The high minister Zhang Wen is given the military post of General of Chariots and Cavalry to assume Huangfu Song's responsibilities in the eighth lunar month of 185.

Assigned under him are Dong Zhuo, the new General Who Routs the Caitiffs, and Zhou Shen, the General Who Terrifies Criminals, among others.

Zhang's army, more than a hundred thousand in men and horses, travels to Meiyang (west of present-day Wugong) and sets up camp there.

Bian Zhang and Han Sui also bring their men to Meiyang to do battle, but the battles are inconclusive and Zhang Wen's army cannot gain advantage for some time.

Dong Zhuo's position becomes surrounded by the Qiang in Wangyuan (northwest of present-day Tianshui).

With his supplies depleted, he effects an escape by damming the river as if to catch fish and secretly transports his men across to the opposite shore.

By the time the Qiang follow in pursuit, the dammed river is too deep for them to cross.

Dong Zhuo is the only commander to keep his forces intact after this offensive Although the Battle of Meiyang has halted the rebels' advance into the Han Dynasty heartlands, the rebels are able to retain their power by the upper Yellow River due to the failure of the Han follow-up offensive.

The upper Wei River valley becomes contested ground.

The rest of the Yellow Turbans are not defeated immediately after Zhang Jue’s death, but gradually dissipate in the following year.

The Liang forces, whose contributions to the campaign have begun to cause them to be feared, begin to look down on troops from all other provinces.

Perennis, though ruthless and ambitious according to Dio Cassius, is not personally corrupt and generally administers the state well.

A detachment of soldiers from Britain (they had been drafted to Italy to suppress brigands) also denounces Perennis to the emperor in 185 as plotting to make his own son emperor (they had been enabled to do so by Cleander, who is seeking to dispose of his rival), and Commodus gives them permission to execute him as well as his wife and sons.

The fall of Perennis brings a new spate of executions: Aufidius Victorinus commits suicide.

Ulpius Marcellus is replaced as governor of Britain by Pertinax; brought to Rome and tried for treason, Marcellus narrowly escapes death.

In this year, Commodus takes the title of Felix (Fortunate).

The rebel leader Bian Zhang dies of illness and Beigong Boyu and Li Wenhou are killed in internecine feuds at some time during the winter of 186.

The newly installed Inspector of Liang Province, Geng Bi, seeing an advantage to be gained from this situation, attempts to reestablish Han power in the region without major military assistance from other parts of the country.

Fu Xie tries to dissuade Geng Bi from this enterprise, arguing that the people are not used to Geng Bi as their governor and the army does not have time to build morale, but Geng Bi goes ahead with his plan anyway.

Commodus further reduces the purity and silver weight in 196 to 74% and 2.22 grams respectively, being 108 to the Roman pound.

His reduction of the denarius during his rule is the largest since the empire's first devaluation during Nero's reign.

Whereas the reign of Marcus Aurelius had been marked by almost continuous warfare, that of Commodus is comparatively peaceful in the military sense but is marked by political strife and the increasingly arbitrary and capricious behavior of the emperor himself.

In the view of Dio Cassius, a contemporary observer, his accession marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron"—a famous comment which has led some historians, notably Edward Gibbon, to take Commodus' reign as the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire.

Despite his notoriety, and considering the importance of his reign, Commodus' years in power are not well chronicled.

The principal surviving literary sources are Dio Cassius (a contemporary and sometimes firsthand observer, but for this reign, only transmitted in fragments and abbreviations), Herodian, and the Historia Augusta (untrustworthy for its character as a work of literature rather than history, with elements of fiction embedded within its biographies; in the case of Commodus, it may well be embroidering upon what the author found in reasonably good contemporary sources).

Dissatisfaction with this state of affairs will lead to a series of conspiracies and attempted coups, which in turn eventually provoke Commodus to take charge of affairs, which he does in an increasingly dictatorial manner.

Nevertheless, though the senatorial order will come to hate and fear him, the evidence suggests that he remains popular with the army and the common people for much of his reign, not least because of his lavish shows of largesse (recorded on his coinage) and because he stages and takes part in spectacular gladiatorial combats.

One of the ways he pays for his donatives and mass entertainments is to tax the senatorial order, and on many inscriptions, the traditional order of the two nominal powers of the state, the Senate and People (Senatus Populusque Romanus) is provocatively reversed (Populus Senatusque...).

Geng Bi in 187 attacks the western fringe prefecture Longxi with a combined army from six prefectures.

Longxi had previously been captured by the forces of Han Sui when its Grand Administrator Li Xiangru defected.

The gentry and common folk are frustrated, however, by Geng Bi's appointment of the corrupt official Cheng Qiu.

When the army reaches Longxi's capital Didao in the fourth month of 187, mutiny breaks out within Geng Bi's ranks, killing Cheng Qiu and Geng successively.

The mutineers join the rebels under the command of the Didao native Wang Guo, and together they besiege Hanyang, east of Longxi.

Fu Xie, as Grand Administrator of Hanyang, treats the people well and is widely respected, and the rebels are hesitant to fight him.

The rebels on several occasions try to persuade Fu Xie to either flee the city or surrender, but Fu is determined to defend the prefecture to the death despite his dwindling number of men and supplies.

So Fu leads  a desperate final charge and dies in battle.

Geng Bi's subordinate, Major Ma Teng, brings his troops to join Han Sui after this affair.

They make Wang Guo their leader, and together the rebels raid the region around Chang'an.

For the first time, the rebels extend their sway over the entire Liang Province.

In light of this, Zhang Wen is dismissed from his post for his failure to quell the rebellion.

The Yellow Turbans, nearly four hundred thousand strong by the fourth year of the rebellion, regularly battle the highly trained and better-armed imperial forces in Shandong and …

…Shanxi provinces.

The war drags on.

During and the Yellow Turban Rebellion and its aftermath, many people from other provinces, in order to ward off pillaging by Yellow Turbans or governmental forces, also organize into military organizations, and a good number resist government forces, and even after the Yellow Turbans are defeated, the central government's control of the provinces will no longer be what it once was.