Three Kingdoms

by Luo Guanzhong (Moss Roberts trans. )

  As Du Yu's banner flew atop Ba Hill,

  Zhang Ti of the south died for his liege.

  The realm was now bereft of kingly guise,

  And yet Zhang Ti refused to compromise.7

  The Jin troops took Niuzhu and penetrated Southland territory. Wang Jun sent news of the victory by swift messengers, and the ruler of Jin, Sima Yan, received it with delight. Jia Chong petitioned: "Our troops have endured hardship away from home for too long. The hostile climate will ruin their health. Let them be recalled while we plan future moves." Zhang Hua said, "Our main force is deep in their lair. The southerners have lost heart, and Sun Hao will be ours within a month. To recall our forces now and squander all we have achieved would be a pity indeed." Before the ruler of Jin could respond, Jia Chong denounced Zhang Hua: "You take no cognizance of the time or the setting, but in a wanton quest for glory would ruin our fighting men. Your execution would not suffice to satisfy the empire." Sima Yan said, "It is our view as well. Zhang Hua is merely agreeing with us. Is this debate necessary?" At that moment Du Yu's bulletin arrived. The ruler of Jin studied it and then approved the swift completion of the invasion. The ruler of Jin, having no further doubt, issued the invasion order. Wang Jun and the other commanders received the mandate and advanced in force by land and sea to thunderous volleys of drums. The southerners surrendered at the sight of the banners of Jin.8

  Informed of the surrenders, Sun Hao turned pale with fright. His officials said, "The northern troops draw nearer every day. Soldiers and commoners are giving up without a fight. What shall we do?" "Why won't they fight?" Sun Hao asked. The officials responded, "Today's disaster is wholly the fault of Cen Hun. We appeal to Your Majesty to execute him. We will leave the city and fight the foe to the finish." Sun Hao said, "How can a single palace favorite ruin a kingdom?" "Has Your Majesty not seen what Huang Hao did to the Riverlands?" the officials cried. Without waiting for the ruler's command, they stormed into the royal quarters, hacked Cen Hun to pieces, and fed on his raw flesh.9

  Tao Jun petitioned the ruler: "The warships in my command are too small. I need twenty thousand men on large ships to break the enemy." Sun Hao approved and selected troops from the Royal Guard to follow Tao Jun and meet the invaders upstream. Sun Hao also chose Forward Army General Zhang Xiang to move sailors downstream. As these two commanders were assigning men to their boats, a storm broke from the northwest, throwing the southern flags and banners down into the holds. The men refused to embark and fled on all sides, leaving Zhang Xiang and a few score of soldiers to face the enemy.

  The Jin general Wang Jun hoisted sail and came downriver. Passing Three Mountains, the boatmaster said, "The wind and current are too strong against us. Let's wait until the wind spends itself." Wang Jun drew his sword and demanded, "The City of Stones is within our grasp. Why stop now?" He ordered the drums to roll and the fleet to sail on.

  The Southland general Zhang Xiang led his troops forth and requested permission to surrender. Wang Jun said, "If your surrender is genuine, then serve as my vanguard and do what deeds of merit you can." Zhang Xiang returned to his ship and proceeded directly to the City of Stones, where he demanded that the gates be opened to the army of Jin.

  When Sun Hao heard that Jin troops had entered the City of Stones, he prepared to cut his throat. His private secretary, Hu Zhong, and the director of the palace officials, Xue Rong, petitioned: "Perhaps Your Majesty should follow the model set by Liu Shan, now lord of Anle." Sun Hao approved the suggestion. Accompanied by a coffin, his hands tied behind him, Sun Hao led his civil and military officials into the presence of Wang Jun, and there before the army he tendered his allegiance in surrender. Wang Jun freed him, burned the coffin, and accorded him the treatment of a prince. A Tang poet was moved to write these lines:

  Jin's tall ships subdued the Riverlands;

  The kingly air of Jinling ebbed away.10

  The thousand links sank to the riverbed;

  One flag of surrender rose above Stone City.

  How often man must grieve for what has passed;

  The cold streams run below the changeless hills.

  Today the king has no home but the world,

  His battlements forlorn in a reed-bare autumn.

  And so the Southland was transferred to the realm of Jin: transferred to Jin were its four provinces, forty-three districts, three hundred and thirteen counties, five hundred and twenty-three thousand householders, thirty-two thousand officials, two hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, two million three hundred thousand children and elders, two million eight hundred thousand bushels of grain, more than five thousand ships, and more than five thousand women of the royal harem. The transfer of power completed, circulars were issued to reassure the population, and the granaries, treasuries, and armories were sealed.

