How long is romance of the three kingdoms

The story part historical and part myth romanticizes and dramatizes the lives of feudal lords and their retainers, who tried to replace the decaying Han Dynasty or restore it. While the novel actually follows literally hundreds of characters, the focus is mainly on the three power blocs that emerged from the remnants of the Han Dynasty and became the states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu.

The novel deals with the plots, personal conflicts, army battles, intrigues and struggles as these states strive to achieve dominance for period that extends more than years. The novel also gives readers a sense of how the Chinese view their history in a cyclical lens. The famous opening lines of the novel as added by Mao Lun and his son Mao Zonggang summarize this view: It is a general truism of this world that anything long divided will surely unite, and anything long united will surely divide.

One of the greatest achievements of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the way it weaves together a highly complex story with a long list of characters. The novel is comprised of numerous "mini-stories", many of which could be developed into full-length novels in their own right the Battle of Red Cliffs and the treatment of Guan Yu by Hua Tuo being two examples.

Kaiser Kuo, the leader of famed Chinese rock group Tang Dynasty, told the BBC he was once introduced to the Chinese-American founder of a Silicon Valley computing firm, who was born and raised with these stories and saw them as directly relevant to the company's business.

It's really all about management and when I read these stories today, I still find just tremendous relevance. According to foreignercn. The government had become extremely corrupt on all levels, leading to widespread deterioration of the empire.

During the reign of the penultimate Han emperor, Emperor Ling, the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out under the leadership of Zhang Jiao, who allegedly practiced Taoist wizardry and held immortal powers. Zhang pretended to be a traveling healer curing people of sickness while secretly inciting them to revolt. Frances Wood, curator of the East Asia collection at the British Library told the BBC: "This is the first time that an imperial collapse has happened with a power vacuum ensuing.

The Han had overthrown the Qin [dynasty]. That was a straightforward regime change, if you like. But at the end of the Han you get fragmentation. The major nightmare of all the Chinese at all times is that if there's no central power, then the country is going to split up and that's very much what was happening at this time. You get different generals in different parts of China setting up different regimes, and then fighting each other.

It is forced to do what it hates to do: outsource troop recruitment - and that gives an opportunist called Liu Bei his big break. And he sighs.

And behind him there is a big burly guy by the name of Zhang Fei, a butcher, who chastises him for merely sighing and not actually doing something about it. The three of them then swear an oath of eternal brotherhood in a peach orchard and set about trying to save the Han dynasty. Our trio represent the south-west kingdom. They face, in the north kingdom, the cunning and ruthless Cao Cao, and in the south-east the vacillating and deceitful Sun Quan.

A mindboggling amount of fighting and double-crossing follows. His stunned guards, led by Yuan Shao, responded by charging into the palace, which turned into an indiscriminate slaughter. In the ensuing confusion, the child Emperor Shao and the Prince of Chenliu later Emperor Xian disappeared from the palace.

There were assassination attempts on him by both the court physician Wu Fu and Cao Cao but both attempts failed. Cao Cao managed to escape and issued an edict in the emperor's name to all governors, calling them to remove Dong Zhuo from power. Under general Yuan Shao, 18 governors and nobles joined forces in a campaign against Dong Zhuo, but undermined by poor leadership and conflict of interest, they only managed to drive him from the capital Luoyang to Chang'an.

Sun Jian, governor of Changsha, found the Imperial Jade Seal at the bottom of a well in the ruins of Luoyang but secretly kept it for his own purposes, further weakening royal authority. Without a strong central government, warlords began to rise up and fight each other for land and power. Many others, even those without title or land, such as Cao Cao and Liu Bei, were also starting to build up power.

Even more powerful now with the emperor in his control, Cao Cao quickly subdued his rivals such as Yuan Shu, Lu Bu and Zhang Xiu, culminating in his greatest military victory, over Yuan Shao in the famous Battle of Guandu despite being outnumbered to Cao Cao pursued the defeated Yuan clan and finally united northern China, which later served as the foundation for the Kingdom of Wei.

His eldest son Sun Ce then delivered the Imperial Jade Seal as tribute to rising royal pretender Yuan Shu of Huainan, in exchange for much needed reinforcements. Now, like the proverbial tiger that has been given claws, he soon secured himself a state in the rich riverlands of Jiangdong, on which the Kingdom of Wu would eventually be founded. Tragically, Sun Ce also died at the height of his career from illness under stress of his terrifying encounter with the ghost of Yu Ji, a venerable magician whom he had falsely accused and executed in jealousy.

However, their goals and ambitions had not been realized till the later part of the novel. Liu Bei, ever since he had successfully quelled the Yellow Turban Rebellion, was not recognized for his efforts and was made only the magistrate of a small county. Liu Bei plotted with some officials to kill Cao Cao as Cao Cao wielded far too much power and had the intention of usurping the throne.

Liu Bei failed to kill Cao Cao as the plot was exposed. Liu Bei got control of Runan with help from some former Yellow Turban rebels but was defeated once again by Cao Cao in battle. Liu Biao treated Liu Bei with respect and put him in charge of Xinye. Cao Cao Cao Cao A. Renowned for his ruthlessness and cunning, he is known to most Chinese people as the villain of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and is a byword for treachery in Peking opera. In Peking opera he is almost unique as a emperor with a white face, which signifies betrayal.

