>Most hyped up period in Chinese history
>Best parts are actually during the final phase of the Han dynasty starting with the yellow turban rebellion in 184 AD up to the abdication of the last Han emperor in 220 AD.
>The actual three kingdoms period is from 220-280 AD and only exciting for a little while until it becomes a slog
>When China is finally united it's not the three Kingdoms of Wei, Shu Han, and Wu but the Jin which usurped the Wei and conquered the others
>United China under the Jin doesn't last long before the North is lost to barbarians and the remaining Jin flee South
Well that was Anticlimactic.
Ok Zhang.
>historical event ends in an anticlimactic fashion
many such cases
should've called it the romance of the fall of Han tbh, the part with the actual three kingdoms is dull by comparison
> Most hyped up period in Chinese history
That’s because of Japs.
>Cao Cao
>actually pronounced Chow Chow all along
what
Isn't it pronounced as T'sao T'sao
why the fuck do so many people struggle with this, we have this sound in english
say the word "cats" now say "ts" now say "tsao"
It was kino until the death of Cao Cao the only human among the bugmen
It's funny because technically speaking they should be called the 3 empires since they all proclaimed themselves emperor.
For a long period of time, the 3 lords called themselves kings or dukes or just lords of the former Han empire.
In Chinese historiography if you failed to reunify the realm, you're not a meme Dynasty. Period gets called 3 Kingdoms as a result.
Also the 3 Dynasties were founded by people enfeoffed as Kings.
-Wei: founded by Cao Pi, son of Cao Cao, who was enfeoffed by the last Han Emperor with the title of "King of Wei." Cao Cao died, Cao Pi didn't believe in his dad's mission of serving the Han and declares his own Wei Dynasty, with him claiming the Emperor.
-Wu: Cao Cao convinced the last Han Emperor to enfeoff Sun Quan as "King of Wu" to maybe get him to surrender. Backfires when Sun declares the Wu Dynasty after Cao Pi calls himself Emperor, directly challenging Wei.
-Shu: Supposedly the last Han Emperor enfeoffed Liu Bei as "King of Hanzhong" with a secret mission to "save" the Han Dynasty. So Liu Bei considered himself the true heir of the Han Dynasty, and the other 2 dynasties, pretenders. The other homosexuals didn't recognize this, with the Wei Dynasty insultingly enfeoffed Liu with the title of "King of Shu" based solely on his physical address (Sichuan is located in formerly Ba-Shu territory)
>you're not a meme Dynasty. Period gets called 3 Kingdoms as a result.
there are plenty of small dynasties referred to as dynasties instead of kingdoms
No.
>-Wu: Cao Cao convinced the last Han Emperor to enfeoff Sun Quan as "King of Wu" to maybe get him to surrender. Backfires when Sun declares the Wu Dynasty after Cao Pi calls himself Emperor, directly challenging Wei.
No. Cao Pi as Emperor of Wei gave Sun Quan the King of Wu fief title in 222 during their negotiations for peaceful reunification, as Sun Quan at the time was busy being at war with Liu Bei. However, after Sun Quan decisively defeated Liu Bei, he decided on restoring alliance with Liu Bei to oppose Wei. Sun Quan declared himself Emperor in 229.
>-Shu: Supposedly the last Han Emperor enfeoffed Liu Bei as "King of Hanzhong" with a secret mission to "save" the Han Dynasty. So Liu Bei considered himself the true heir of the Han Dynasty, and the other 2 dynasties, pretenders. The other homosexuals didn't recognize this, with the Wei Dynasty insultingly enfeoffed Liu with the title of "King of Shu" based solely on his physical address (Sichuan is located in formerly Ba-Shu territory)
No, Liu Bei declared himself King of Hanzhong in 219 (admittedly phrased as a "pettion" to the Emperor of Han to take the title, but come on), then declared himself Emperor of Han in 221. He never received any fief titles from Wei. They just called his state Shu in reference to the geographic location without any official fief title.
>ok zhang
Is that you?
Pleb opinion. The meltdown in Wu after Sun Quan dies is pure kino.
>Wei ends up in the same predicament as the Han dynasty that they displaced, ruled by corrupt Eunuchs before unscrupulous coattail riders subvert them from within
>Shu Han just up and decides that they’re tired of fighting and want the creature comforts of peace back
>Wu gets taken over by les enfant terribles who are completely lacking in the compassion and fairness that defined their forebears
>they’re all assholes and none of them deserved to rule China
>Jin takes over and it’s situation normal: all fucked up
It was all downhill after author insert Zhuge Liang died. Once he was out of the narrative the author was basically going through the motions until the end, but in a weird way it ends up being a fittingly cynical end to a deeply cynical story
>the author was basically going through the motions until the end, but in a weird way it ends up being a fittingly cynical end to a deeply cynical story
What? The Novel ends with China unified under the Jin Dynasty. That's a happy ending. It doesn't go ahead and detail the War of the Eight Princes and the invasion of the 5 barbarians
There’s nothing really happy about it, the implications were that the conflict weakened China tremendously in the long term and that the Jin weren’t exactly good guys they were sneaky opportunists who yanked Cao Cao’s prize away from his descendants and their own unity would prove to be similarly short lived.
