3. See Ouyang Jian, "Shilun Sanguozhi tongsu yani de chengshu niandai," in YJJ, p. 291.
4. The Sanguo scholar Liu Zhijian, who accepts Luo Guanzhong as the novel's author, has suggested that the Xinke quanxiang Sanguozhi zhuan in the Beijing Library may reflect a pre-1522 version. See his "Congxin pingjia Sanguo yanyi," in Y]J, p. 4.
5. From Zhang Xuecheng's Zhangshi yishu waibian, cited in ZLHB, pp. 691-92. The entire quote reads: "Other historical novels [yanyi]... record historical facts; the Journal to the West and Jin Ping category is pure fiction. Neither [genre] causes any harm. But Three Kingdoms is seven parts fact and three parts fiction; this causes readers constant confusion over the peach garden oath, and so on. Even scholars and eminent men take such events as [real] precedents.... Fact and fiction should not be scrambled as they are in Three Kingdoms."
6. Three Kingdoms: China's Epic Drama, by Lo Kuan-chung, translated and edited by Moss Roberts (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976).
7. A critique of the Mao edition may be found in Ning Xiyuan's essay, "Maoben Sanguo yanyi zhimiu," Shehui kexue yanjiu, 1983, no. 4: 40-46. An appreciation of the literary merits of the Mao edition may be found in Ye Lang, Zhongguo xiaoshuo meixue (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1982), pp. 120-53.
8. The most common name for the novel, Sanguo yanyi, is an abbreviation. The exact title of the 1522 edition is Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi. Sanguozhi is the title of the official dynastic records (zhi) compiled by Chen Shou (a. d. 233-97). By including the title Sanguozhi in the title of the novel, the novelist acknowledges his debt to the historian Chen Shou. Tongsu is usually translated "popular" ; but judging from how the term is used in the prefaces, it seems to be a verb-object, not an adjectival, compound, and hence should be translated "reaching the masses." The Mao edition, following the "Li Zhuowu" edition of the TS, drops the term tongsu, leaving Sanguozhi yanyi as the complete title. An interpretation of yanyi, literally "continuous development of the significance or the message," is suggested later in this essay.
9. Xuande is Liu Bei's courtesy name or style; hereafter styles will appear in parentheses after personal names. Certain key characters are called by their styles in this translation.
10. SGZ, p. 872. The Chinese is de ren xin.
11. Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shi lüe, cited in ZHLB, p. 523. The Chinese reads zhanghou er siwei. See Lu Hsun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, trans. Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1976), p. 158.
12. In the novel, the Wei-Shu conflict is primary, with Wu controlling the balance; the conflict between Wei and Wu is secondary, and so is the conflict between Shu and Wu. Historically, the conflict between Wei and Wu was primary, and Shu was the lesser factor, though it controlled the balance between Wei and Wu. Making Shu the moral pivot of the tale is an important fictional change; it is a change that echoes the "Spring and Autumn" tradition of history writing, by which Confucius allegedly made the relatively minor kingdom of Lu (his home state) central to his account of the Spring and Autumn era (722 to 481 b. c. ). Because Lu preserved something of the Zhou dynasty's tradition of sagely government, the kingdom could serve as a standard for judging all the figures of the era.
13. TS, p. 574; the entire line is deleted in chapter 60 of the Mao edition. The first phrase, "The empire belongs to no one man but to all" is spoken on six crucial occasions in the TS and dropped each time in Mao's edition. The notes to this translation mark each instance.
