Three Kingdoms is a Chinese "novel" written in the 12th century based on the events of the so-called "Warring States" period of Chinese history (that is, the 3rd century). It is extremely famous in China, in fact, the Rough Guide to China claims pretty much every Chinese knows the story. Personally, I'd never heard of it before I started preparing for a holiday there in 2004. (Yes, this is also a posting that's been sitting around and suddenly got posted now.)

The Chinese clearly take a long view of history, and you can see this right from the famous first sentence of the book, which (in the translation I read) goes: "Long united, the empire must divide. Long divided, it must unite." There you have it; the ebb and flow of Chinese history through the millennia, captured in two brief sentences. The eternal pattern of Chinese history is the establishment of a strong dynasty, which slowly decays over the generations, until the empire breaks apart into smaller, squabbling kingdoms. Eventually, some strong figure emerges to unite the kingdoms into a new empire, and the cycle starts over. (There is nothing specifically Chinese in this; you can see it elsehwere, too.)

The story begins at the end of such a cycle, as the empire is falling apart under a weak emperor. Palace eunuchs rule through intrigue, and peasant rebellions threaten. The novel follows a bewildering profusion of characters over two-three generations until the empire is secured under a new emperor. The consequence is that by the time you are two thirds through the book, all the initial characters are dead, which makes it a little hard to decide who might be the main character.

Most of the way through the book the focus is on Liu Bei, a nobleman who swears an oath to unite the empire together with two friends at the beginning of the book. He eventually establishes a kingdom of his own, which after his death swallows the rest of the empire, and Liu Bei then becomes known as founder of the new dynasty, and, the author implies, the cycle is ready to start over.

I find it curious that while I thought Liu Bei was the main character, and Cao Cao simply one villain among many, my hosts in Beijing considered Cao Cao the main character. Given that they are Chinese and have a Chinese education they probably reflect the Chinese consensus much better than my opinion after a single read of the book.

The book is an interesting read in many different ways, both as a story in its own right, and because of the light it sheds on ancient Chinese culture. For the most part, this light is indirect, in the sense that the author clearly assumes that the reader is a contemporary (ie, 12th century) Chinese, with often startling results for present-day readers. To take one example, at the beginning of the book, one of the eunuchs responsible for the current misrule is fleeing from a revolt, and winds up spending the night with a farmer who has no food to give him. Desperate to serve this high official the farmer slaughters and cooks his own wife, and serves her to the eunuch. This is, as far as I can tell, considered highly laudable by the author, though modern audiences might feel differently.

Another thing that stands out very clearly is the military sophistication of the Chinese compared with, say, contemporary Europe. The plot is full of complicated tactical stratagems, high-tech weaponry, and the reader is clearly expected to have some understanding of the logistics of contemporary warfare. In fact, good tacticians and advisors were clearly highly prized in 12th century China. At the same time it must be admitted that this is not exactly a realistic history. In at least one case, a single person (one of Liu Bei's two friends) scares away an entire army simply by shouting very loud...

Anyway, the book is highly recommended, even though it is definitely a substantial read (my edition is 2400 pages). I liked it enough to try buying Water Margin, another "novel" in the same vein, and apparently Mao's favourite book, during my last visit in Beijing. It's about as long as Three Kingdoms, and I could only find a 6-volume hardback edition which had alternating Chinese and English pages. This is useful for those who want to learn Chinese (or English), but would have messed up my luggage allowance on the flight home completely, so I had to leave it.