  The next day Tao Jun's army disintegrated without having joined battle. The prince of Langye, Sima Zhou, and Wang Rong's main force both arrived and celebrated the achievement of Wang Jun. The following day Du Yu himself arrived and rewarded the armies lavishly. He also unsealed the granaries to relieve the southern population. As a result, the southerners settled down into their occupations—with one exception. The governor of Jianping, Wu Yan, refused to submit and defiantly defended his city. But finally, hearing of the fall of the Southland, he too submitted.

  Wang Jun sent a memorial to the capital announcing the victory. At court, learning that the Southland had been recovered by the empire, liege and liege men drank one another's health in a general celebration. The ruler of Jin grasped the cup and said, tears flowing, "The credit for this day goes to Imperial Guardian Yang Hu. If only he had lived to see it!"

  Southland Flying Cavalry Commander Sun Xiu withdrew from court. Facing south, he wept and said, "Long ago when Sun Ce was in his prime, he founded this estate though he was a mere commandant. Today Sun Hao has thrown it away with his own hands. True, indeed, the words,

  The blue sky has no end, no end;

  What kind of a man has done this!"11

  Meanwhile, Wang Jun had brought his forces home to Luoyang and had the former ruler of Wu, Sun Hao, moved there so that he could come before the sovereign of Jin. Sun Hao ascended the royal hall and touched his head to the ground to acknowledge his loyalty. The Emperor granted him a seat and said, "This seat has been waiting for you for some time." Sun Hao replied, "I, your vassal, had a similar seat waiting in the south for Your Majesty." The Emperor laughed. Jia Chong asked Sun Hao, "They say that when you ruled the south, you often gouged out men's eyes and peeled the skin from their faces. What kind of a punishment is that?" Sun Hao answered, "It is for vassals who assassinate their lieges or for malicious liars and renegades." Jia Chong sat silent and chagrined. The Emperor enfeoffed Sun Hao as lord of Guiming and invested his descendants as palace courtiers; all high ministers surrendering with Sun Hao were made honorary lords. Prime Minister Zhang Ti having died in battle, his descendants received fiefs. Wang Jun was made Commanding General Who Guides the Kingdom. The remaining commanders were duly elevated and rewarded.

  Thereafter, the three kingdoms came under the rule of the Jin Emperor, Sima Yan, who laid the foundation for a unified realm, thereby fulfilling the saying, "The empire, long united, must divide, and long divided, must unite." Liu Shan, the Illustrious Emperor of the Eastern Han, had passed away in the seventh year of the Jin reign period Tai Shi, "Magnificent Inception" (a. d. 271). Cao Huan, ruler of Wei, passed away in the first year of Tai An, "Magnificent Peace" (a. d. 302). Sun Hao, ruler of Wu, passed away in the fourth year of Tai Kang, "Magnificent Prosperity" (a. d. 283).12 All died natural deaths.

  A poet of later times wrote this ballad in the old style marking the highlights of the era:

  As Gao Zu entered Xianyang, sword in hand,

  Han's fiery sun climbed the Tree of Dawn.

  Then dragonlike Guang Wu restored Han's rule,

  And the solar crow soared to the noon of sky.

  But when this great realm passed on to Xiandi
,

  The fiery disc set in the Pool of Night.

  He Jin's folly sparked the eunuchs' coup,

  And Dong Zhuo came and seized the halls of state.

  Wang Yun formed a plan and struck the rebel down,

  But Li Jue and Guo Si rose up in arms.

  Across the land rebellions seethed and swarmed

  As vicious warlords swooped down on all sides.

  The house of Sun emerged beyond the Jiang.

  In the north the clan of Yuan held sway.

  To the west Liu Yan and Zhang ascended.

  Liu Biao's legions camped in Jing and Xiang.

  Zhang Yan and Lu were Hanzhong's overlords;

  Defending Xiliang, Ma Teng and Han Sui.

  Tao Qian of Xu, Zhang Xiu, and Gongsun Zan

  Cut bold figures in their several zhou.

  Cao Cao took power, Xiandi's minister,

  Drawing valiant men with arts of peace and war.

  Xiandi in his thrall, Cao ruled the lords

  And with his martial hosts controlled the north.

  "Twin Mulberry" Xuande, descendant of the throne,

  Leagued with Guan and Zhang to save Xiandi.

