So ended the division of the land into three kingdoms, which were reunited into one empire under the rule of Sima Yan of the Jin Dynasty. That is what is meant by “Unity succeeds division and division follows unity. One is bound to be replaced by the other after a long span of time. This is the way of things in the world.”
The last emperors of the three kingdoms in time all died natural deaths: Liu Shan of Shu died in the seventh year of the Jin reign period Tai Shi (A.D. 271); Cao Huan of Wei, in the first year of Tai An (A.D. 302); and Sun Hao of Wu, in the fourth year of Tai Kang (A.D. 283).
A poet has summarized the history of these troubled years in the poem below:
It was the dawning of a glorious day
When Liu Bang entered Xianyang, sword in hand.
Then Guang-Wu the imperial rule was restored
Like a golden bird soaring to the sky.
Alas, Prince Xian succeeded in full time
And saw the setting of the sun of power!
He Jin, the tactless, fell beneath the blows
Of palace minions. Dong Zhuo the tyrant
Then ruled the court. And Wang Yun devised
A plan and triumphed in slaying the rebel.
But Li and Guo lit up the flame of war
And brigands swarmed like ants through all the land.
Then rose ambitious lords from every side.
The Suns carved out their land east of the Yangtze;
The Yuans strove to make Henan their own.
Liu Yan and son seized the west of Ba and Shu;
His kinsman Liu Biao laid hold of Jing and Xiang.
Zhang Yan and Zhang Lu in turn held Nanzheng by force;
Ma Teng and Han Sui defended Xiliang,
Each of three others seized upon a fief.
Tao Qian, Zhang Xiu, and Gongsun Zan, the bold.
But above all Cao Cao the strong
Became prime minister, and to his side,
Drew many able men. He swayed the court
And held all the feudal lords in his hand;
By force of arms he controlled the north
Against all rivals. Of imperial stock
Was born Liu Bei, who with sworn brothers two
Pledged an oath that the Hans should be restored.
He wandered homeless east and west for years,
With few officers and a meager force.
How sincere were his three visits to Nanyang,
To see the Sleeping Dragon, who foretold
The split of the empire into three states.
“Take Jingzhou first and then Shu,” he advised,
“A fitting base to build an empire on.”
Alas! Liu ruled there only three short years,
Sadly he left his son to Kongming’s care.
To reunite the empire under Han
Six times Kongming led his men to Qishan,
But the days of Han had come to an end.
One midnight his star fell into the vale.
Jiang Wei struggled alone with all his might
But his nine efforts against the north were in vain.
Zhong Hui and Deng Ai advanced by two routes
And thus fell Han’s last stronghold to Wei.
Five sons of Cao sat on the dragon throne,
Soon Sima snatched the scepter from Cao Huan.
Before the Altar of Abdication mist rose;
Beneath the Stone City no waves lapped.
The former rulers of Wei, Shu, and Wu
Became Dukes Chenliu, Guiming, and Anle.
All down the ages rings the note of change,
For fate so rules it—none escapes its sway.
The kingdoms three have vanished as a dream,
Pondering o’er this we can only grieve.
Footnote
* The ancient Chinese measured time by a sixty-year cycle. The year of geng-zi is the thirty-seventh year in the cycle. This is the year A.D. 280 by the western calendar.
About the Authors
Ron Iverson first visited China in 1984 as the personal representative of the Mayor of Chicago as part of a Sister Cities program. For the past 30 years he has continued to regularly visit China and has founded joint business ventures with Chinese partners and taught Business Strategy at Tongji University in Shanghai. He also personally arranged the first ever exhibition of Forbidden City artifacts from the palace Museum in Beijing to tour the US.
Early in his visits to China, Iverson discovered The Three Kingdoms and came to realize the enormous cultural significance the Chinese people place in the book. Believing that one needed to be familiar with the principles revealed in the book in order to find business or political success in China, and being dissatisfied with existing translations, Iverson decided to fund and edit a new translation aimed towards delivering the thrill of a contemporary novel while imparting understanding of a key aspect of Chinese culture.
Yu Sumei is a professor of English at East China Normal University. She has translated several English language books into Chinese and is the first native Chinese speaker to translate The Three Kingdoms into English. She invested a total of two years into working on this new translation of The Three Kingdoms, spending the time on sabbatical in New York with her daughter, who typed the translation out as she completed it.
The Tuttle Story
“Books to Span the East and West”
Many people are surprised when they learn that the world’s largest publisher of books on Asia had its humble beginnings in the tiny American state of Vermont. The company’s founder, Charles Tuttle, came from a New England family steeped in publishing, and his first love was books—especially old and rare editions.
Tuttle’s father was a noted antiquarian dealer in Rutland, Vermont. Young Charles honed his knowledge of the trade working in the family bookstore, and later in the rare books section of Columbia University Library. His passion for beautiful books—old and new—never wavered throughout his long career as a bookseller and publisher.
After graduating from Harvard, Tuttle enlisted in the military and in 1945 was sent to Tokyo to work on General Douglas MacArthur’s staff. He was tasked with helping to revive the Japanese publishing industry, which had been utterly devastated by the war. When his tour of duty was completed, he left the military, married a talented and beautiful singer, Reiko Chiba, and in 1948 began several successful business ventures.
To his astonishment, Tuttle discovered that postwar Tokyo was actually a book-lover’s paradise. He befriended dealers in the Kanda district and began supplying rare Japanese editions to American libraries. He also imported American books to sell to the thousands of GIs stationed in Japan. By 1949, Tuttle’s business was thriving, and he opened Tokyo’s very first English-language bookstore in the Takashimaya Department Store in Ginza, to great success. Two years later, he began publishing books to fulfill the growing interest of foreigners in all things Asian.
Though a westerner, Tuttle was hugely instrumental in bringing a knowledge of Japan and Asia to a world hungry for information about the East. By the time of his death in 1993, he had published over 6,000 books on Asian culture, history and art—a legacy honored by Emperor Hirohito in 1983 with the “Order of the Sacred Treasure,” the highest honor Japan can bestow upon non-Japanese.
The Tuttle company today maintains an active backlist of some 1,500 titles, many of which have been continuously in print since the 1950s and 1960s—a great testament to Charles Tuttle’s skill as a publisher. More than 60 years after its founding, Tuttle Publishing is more active today than at any time in its history, still inspired by Charles Tuttle’s core mission—to publish fine books to span the East and West and provide a greater understanding of each.
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The Three Kingdoms, Volume 3: Welcome the Tiger: An Epic Chinese Tale of Loyalty and War in a Dynamic New Translation Page 67