperor Guangwu)'s newly established Eastern Han regime, they surrendered to him. Circa AD 17, due to Wang Mang's incompetence in ruling—particularly in the implementation of his land reform policy—and a major Yellow River flood affecting modern Shandong and northern Jiangsu regions, the people, who could no longer subsist on farming, were forced into rebellion to try to survive. The rebellions were numerous and fractured. Eastern Han dynasty The Yellow Turban Rebellion or Yellow Scarves Rebellion (; AD 184) was a peasant rebellion against Emperor Ling. It is named for the scarves the rebels wrapped around their heads. They were associated with secret Taoist societies, and the rebellion marked an important point in the history of Taoism. The rebellion is the opening event in the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. A major cause of the Yellow Turban Rebellion was an agrarian crisis where famine forced many farmers and former military settlers in the north to seek employment in the south, whose large landowners took advantage of the labor surplus and amassed large fortunes. The situation was further aggravated by smaller floods along the lower course of the Yellow River. Further pressure was added on the peasants by high taxes imposed on them in order to build fortifications along the Silk Road, and garrisons against foreign