  He scrambled round the realm (he had no home),

  His forces scant, a stranger wandering.

  Thrice Xuande's ardent quest led to Nanyang,

  Where Sleeping Dragon unveiled Han's partition:

  "First take Jingzhou, next the Riverlands;

  On that rich region, base your own royal stand.

  "Near death in Baidi, having reigned three years,

  Bei sadly placed his son in Kongming's care.

  By six offensives from the hills of Qi

  Kongming sought to change Han's destiny.

  But the time of Han had run—could he not tell? —

  That night his master star fell past the hills.

  Jiang Wei alone still strove with might and main:

  Nine times more he fought the north—in vain.

  Zhong Hui and Deng Ai next led armies west:

  And to the Cao, Han's hills and streams now passed.

  Cao Pi, Cao Rui, Fang, Mao, and briefly, Huan—

  The Sima took the empire in their turn.

  Cao's abdication changed the face of all;

  No mighty battles marked the Southland's fall.

  Three kings no more—Chenliu, Guiming, Anle.13

  The fiefs and posts must now be filled anew.

  The world's affairs rush on, an endless stream;

  A sky-told fate, infinite in reach, dooms all.

  The kingdoms three are now the stuff of dream,

  For men to ponder, past all praise or blame.14

  FINIS

  AFTERWORD: ABOUT THREE KINGDOMS

  Moss Roberts

  HISTORICAL ORIGINS: THE PERIOD AND THE NOVEL

  If any literary work captures the drama of Chinese history, it is Three Kingdoms. This historical novel, dating from the early or mid-Ming period, tells the story of the fall of the Han dynasty and the division of its empire into three warring states at the turn of the third century, a. d. The Chinese of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), having ended Mongol rule, looked back to the Han, China's longest and mightiest dynasty, as a model of imperial order. The Han had stability in its ruling house, a powerful, centralized bureaucracy, and cohesive organization of its territory. The Ming founder had for these and other reasons publicly lauded the Han founder. However, the fall of the Han also held important lessons for the Ming; foremost among them, perhaps, was that disunity invites conquest.

  In China Three Kingdoms has given mythic status to the century it chronicles (a. d. 168-280). In a somewhat similar way, Shakespeare's historical plays chronicling the reigns of Richard II to Richard III have transformed the century from 1377 to 1485 for Western audiences. During the Ming Three Kingdoms must have attracted many readers. The 1494 preface to the first printed edition of 1522 says that "when the text was completed, gentlemen and scholars with a keen interest [in the subject] competed in transcribing copies for the convenience of readers." During the following centuries the novel grew in popularity even though it did not always have official approval. In the twentieth century Three Kingdoms, despite its length and chronologically remote subject matter, commands a universal audience in China; thus the novel has become an integral part of Chinese culture. Moreover, Three Kingdoms has been widely read in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. In part, its popularity is due to the fact that in the four nations of Asia directly influenced by Confucianism, history is the main concern of the respective cultures.

  Three Kingdoms describes China's traditional political culture and its struggle to define its political form, transporting the reader from the highest councils of dynastic power to the lowest fringes of society, from the capital and key provinces to the edges of the empire and beyond. It is a tale of China itself in its infinite variety, a tale peopled with kings and courtiers, commanders and scholars, magicians and peasant rebels. Women seem to play a small part, but their roles have the utmost significance. The novel offers a startling and unsparing view of how power is wielded, how diplomacy is conducted, and how wars are planned and fought; and the novel has in turn influenced the ways the Chinese think about power, diplomacy, and war. Three Kingdoms, like all of China's major novels, offers Western readers an understanding of China from the perspective of the Chinese themselves.

  Three Kingdoms tells of one epoch-marking dynastic cycle: the fall of the Han dynasty, the subsequent division of its empire into three kingdoms—Wei, Wu, and Shu—in a. d. 220, and the reunification of the realm in a. d. 280 under a new ruling house, the Jin. The novel covers one hundred and thirteen years, from a. d. 168 to a. d. 280, a time of crisis and dissolution in Western history that spans the end of the Roman era under Marcus Aurelius and the beginning of the Byzantine under Diocletian and then Constantine. But the novel's main concern is the reign of the last Han emperor, Xian (r. a. d. 189-220). To this period the author devotes two-thirds of his work, the first eighty chapters; he describes in rich detail the final crisis of the four-hundred-year Han dynasty culminating in the displacement of its ruling house (guojia), the Liu, by the Cao family. The last third of the novel, the final forty chapters, deals with the subsequent Three Kingdoms or Three Dynasties (Sanguo) period; the founding of the Jin and the reunification of a. d. 280 is recounted in chapter 120.1

