SuaveG – The Gentle Path

Chinese mythology, folktales, and literature

  • The Recruitment Notice: A Fateful Encounter [Three Kingdoms]

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    Juan

    In the first chapter of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the peasant rebel army advances toward Youzhou. The governor of Youzhou, Liu Yan, fearing that his forces are outnumbered, issues a notice recruiting volunteers for a righteous militia.

  • Yellow Scarves Uprising[Three Kingdoms]

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    Juan

    The Yellow Scarves Uprising (184–185 AD) serves as the logical starting point and historical backdrop for the narrative of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The specific event that shattered the “ordered world” of the late Eastern Han Dynasty and plunged it into “chaos” was the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

  • Two Serpents: One White, One Green[Three Kingdoms]

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    Juan

    The first chapter of Romance of the Three Kingdoms skillfully juxtaposes two stories about “emperors and serpents”: one is the legend of the founding emperor, Liu Bang of the Han Dynasty, slaying a white serpent to rise in rebellion, and the other is the omen of the last emperor, Emperor Ling of Han, fainting…

  • The Cycle of Division and Unification [Three Kingdoms]

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    Juan

    The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.

  • The opening poem by Yang Shen [Three Kingdoms]

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    Juan

    The Ming Dynasty novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms exists in many different editions. When Mao Zonggang and his father revised and commented on Romance of the Three Kingdoms during the Qing Dynasty, they placed the poem “Lin Jiang Xian” by the Ming Dynasty poet Yang Shen at the beginning of the novel as…

  • About Three Kingdoms

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    Juan

    Romance of the Three Kingdoms (or simply the Three Kingdoms) is one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels, authored by Luo Guanzhong during the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties. Its full title is Sanguozhi Tongsu Yanyi (Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms).