2006 51.12 Alliance

Early Myths of the Three Kingdoms era exist in oral tradition long before the compilation was written. By focusing on the Han Chinese, the story’s popularity grew during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. During the Ming Dynasty, the interest in the plays and novels about this time led to an expansion and reinvention of these stories. The first attempt to combine these stories into a novel was the Sanguozhi Pinghua ( , S ngu zh Pinghu), published between 1321 and 1323. Combined legends and stories of magic and morality to influence the farmers. Elements such as reincarnation and karma were included in this version of history. The “Romance of Three Kingdoms” is traditionally attributed to Luo Guanzhong who lived between 1315 and 1400 (late Yuan era, the early Ming era).Some theories suggest that it was actually written in the mid fifteenth century (in the age Ming), a theory that is developed in the book of Andrew Plaks, Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel. The novel was written in classical Chinese party and was the standard text for 300 years. The author used historical documents, including the “Records of Three Kingdoms by Chen Shou meeting, which covered the period between the Yellow Turbans Rebellion in the 184 to the unification of the three kingdoms under the Jin Dynasty in 280. The novel also includes poetic material of the Tang and Yuan period and its own interpretation of elements such as virtue and legitimacy. It was published in 24 volumes and copied by hand until its first printing in 1522.In the 1660s, during the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, Mao Mon, ) and his son Mao Zonggang ( ) ed the text, setting it to 120 episodes and shortening the title and text . Using poems from other sources was reduced, and many of the speeches of Cao Cao and his advisors and generals. There have been long debates about whether the text is pro or anti Qing Qing. It supplanted the original ion.