Romance of the Three Kingdoms

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi) is a long Chinese historical novel traditionally attributed to Luo Guanzhong, who wrote in the late 14th century, in the Yuan to early Ming era. It tells of the decades from 169 to 280 CE, after the Han dynasty crumbled and China divided into three rival states: Wei under Cao Cao, Shu under Liu Bei, and Wu under Sun Quan. Its opening sentence, 'The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide', states its view of history as a cycle.¹²

The author worked from the official history, Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms, and from centuries of tales, plays and storytellers' versions. The novel's heroes include Liu Bei and his sworn brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, who swear loyalty in the Peach Garden, the strategist Zhuge Liang, and the cunning Cao Cao. It includes famous episodes such as the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208. The novel favors Liu Bei's Shu as the legitimate Han heir, and a Qing critic said it was 70 percent fact and 30 percent fiction. The earliest surviving print is from 1522, and the standard text is a 120-chapter version revised by Mao Zonggang in the 17th century.¹⁴⁵

The book has had a huge effect on Chinese and East Asian culture. It shaped opera, storytelling and later fiction, helped make Guan Yu a god of loyalty worshipped as Guandi, and its characters and stratagems fill idioms, board games and video games from Japan to Korea. It is counted among the Four Great Classical Novels of China, with Water Margin, Journey to the West and Dream of the Red Chamber.³