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Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Disciplines:
fiction
history
china
literature/luo guanzhong

Summary

Luo Guanzhong's 14th century historical novel dramatizing the three kingdoms period (220–280 AD) — one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature — depicting the rivalry of Wei, Shu, and Wu through the lives of Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, and Guan Yu.

Core Contribution

Created the canonical narrative of loyalty, betrayal, strategy, and brotherhood that has defined Chinese cultural imagination for seven centuries — Zhuge Liang as the supreme strategist, Guan Yu as the embodiment of martial loyalty, and Cao Cao as the brilliant but ruthless schemer are the archetypes through which Chinese people understand leadership.

Historical Influences

Luo Guanzhong Historical Three Kingdoms records

Intellectual Lineage

Luo Guanzhong Ming dynastyThree Kingdoms period

Allied Works

The Art of War Red Cliff

Contemporaries & Peers

Water MarginOutlaws of the Marsh

Minds Influenced

Chinese cultural imaginationStrategy cultureHistory 102

Intellectual Posterity

Romance of the Three Kingdoms Zhuge LiangGuan YuCao Cao

Discussing

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

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