14. ZLHB, pp. 691-92.
15. The accepted explanation for Chen Shou's formal acknowledgment of Wei's legitimacy is that he was a subject of the Jin when he wrote the SGZ and that Jin's legitimacy (the Sima received the abdication of the last Cao-Wei emperor in a. d. 265) depended on the legitimacy of Wei's succession to Han. Some scholars, however, have argued that though Chen Shou had to legitimate Wei, he may actually have had some sympathy for Shu. Small signs suggest this possibility. For example, though both the Shu ruler and the Wu ruler are called zhu, the name Bei (of Liu Bei) is marked as taboo (an imperial courtesy) while the name Quan (of Sun Quan) is not so marked. Also, the Shu biographies are placed second, not third, in the SGZ. Further discussion of this matter may be found in William Hung's preface to the SGZ index, Sanguozhi ji Pei zhu zonghe yinde, Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Series, no. 33 (Beiping: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 1938). See Miao Yue et al., Sanguozhi daodu (Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe, 1987), pp. 1-14; and also Liu Jinghua and Hui Ying, "Chen Shou pingjia Zhuge Liang qubi bian," in Chengdushi Zhuge Liang yanjiuhui, ed., Zhuge Liang yan-jiu (Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe, 1985), pp. 192-201.
16. A list of twenty of the sources in Pei's notes that most influenced Luo Guanzhong may be found in Chen Zhouchang, "Sanguo yanyi xingcheng guocheng lunlüe," in YJJ, p. 307. Another important influence on Luo Guanzhong was Liu Yiqing's Shishuo xinyu of a. d. 430, translated by Richard B. Mather as Shih-shuo Hsin-yü: A New Account of Tales of the World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976). Notably, both the Shishuo and Three Kingdoms open with stories about Chen Fan, the scholar who was purged for criticizing the eunuchs. Luo Guanzhong may also have taken a key component of Kongming's character from the Shishuo's most prominent figure, Xie An, who is distinguished by his capacity for yaliang, "grace under pressure," or what Mather calls "cultivated tolerance" and "imperturbability." In addition, a number of strange incidents in Three Kingdoms come from the Shishuo. For a review of the influence of Shishuo on Three Kingdoms, see ZHT, pp. 5-7.
17. See Sun Xun, "Qiantan Sanguo yanyi zhengtong guannian de lishi jinbuxing," in LWJ, pp. 22-23. For information on the Han Jin chunqiu text, which survives only in fragments cited in other works, see Plaks, Four Masterworks, p. 403 n. 144.
18. Shu-Han's Second Ruler, Liu Shan, son of Liu Xuande, surrendered to the Wei army in a. d. 263. In a. d. 265 Sima Yan received the abdication of the last Wei emperor, Cao Huan, and founded a new dynasty called the Jin. In a. d. 280 the Jin accepted the surrender of the Southland, ending the Sun family's rule.
19. SGZ, p. 878.
20. ZZTJ, p. 2095.
21. Another element of this southern Three Kingdoms tradition—amplified in the novel—is heroic Shu. In chapter 118 of the novel, when Shu is about to surrender to Wei, the prince of Beidi (Xuande's grandson) demands that the Second Ruler (Liu Shan) order the kingdom to make a last stand against the northern conquerors to honor the memory of the First Ruler (Liu Xuande). In chapter 119 we find the reversal of the theme, Shu disgraced by the frivolity of Liu Shan (now a captive) before the Jin emperor. Both vignettes come from Xi Zuochi's Han Jin chunqiu; see SGZ, pp. 900-902.
22. For these quotes, see Qiu Zhensheng's short essay, "Cao Cao zai shenme shihou chengwei jianchen?" in ZHT, p. 56. For further information on the persona of Zhuge Liang in the Tang, see the article by Hoyt Cleveland Tillman (Tian Hao), "Zhongguo lishi yishizhong de Zhuge Liang," in Xibei daxue xuebao bianjibu, ed., Zhou Qin Han Tang kaogu yu wenhua guoji xueshu huiyi lun-wenji (Sian: 1988), pp. 133-46.
23. See Ming K. Chan, "The Historiography of the Tzu-chih T'ung-chien: A Survey," Monu-menta Serica 31 (1974-75): 1-38.
24. ZZTJ, pp. 2185-88. Sima Guang may have been implicitly arguing the legitimacy of his own dynasty, whose usurpation of the brief Later Zhou (a. d. 951-60) bore some resemblance to the Wei usurpation of Han. Sima Guang's overriding concern for order and authority led him to legitimate the Wei, but this did not prevent him from recognizing that Cao Cao "nourished in his breast a heart that denied his sovereign." See Cheng Yizhong, "Chongti jiuan shuo Cao Cao," in YJJ, p. 163; also see ZZTJ, p. 2174.
25. See ZHT, p. 58.
26. Liu Zhijian, "Luo Guanzhong weishenme yao fandui Cao Cao?" in his Sanguo yanyi xinlun (Chongqing chubanshe, 1985), pp. 73-76. This article originally appeared in the Guangming ribao for May 25, 1959. See also ZHT, p. 57. For a different view of the Three Kingdoms by a Gin writer, see Jing-shen Tao, The Jurchen in Twelfth Century China, A Study of Sinicization (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976), p. 104. For
Lu You, see Michael S. Duke, Lu You (Boston: Tawyne Publishers, 1977); see pp. 49-53 for the poet's admiration for Du Fu.
27. Zhu Xi, Yupi Zizhi tongjian gangmu (Qin ding siku quanshu ed. ), juan 14, pp. 55-57. A new reign title established during the year retroactively covers the preceding months of that year. Several of the TS chapter titles follow Zhu Xi's redaction of the ZZTJ. For example, the title of the TS equivalent of chapter 80, which recounts the events of a. d. 220-21, adapts Zhu Xi's heading: "Cao Pi usurps the han after deposing Emperor Xian; The king of hanzhong proclaims himself emperor in Chengdu."
28. In 1162 Southern Song armies stopped a Jurchen invasion at the Yangzi. In 1164 a Song counterattack failed disastrously. In 1165 a Southern Song-Gin truce ended the continual warfare that had marked the decades after 1127. A state of relative peace lasted until the third Song-Gin war broke out in 1204. The Song were badly defeated in 1206, the year that Temujin unified the Mongol zone by force and was declared Chinggis Khan. Five years later, his armies marched south and began the conquest of the Jurchen's Gin dynasty.
29. Zhu Xi, Reflections on Things at Hand, trans. Wing-tsit Chan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), pp. 295-96. For a comment on Kongming in Zhu Xi's Zhuzi yulei, see Wang Liqi, "Shilun Zhuge Liang de zhengzhi sixiang," in Chengdushi Zhuge Liang yanjiuhui, ed., Zhuge Liang yanjiu (Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe, 1985), pp. 18-33.
30. a. d. 951-79 and 937-75, respectively; both were local kingdoms extinguished by the Northern Song. The Northern Han and the Posterior Han refer to the same dynasty.
31. Cited in Miao Yue, Dushi cungao (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1982), p. 14. The text of the tiyao is provided in the SGZ, p. 1473.
32. These Han River cities had military importance in the Three Kingdoms period, too. This region was sometimes called Jing-Xiang; see chap. 28, n. 3.
33. Sanguozhi pinghua (Shanghai: Shanghai gudian wenxue chubanshe, 1955). In reference to literary genres, pinghua seems to mean "historical novella." The work is dated 1321-23, but the words xinkan (new edition) in the subtitle suggest an earlier date.
34. See Richard Irwin, The Evolution of a Chinese Novel: Shui Hu Chuan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 23.
35. From the Dongpo zhilin; cited in Irwin, Evolution, p. 23. The authenticity of the remark has been questioned by Plaks, Four Masterworks, p. 368.
36. Chen Zhouchang, "Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi xingcheng guocheng lun lüe," in YJJ, p. 316.
37. The fullest account of the PH is Zheng Zhenduo's chapter "Sanguozhi yanyi de yanhua," in his Zhongguo wenxue yanjiu (Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1957), pp. 166-239. This chapter includes a detailed summary of the PH. Also see CZL, pp. 15-34; and W. L. Idema, Chinese Vernacular Fiction (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974), pp. 69-134.
38. See Han Xin's biography in Ssu-ma Ch'ien [Sima Qian], Records of the Grand Historian of China, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), 1: 224-25.
