The site has added some annotations to help readers keep track of events and characters. Interested tropers can find the full text of an older English translation, now in the public domain, here.
And so the three kingdoms contend with one another over the century, and heroes rise and fall in the strife, until the nation is finally reunified.Īnd, as you'd expect from a pivotal work like this, it's managed to gather quite a collection of tropes. All seek to unify the nation for one reason or another, and claim the right to rule for their own. Gradually, out of the chaos, three kingdoms take shape: the kingdom of Shu, led by the virtuous Liu Bei (a distant cousin of the Emperor) and his sworn brothers, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei the kingdom of Wei, led by the scheming Cao Cao and the kingdom of Wu, led by the ambitious Sun family. The tale begins in the last days of the corrupt Han Dynasty, showing how the government and Emperor lost the 'Mandate of Heaven' (天命), and the land fell into anarchy, with various warlords carving out their own territories in a struggle for supremacy.
