Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a Chinese historical novel traditionally attributed to Luo Guanzhong. It draws on history, storytelling, and earlier literary traditions to recount the fall of the Han dynasty and the struggles among the powers of Wei, Shu, and Wu. Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Cao Cao, and Zhuge Liang become figures through whom loyalty, legitimacy, strategy, and ambition are tested. Councils, alliances, journeys, and battles give political change a dramatic human form. The narrative’s long cultural life owes much to these sharply remembered characters and to its continuing concern with the obligations that survive changing fortunes.