What is Romance of the Three Kingdoms?
Romance of The Three Kingdoms is one of the great chinese classics and is compiled into a semi-fictional literary masterpiece during the Ming Dynasty by Luo Guanzhong. The novel comprises around 70+% fact and 20+% fiction. Some issues such as Guan Yu's weapon weighing around 40+ kilograms, the capabilties of Lu Bu, Liu Bei's horses as well as the existence of the Hill of the Fallen Phoenix and some others are probably fictional.

That period in history can be said as the golden age of chivalry and although it happened more than 1700 years ago, characters such as Liu Bei, Cao Cao, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and Zhuge Liang have become household names among the chinese. Tales of their exploits, courage, adventures and many more are told in the novel "Romance of The Three Kingdoms".

It is one of the most turbulent periods in China's history taking place toward the end of the Han Dynasty where corruption is rampant in the imperial court due to eunuches holding power. Coupled with natural disasters such as floods, plague and locust swarms devouring the crops grown by the peasants, hunger and disatisfaction among the peasants soon escalated rapidly until a major rebellion known as the "Yellow Scarves Rebellion" led by Zhang Jiao broke out. (It was dubbed "Yellow Scarves" because the rebels tied a yellow scarf on their head). Initially just a small band of rebels, due to widespread hunger and ill-sentiment among the populace, swarms of common folks joined in the rebellion across many parts of the country.

Emperor Ling, unable to put down the rebellion with the government troops issued a call to warlords across the country requesting assistance in suppressing the rebellion. From that time onwards the Han Emperor became powerless as the struggle for power and territories among the warlords rages on. Many warlords as well as countless men and innocent civilians lost their lives in this fight for power and sovereignty until three smallers states: Wei, Wu and Shu were founded in early AD 220s and thereafter contended for supremacy. Much debate has centred around which of these three kingdoms was the legitimate heir to the Han Dynasty and hence the Mandate of Heaven but historians now generally recognize the Wei Kingdom which was created by Cao Cao as the official imperial line.

"Influenced by the feudalistic culture at that time, the novel has a tendency to glorify Liu Bei, a distant relative of the Han Emperor, who later became the King of Shu, while condemning Cao Cao, a formative figure in chinese history, who usurped the throne of the last emperor of Han and became the King of Wei." - Yin Shuxun

These three kingdoms were eventually reunited into the Jin Dynasty by Sima Yi's grandson Sima Yan in 280 AD with the Shu Kingdom being conquered by Wei in AD 263 and Wu in AD 280.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is not only about the struggle and conflicts among the warlords, it is about loyalty, betrayal, courage, lust, determination, responsibilities, repaying the kindness of others and trust among people.

About this site
While efforts have been made to ensure that the data provided on this website is accurate, there may be some errors. Please notify me if you happen to come across any. In addition i am a purist with regard to names and i only use the Hanyu Pinyin (romanised system of pronounciation for chinese words) names for all Romance of the Three Kingdoms characters and places. This is the purest form of pronounciation other than its chinese words.

Lastly with regards to the names of the characters, the first word is the surname of the person. eg. Liu Bei's surname is Liu, Jiang Wei's surname is Jiang. The Chinese and Koreans put their surnames before their names so next time when you encounter a chinese and korean please take note of this cause you can give the person a better impression of yourself (esp during business negotiations) since you know this aspect of their culture. The surname was put in front probably due to the emphasis of putting the group, family or tribe before the individual back then. As generations go by this has become the way it is now.

All comments/reviews are solely my opinion unless otherwise stated but you are free to write in to comment or correct me on my errors.

I hope you enjoy your stay here looking and reading through the material i have put up for this great chinese classic literacy masterpiece.