  This "dynastic cycle," the pattern of many eras in Chinese history, is epitomized in Three Kingdoms' opening line: "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide." One hundred and twenty chapters later the tale ends with the line reversed: "The empire, long united, must divide; long divided, must unite." The history of this period of crisis and resolution is both unique and universal—unique for the heroic figures that dominate it, universal for the questions it must address. How is dynastic rule established and maintained? How and why does it fail? What are the qualities of an ideal emperor (di or tianzi, Son of Heaven), an ideal minister (xiang), an ideal vassal (chen)? What is the relation between the ruling house and the empire? If the empire loses its unity, how is it regained?

  Some twelve hundred years after the historical events, the novel Three Kingdoms was written. In Chinese the title is Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi. The significance of this title and its variants will be taken up shortly. Scholarly attempts to date the work have produced various suggestions, ranging from as early as the Northern Song to as late as the mid-Ming.2 The oldest complete printed edition, published in 1522, has a preface dated 1494 in addition to its own preface. The author of the later preface says that "the text was so voluminous and a good edition of it so hard to find that I had requested that it be put in print and widely made public." This suggests the possible existence of an earlier printed edition but more probably refers to manuscript copies, of which there must have been many. The 1494 preface cited above says, "Gentlemen and scholars... competed in transcribing copies for the convenience of readers." Furthermore, interlinear notes accompany
ing the 1522 edition seem to postdate the text itself; this too suggests an earlier date for the text. The question is, how much earlier?

  The dating problem is complicated by the problem of authorship. The novel has been traditionally assigned to the late Yuan-early Ming (say, 1350-90), and many accept this approximation, if only because the presumed author, Luo Guanzhong, lived at that time. Luo Guanzhong is the author named in the 1522 edition, and his accepted dates are 1330? -1400? —though recent research has convincingly limited his date of birth to the period 1315-18.3 Thus, there is a gap of about one hundred years between the presumed date of Luo Guanzhong's death and the 1494 preface. And there is no record prior to this preface connecting Luo and Three Kingdoms. To establish Luo Guanzhong's authorship therefore requires postulating an earlier text that has been lost. Put another way, those who argue that the 1522 text is the earliest version as well as the earliest printed edition of the novel cannot accept Luo Guanzhong as the real author.4

  A number of modern and contemporary Chinese scholars who tie the work to the end of the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty or the early Ming see it as a product of the great Han nationalistic movement that drove the Mongols from the northern heartland (zhongyuan) and in 1368 established the first Chinese dynasty—the Ming—to occupy the heartland since the fall of the Northern Song in 1127. In this view the novel culminates a tradition, which goes back to the Song, of using the Han dynasty to symbolize Han nationality in periods of conflict with the non-Han nations of the north, such as the Mongols and their predecessors. This important issue, mentioned here only in connection with the dating problem, will be taken up later in this essay.

  At the present time, a Ming author and a Ming audience—either "early" or "mid" — seems likeliest. Hence, Three Kingdoms may be called a Ming novel whose subject matter is Han. Its Ming aspect is literary; its Han aspect is historical. Everything about the novel may be considered from these two angles. As a literary work, Three Kingdoms spans three genres, epic, drama, and novel: it has the scale and mythic atmosphere of the epic; the action and dialogue of the drama; and the texture and design of the novel. If comparison to Western literary works is attempted, it may be said that Three Kingdoms bears some resemblance to parts of the Iliad, to certain of Shakespeare's historical plays (perhaps the Henry VI trilogy), and to Malory's Morte d'Arthur or certain novels by Sir Walter Scott. As a history, however, Three Kingdoms has a large body of nonliterary material taken from various historical sources. The twofold nature of the novel prompted the Qing scholar Zhang Xuecheng to remark that if Journey to the West (Xiyou ji) was purely imaginative and the Chronicles of the Kingdoms (Lieguozhi) purely factual and historical, then Three Kingdoms was "seven parts fact and three parts fiction."5 The present translator used the subtitle China's Epic Drama in an earlier abridged edition, but perhaps "historical novel" is a better description as it combines the Ming and Han aspects of the work; the phrase may also serve as a translation of the term yanyi.6 (In his 1925 translation of the novel, C. H. Brewitt-Taylor interpreted yanyi as "romance." This word has not been used in this translation because it denotes a world removed from reality. )