Romance Of The Three Kingdoms

TheHarkonnen said:

Well, what else is fictional in the Three Kingdoms novel. If someone could answer these:
1. I know Diao Chan wasn't a real person, so why then did Lu Bu kill Dong Zhou?

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First I would like to say that Historical information needs evidence of its own to prove it. So eventhrough I would say that Dian chan or Peach Garden are fictional, but there are still some sort of possibility that it might had happened. Of course it is higly unlikely.

Lu Bu killed because Dong Zhuo had a bad temper and would occasionally throw halberds at Lu Bu. Lu Bu had an affair with one of Dong's serving girls and was afraid of being found out.

2. What about Zhuge Liang's calling of the wind? What really happened at the Battle of Chi Bi?

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Zhuge Liang 's calling of the wind is also fictional.

In the battle of ChiBi, eventhrough with overwhelming superiority in numbers, Cao Cao failed seize the initiative. He also sacrificld his mobility by lashing his hundreds of vessels togehter. Cao Cao's troop were not good in naval warfare, and his arrogance made him negligence. The Wu's troops are actually superior in naval warefare, and after realizing that a fire started among boats will spread throughout others. Huang Gai advised Zhou Yu to mount an attack by using ten large vessels filled with oil. So the credit should go to Huang Gai. BTW If Cao Cao did not fled with gather his forces, the Wei would not suffered so much.

3. Was Zhao Yun's rescuing of Liu Chan at Chang Ban also fictional? If so, what really happened?

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In history he did saved Liu Chan, but it has not mentioned anywhere that Zhao Yun had to fight off an army by himself to rescue Liu Shan and Lady Gan. All he did was stay with them and escort them to safety which still is a quick an achievement.

4. Was the Zhuage Liang's Nanman campaign also fictional?

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Zhuge Liang did participate in the nanman campaign. He also did capture Meng Huo 7 times and there is no lies behind it.

5. Was the Battle of Wu Zhang (the battle where Zhuge Liang died and Jiang Wei made everyone retreat) also fictional?

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Zhuge Liang dies at Wu Zhang. Shu armies retreat to Cheng Du. Wei Yan assassinated by Ma Dai.

Thanks for the detailed information KYli.

I have a lot more questions, but those were my five, most concerning ones. So what are you sources from which you get this factual information, if you could please tell me. I would like to know.

Sanguo Zhi by Chen Shou, it was wrote only decades after Wei united the three kingdoms. A lot of Romance of The three kingdoms was based on this book and some chinese operas. Eventhrough Sanguo Zhi is very historical accurate, but since Chen Shou had personal hatred toward Shu-han. He might be somewhat bias. I don't recommend you to read this book unless you are very fluent in Chinese, because it was wrote by old chinese language so it is very difficult. Of course i also got some informations from other sources.

Yeah, I know like one or two words in Chinese. I know absolutely no Chinese writing at all. You mentioned other sources, hopefully in English.

Most of the other sources are Chinese, but you could learn something in the RTK forum and site.

LINKS




The Wikipedia could also be a great help, as long as people don't intention mess up the informations.

Thanks KYli! There is A LOT of information on those websites, but I'm confused. On the Kongming website they have officer biographies but what are the Sanguozhi and Sanguo yanyi? Are they refering to two books or something else? If they are books or something, are they fictional or historical records. I'm hoping you would know, KYli.

TheHarkonnen said:

Thanks KYli! There is A LOT of information on those websites, but I'm confused. On the Kongming website they have officer biographies but what are the Sanguozhi and Sanguo yanyi? Are they refering to two books or something else? If they are books or something, are they fictional or historical records. I'm hoping you would know, KYli.

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They are refering two books. The Sanguozhi was a write by a historian author which is basicly a historical records. And the Sanguo yanyi was more fictional book, the Romance of Three kingdoms is same as Sanguo yanyi.

How can Cao Cao, a decent military strategist, beat Lu Bu, Yuan Shu, Yuan Shao, Zhang Xiu, and Li Jue (When he took over the capital), help beat the Yellow Turbans and Dong Zhou, not beat Wu at Chi Bi?! Above that suffering a major military blow to his forces because he overlooked a simple fire attack?! Was he on drugs or something and history forgot to mention that?! How can someone like him lose so badly?!

TheHarkonnen said:

How can Cao Cao, a decent military strategist, beat Lu Bu, Yuan Shu, Yuan Shao, Zhang Xiu, and Li Jue (When he took over the capital), help beat the Yellow Turbans and Dong Zhou, not beat Wu at Chi Bi?! Above that suffering a major military blow to his forces because he overlooked a simple fire attack?! Was he on drugs or something and history forgot to mention that?! How can someone like him lose so badly?!

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Cao Cao's army wasn't used to fighting naval battles in the south, he was probably also overconfident due to prior victories. Wu commanders Zhou Yu and Huang Gai were fighting on their home turf as well as being much more capable strategists than the likes of Lu Bu. They also had the help of Zhuge Liang who predicted that the prevailing winds would change to blow in the direction of Cao Cao's camp (this is in the story anyways, not sure if it's historically true).

Yeah, but with all of his victories, you would think he would've learned something before Chi Bi. . . like not putting the majority of your army of ships. You can't win them all I guess.