The novel itself doesn’t mention these things but anyone who knows the history knows what the future actually holds and it is not a fairy tale ending
>The novel itself doesn’t mention these things
exactly.
>but anyone who knows the history knows what the future actually holds and it is not a fairy tale ending
you're reading into it because you know what comes after. The novel literally starts off with
>the empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide
It ignores the early collapse of the Jin as seen by the long divided and long united parts
The Jin victory was hardly the “happy” ending. The happy ending would have been noble and righteous Liu Bei reuniting China by the power of brotherhood and Confucian purity. Sima Yi was portrayed as treacherous, cowardly, unscrupulous, and morally flexible, and let us not forget the time he vowed to a general that he would dress up as a woman if he was wrong about something (he wasn’t, but it’s still a weird flex not in keeping with traditional Confucian values).
The Jin victory was more like the “and this is the moment when everything started going wrong for the country” ending, just like Gibbon’s Decline and Fall implies a future dark age of barbarism and papist oppression until the good wholesome and Protestant British Empire came along and picked up the torch of civilization left behind by the well intentioned but ultimately flawed Romans. Luo Guangzong was writing to an audience that was wondering how the Han Chinese had lost its way after being cucked by various foreign powers until reuniting under the then-new Ming dynasty
>The Jin victory was hardly the “happy” ending
it was. The Jin are considered a legitimate dynasty.
>The happy ending would have been noble and righteous Liu Bei reuniting China
It's a Historical novel. So it follows the events of history.
>So it follows the events of history.
You know the novel has entire battles that are completely fictional, right?
>You know the novel has entire battles that are completely fictional, right?
So? It follows the broad historical events. Making up a few fake battles is different from creating a fanfic where Liu Bei wins
How is it any different from spinning tales of Liu Bei’s goodness just for the sake of demonstrating the tragedy of his defeat?
Following the major events and general outlines of the Three Kingdoms era is what makes Romance of the Three Kingdoms so popular. Characterizing Liu Bei as a bastion of goodness hardly gets in the way of the history. Besides Luo Guanzhong didn't make this shit up by himself. Cao Cao being portrayed as the devil and Liu Bei being the good guy was common for three kingdoms popular media during the Song and Ming dynasties. He just adapted all of this in novel form
My point exactly is that there is a broader context from where the novel is being pulled and placed in. There’s nothing in the Records of Three Kingdoms that would indicate Liu Bei’s character, just regional folk tales that the author collected and compiled, and these prejudices existed for a reason: they imagined Cao Cao as the devil because they saw him as the harbinger of bad times, the imagined Liu Bei as the heroic last stand of traditional Han idealism. The Jin were a legitimate but also let themselves get conquered by foreigners, and the Chinese asked themselves how the strong and virtuous Han Chinese people could let themselves sunk so low
>they imagined Cao Cao as the devil because they saw him as the harbinger of bad times
No Cao Cao was the devil because he acted in a non chinese manner. He political, military, and economic acumen was never in any doubt
It's the most important time in Chinese history because it spelled the end of stability, forever after being wracked with rebellions and schemes. All the good guys lost and it's been a giant clusterfuck ever since. The commoners of Wei should have all defected to Shu and Wu rather than becoming pawns for extravagant dictators.
Anyone know of history books on the sixteen kingdoms, northern and southern dynasties, and the five dynasties and 10 kingdoms periods. These periods of disunity tend to have the most interesting narratives
Maybe if Cao Pei didnt think "HMMMMM" I think my entire clan might be after my position I should use the Sima clan and a few others to break the powerbased of my clan, -_- and then later Caos had no clan support and became easy for Sima Clan and its supporters to just step in (after a bit of this and that)
I mean, the Sima clan did the opposite of that after taking over and it blew up in their face.
Cao Pi did empower his clan, just not his close clan. Cao Pi relied heavily on his distant cousins who were not descendants of Cao Cao and therefore not considered eligible to become Emperor.
Then Sima Yi murdered all those cousins and their families.
Well you have to admit Cao Pi had a point considering how the War of the Eight Princes completely fucked up the Jin dynasty leading to its fall in 316 and flight of the remaining Jin to the South