39. Han Xin had conquered the pre-Han kingdom of Wei and renamed it Hedong district, so there is poetic justice in his preparing the foundation of the Wei dynasty reincarnated as Cao Cao.
40. The reincarnations of Peng Yue and Ying Bu, too, are geographically based. After Peng Yue had been convicted of revolt against the Han emperor [Liu Bang], Liu Bang pardoned him and exiled him to Shu; when he tried to have this punishment rescinded, Empress Lü had him eliminated. See Ssu-ma Ch'ien, Records, 1: 194. As for Ying Bu, he was an important general in the northern part of the Southland kingdom. Liu Bang enfeoffed him as king of Huainan; see Records, 1: 202. In the Records the biographies of Peng Yue, Ying Bu, and Han Xin are sequential; see Records, 1: 191-232.
41. Another reason Luo Guanzhong would have dropped the prologue is that it criticizes Liu Bang. Luo Guanzhong's novel contains only praise for the Han founder. This political fact is consistent with a Ming date, perhaps even the traditional dating to the first Ming reign, because the Ming founder, Zhu Yuanzhang (Ming Tai Zu), was an avowed admirer of the Han founder (Han Ga Zu). (A companion Yuan pinghua, the Qian Han shu pinghua, sides with Xiang Yu against the Han founder. )
42. Chen Zhouchang, "Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi xingcheng guocheng lun lüe," in YJJ, p. 317. Sima Zhongxiang's remark (PH, p. 2), "The Qin founder [Qin Shihuangdi] was an evil monarch, but if I were the monarch, would I not make the people of the world happy?" recalls Liu Xuande's childhood remark that he would be emperor when he grew up (SGZ, p. 871; Three Kingdoms, chap. 1).
43. PH, pp. 144-45; see the end of chapter 119 of the novel, where Sima Yan (the first Jin emperor) cries, "I am avenging the house of Han."
44. Li Zhi, "Han Liu Yuan," in Cang shu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), p. 88. See also Liu Yuan's biography ( "Liu Yuanhai" ) in the zaiji (records) section of the Jin shu.
45. Li Zhi, "Han Liu Yuan," in Cang shu, p. 89. Another pseudo-Han kingdom was established in Chengdu in a. d. 304; in 347 it was extinguished by the Eastern Jin.
46. See Chen Baocheng, "Yuanquli de Sanguo xi," Zhengzhou daxue xuebao, 1982, no. 2: 66. See also Li Chunxiang, "Yuandai de Sanguo xi ji qi dui Sanguo yanyi de yingxiang," in YJJ, pp. 343-60; CZL, pp. 35-63; Chen Zhouchang, "Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi xingcheng guocheng lun lüe," pp. 318-22; and Plaks, Four Masterworks, p. 370 n. 35.
47. CZL, pp. 40, 41, 48.
48. See CZL, p. 61. For a discussion of the novel's tendency to exaggerate the Riverlands' importance at the expense of the Southland, see Zhan Huan, "Cong yongren deshi lun Sun Wu ji-tuan," in YJJ, pp. 211-27. See also Liu Zhijian, "Du Dan dao hui zhaji," in his Xinlun, pp. 134-53. The Yuan text, but not the Ming text, has Sun Quan conceding that Liu Xuande deserves some Jingzhou territory to acknowledge his help in saving the Southland from Cao Cao. Lone Swordsman also raises the legitimacy question when Lord Guan denies the Southland claim to Jingzhou on the grounds that Liu Xuande's place in the imperial line—after Gao Zu, Guang Wu, and Xiandi—entitles him to the Han throne and all the land in the empire. Sun An, the sister of Sun Quan and husband of Liu Xuande, makes the same point in A Battle of Wits Across the River (Gejiang douzhi): "As a member of the imperial house, Xuande is needed to bring Wu and Wei into a world [governed by] the house of Liu."