Though characterized as a villain, he has a place in the heart of every Chinese child, history buff, and book lover In Romance, the self-styled emperor comes off as a ruthless and canny strategist, demonically intent on carving out a piece of the failing Han Dynasty for himself.

With fine Machiavellian flair, he betrays friends and manipulates emperorshis military campaigns eventually unite most of northern China Over the centuries, Cao Cao has been the subject of countless folktales and Chinese operas, where his characteristic mask is usually drawn with heavy brows and a sinister white face.

He has also found a place in comic books, video games, and fan-written fiction for his strategic acumen and ambition. Cao Cao is said to have died in the year , of an unknown illness. According to one myth, he refused medical treatment and was so paranoid about being poisoned that he jailed his doctor, who subsequently perished in prison.

Before he died Cao Cao gave very specific instructions on where and how he should be buried: in simple style among the hills west of Yecheng in Henan. Romance itself says that he ordered 72 [false] tombs to prevent someone discovering his real tomb after his death. Cao Cao as depicted in a movie In December , Chinese archaeologists claimed they had found the tomb of Cao Cao may been located near the ancient capital of Anyang, in Henan province. An epitaph and inscription were also found in the tomb that appear to identify the warlord, who helped to unify northern China.

As arguments have flared for months, the tomb also highlights a challenge all archaeologists in China facereconciling material culture with the country's deep and beloved written archive.

The tomb consists of two main chambers separated by an arched doorway and flanked by smaller side rooms. At 8, square feet, the tomb covers the area of a baseball infield, but it seems modest and oddly cramped for someone of imperial rank. Dan Schwent. Around the time the earth cooled and life spread across the continents, I was a huge fan of the game Destiny of an Emperor for the NES.

Chinese generals with names I couldn't pronounce duking it out for the fate of China enthralled me. Years later, I was thinking fondly of the game and decided to investigate the source, Three Kingdoms.

Three Kingdoms is one of the four great classics of Chinese literature. While the game depicts the rise of Liu Bei, the book depicts his rise and fall, as well as fleshing out the stories of his companions and enemies. At pages, you can imagine the amount of characters to absorb. Still, it was very satisfying to read years after playing the game.

The writing was a little rough getting used to but to be fair, it was written centuries ago in Chinese! I was glad LuBu met his fate at the hands of Cao Cao. When he left my party, he had a lot of good equipment the rest of them could have used! Author 5 books 63 followers. The historical novel recounts the kingdoms of Wu, Wei and Shu vying to dominate China proper after the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty. Approximate Territories of the Three Kingdoms Image from Yu Ninjie Not only are the heroic deeds memorable but the strategic up-onemanship among the kingdom reads like Machiavelli's The Prince.

Recommended for all historical novel lovers. I love this book. All the characters, despite the fact that there are so many, are unique, and every character plays a part. When I started reading this book in March I finished in June I was studying China in my sixth grade class If you are in sixth grade you should probably only read it if you have an intense interest in Chinese history and it really helped me know a lot more about dynasties in general, how empires function, and how war is fought throughout Chinese history.

It even influences the way I play Risk! I really liked Kongming Zhuge Liang because he always outsmarted everyone, even when the people he outsmarted thought that they were outsmarting him. Zhao Zilong was also an awesome character because he was really honorable and always beat everyone, even when he was outnumbered to 1 at Danyang Slope. I thought it was funny when the author would say things like "What happened to Lu Bu?

Read on" "Did Cao Cao survive? Read on. There can be no equal. This is the book that makes all others pale in comparison. I'm forced to compare this book to Game of Thrones due to the popularity of the TV series, as its all my friends ask about when talking about this book. This is not high fantasy. To say it's a story about the fall of the Han dynasty and the various warlords scramble to fill the void does not due the book justice.

If you are looking for all the political maneuvering and more of a Game of Thrones, placed in a real world setting, then you owe yourself to read this book. Difficult to begin, but This novel, one of the great classic Chinese novels, is one of the more difficult texts for readers.

While some others, like Journey to the West or The Marshes of Mount Liang , are much more easily accessible and entertaining right from the beginning, a feeling of disorientation is common for first readers of "Three Kingdoms".

The story starts without introduction with the appearance of dozens of protagonists, and it's hard to keep track of all of them. At the end you will have encountered over named people, and some of them even with several names, depending on the situation! But you shouldn't allow yourself to get daunted at this early stage. Soon you'll get used to the flood of people, and you will find out which are only "fire-and-forget" characters who only appear in the sentence they are mentioned first, and which are important for the storyline.

After that, the chaotic impression is replaced by a clear structure. The dissolving Han dynasty's kingdoms are very vividly described - though you have to be prepared for some very dry sections of descriptions of army movements and complex battle strategies, which would better fit in history books. But there's a lot of compensation for these difficult parts - "epic" and "heroic" are words that have never seen a more fitting place than this maelstrom of loyality, treachery, honesty and perfidiousness that sucks you into an extremely captivating account of the heroes who have become cultural icons.

At the end you will feel with them, and have witnessed the rise and fall of one of the most important epochs of Chinese history. A must-read, even if it's difficult at the beginning than modern novels.

And when you're done the other classical Chinese texts wait for you, which are less complicated but even more entertaining. Please select a specific package to create a widget for:. Sign In. Home Discussions Workshop Market Broadcasts. Change language. Install Steam. Your Store Your Store. Categories Categories.

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