Romance of Three Kingdoms, is a Chinese historical fiction novel written in the 14th Century, written by Luo Guan Zhong, if you do the maths, this book is about 600 year old and personally is my favourite novel of all time, because some of the characters in the book are worthy of tears and song of praises.
As an introduction, I should talk about the origin of this epic novel. The novel is based on the historical "three kingdoms" era in China, which took place from 184AD to 281AD. There are all together 1000+ characters in the book, all are real and true people who lived in the era. There are four classical Chinese novels: The water margin, Journey to the west (better know to western audiences as Monkey Magic), Romance of Three kingdoms, and the Dream of Red Chamber. Out of the four classical novels, only Romance of three kingdoms is based on real history, but there is a saying in China that, Romance of three kingdoms, is 70% fact and 30% fiction. This is definitely so because there are some minor elements of supernatural scenes.
Romance of Three Kingdoms is probably the most famous novel in China, or in East Asia. Now days, it is starting to be spread into the western world. In 2009 the movie "Red Cliff" is based on this novel, CCTV made an 84 episode TV series back in 1994, and the Japanese video game company KOEI has made the famous "Dynasty Warriors" series based on this novel as well. Actually, this novel is so famous in East Asia that you can almost go up to any Chinese person and start a conversation with them about the characters and stories from Romance of Three kingdoms, yea, it is that famous. In the commercial world, business people have used this book as a guide for planning their business strategy and using of human resources. Now days, the novel has been translated into English as well, and is quite a heavy tome (or tomes sometimes).
The popularity and the literature value of this book in China, can probably be compared to Shakespeare's play in England. The original Chinese version, is not written in vernacular Chinse, but in classical Chinese, therefore unless your Chinse literacy level is quite high, otherwise it would be very difficult to understand the language and sentences used in the book, especially when it comes to the poetry part, the author tends to use poems to describe battle scenes or characters in the book a lot.
So, what is this book about? Well, the story starts at the end of 184AD, the Han dynasty ruling China was extremely corrupted, after years of famine and unrest, one of the biggest peasant rebellion in Chinese history took place, it was know as the "yellow turban rebellion". This lead to a series of events that gave rise to the power struggle between warlords and heroes with political ambitions. After years of war eventually China was divided amongst three "kingdoms", and lasted until around 280AD when the land was re-united again.
The most interesting thing about this chaotic era is, in times of unrest anyone with good abilities can put their abilities to use to the maximum, depsite their backgrounds. Therefore, in this era we see the most brilliant military strategists, most brave generals, craftiest politicians.etc.. essentially the characters introduced in the book will craft long lasting memories not only because of their abilities, but also their personalities and characters.
The foundamental of Chinse culture and moral values are deeply embedded in this book. The moral values such as loyalty, filial piety, kindness, mercy are displayed lavishly on some of the characters. Personally I think western audiences would find it very hard to understand why some of the characters depicted in the book are so loyal to their king and lords such as they are, but I guess this is because the concept of loyalty and filial piety is not seemed as very important values in the western world. So if you are from western background, and want to explore more about East Asian culture instead of just listening to myths and legends, then this is a good place to begin.
I cannot describe enough how awesome this book is, the characters are memorable and lively, the military struggle, strategy, and the politics are intriguing, the battle scenes are thrilling and exiciting. I have read Lord of the Rings 5 times from the front to the back, and I don't think I will read it again, but Romance of Three Kingdoms, I don't even remember how many times I have read it since I was 13 years old and I will read many many more times in the future.
As a follower of Christ, I find no conflict between the core moral values described in Romance of Three Kingdoms and the life principles taught in the Bible. One of the main theme in this book is about being loyal to the king, a nation or the country. As Christians we know that these things are created by God, so our first priority should be dedicated to God, and because the Bible taught us that it is good to serve our country with loyalty, that's why we should serve our country. However, what if the country we are serving has gone to the wrong direction? For example, what are Christians to do if we find ourselves living in a country like Nazi Germany? Should we continue to give our loyalty blindly to support the wrong cause? In Romance of Three Kingdoms, some of the most well known characters are famous because they choose to serve only the king who is fighting for the righteneous cause, and that is usually the most kind, generous and merciful king who really cares for the people.
Overall, Romance of Three Kingdoms is a fantastic historical novel, if this is your cup of tea then don't miss it.
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