49. SGZ, p. 1096. There are other injustices to Southland heroes committed by the novelist. Two of the more notable concern Lu Su and Zhou Yu. Lu Su's SGZ biography describes him as an "exceptional talent, of decisive and independent intelligence" ; in the novel he is turned into a rather naive figure. Zhou Yu, the great Southland field marshal, is lauded in his biography for "grace under pressure and large-mindedness" and credited for the victory at Red Cliffs. The novel portrays him as spiteful and jealous and transfers many of his achievements and qualities to Kongming. Thus, even if it corrects some of the more fanciful tales about southern leaders in Yuan drama, the novel nevertheless shows clear signs of unhistorical anti-Southland prejudice.
50. The novel enhances the portrait of Lu Xun by attributing some of Lü Meng's qualities to him. See Yu Hongjiang, "Shilun Sanguo yanyi zhong de Lu Xun xingxiang," in XK 2 (1986): 173-89. In the SGZ Chen Shou honors Lu Xun by devoting a whole chapter to his biography; by contrast, Zhou Yu, Lu Su, and Lü Meng share a single chapter. After the death of Liu Xuande, the Southland and the Riverlands resumed their alliance. Sun Quan gave Lu Xun full authority to review and administer all aspects of the alliance (SGZ, p. 1384). The Pinghua (p. 127) scarcely mentions him, and no Yuan drama, apparently, made Lu Xun an important figure. By lavishing attention on Lu Xun, Three Kingdoms restored an important piece of history. On the novel's treatment of the battle at Yiling (Xiaoting), see Cao Xuewei, "Yiling zhi zhan de qingjie he renwu chuangzao," in XK 2 (1986): 254-63.
51. One play that may have influenced the novel's treatment of Cao Cao is Yunchang Guan Rides Alone a Thousand Li (Guan Yunchang du xing qian li). In this anonymous play Cao Cao is a villain who openly expresses his desire to do away with Lord Guan, when the time comes for to Guan rejoin Liu Xuande. The novel (chapter 27) gives this important incident a nuanced interpretation. Favora
ble treatment of Cao Cao in Yuan drama is noted by Qiu Zhensheng in his essay ' "Youzhi tu wangzhu' Luo Guanzhong," in ZHT, pp. 66-69; however, in many of the plays cited Cao Cao is assisting the Liu Xuande group in some way.
52. Liu Zhijian, Xinlun, pp. 140-41. The Lord Guan cult flourished before and after the Yuan, and it survives in various places even today. (The words "King Guan" are in the full title of the Dan dao hui, which is Guan da wang fu dan dao hui. ) Guan Hanging's exact dates are uncertain; he was born in or around 1220 and died sometime before 1324. For a study of Guan Hanqing's Three Kingdoms plays, see Liu Jingzhi, Guan Hanqing Sanguo gushi zaju yanjiu (Hong Kong: Shenghuo dushu xinzhi sanlian shudian, 1990).
53. Kongming's fleeting ghostly appearance at Dingjun Mountain, where he was buried, may be regarded as a carryover into the novel of his magical aspect, so prominent in the PH. Lord Guan (like Buddha) transcended his historical identity to become a god worshiped by an empire-wide cult.
54. This led one scholar to suggest that the novel was written in the 1340s in order to support Yuan authority in the face of spreading rebellion against Yuan rule. See Liu Youzhu, "Sanguo tongsu yanyi shi Yuandai zuopin," in Y]J, p. 303. Also see Stephen H. West, "Mongol Influence on the Development of Northern Drama," in China Under Mongol Rule, ed. John D. Langlois, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 434-65.
55. For a discussion of this issue, see Hok-lam Chan, "Chinese Official Historiography at the Yuan Court: The Composition of the Liao, Chin [Gin], and Sung Histories," in Langlois, China Under Mongol Rule, pp. 56, 89-90. Considering the hostility of Toghto (the Mongol leader in charge of the government-sponsored history project) to Song legitimacy, and considering Toghto's treatment of the three kingdoms (Wei, Wu, and Shu) as equally nonlegitimate, he and other Yuan leaders could hardly have been pleased by pro-Liu, pro-Shu themes, particularly when those themes were associated with the Southern Song.
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