Who was the real hero of the Romance of 3 Kingdoms ?

Who was the real hero of the Romance of 3 Kingdoms ?

Caocao was ambitious and ruthless leader but was most likely convinced he was doing it for the greater good. He believed in order and the rule of law, he wanted to fight the chaos bring by the fall of Han's influence. Sure he did some awful stuff and lost many battles but he managed to unite half of China under the Wei banner bring order and peace in many of those regions while Wu and Shu completly failed on that point.

Liu Bei believed only virtue could save China. He managed to gather the most incredible leaders of the time but indecisions and kindness threw him in a almost constant state of war, bringing ruin to the regions who welcomed him. Even Shu fell in the end. If you think about it, it's mostly because of Liu Bei existence the wars took so long to resolve.

The Sun family was also full of heroes who failed to save Han and then decide to only promote their own state of Wu. They were loyal to their people until the end but even Sun Quan failed to understand it was the fate of all China and not just Wu who was at stake.

Other urls found in this thread:

zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/臨江仙_(楊慎))
openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/html/1885/42048/3KWJin.html
m.youtube.com/watch?v=LJms1CGHjn8
twitter.com/AnonBabble

The sun family was inbred as fuck and sun quan was the worst of the lot for exiling his extremely talented prime minister. Liu Bei abandoned his family on no less than 3 occasions running from battles. Cao Cao deserved to rule.

>Liu Bei abandoned his family
That was in fashion for heroes of that time, you forget your family to focus on your quest
>Running from battles
You mean the thing Caocao elevated to an art ?

Cao Cao by far in real history

In the stories its Zhuge Liang, since ya know he wrote the stories and all

Lady Bian accompanied Cao Cao on numerous battles, she never fell behind.

>You mean the thing Caocao elevated to an art
Not an argument.

Best politician: Caocao
Best strategist: Zhuge Liang
Best tactician: Guan Yu
Best fighter: Zhang Fei (fuck off LuBu fanboys)
Best man: Liu Bei
Best king: Sun Quan
Best emperor: Caocao

The 長江

Why a fucking river would be a hero ?

>prolonging war when Cao Cao's political entity has clearly already won
The only mystery is why Guan Yu went back to Liu Bei.

The geographical barrier was the only thing preventing Cao Cao from achieving a quick victory at the battle of the red cliffs.

It features centrally and it's the only consistent thing.
Think of the opening of the 三國演義:
滾滾長江東逝水,浪花淘盡英雄;是非成敗轉頭空,青山依舊在、幾度夕陽紅。
白髮漁樵江渚上,慣看秋月春風;一壺濁酒喜相逢,古今多少事、都付笑談中。
(zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/臨江仙_(楊慎))
The river is a symbol of politics, of the way, of the world. It is the only constant and like all the people and soldiers it rolls ever on.

I'm just memeing, but it is an interesting thought.

>tfw my crackpot theory gains traction

because of the Peach Garden Oath, and moreo Liu Bei's constant harping of /muhhonor/

In reality the battle was still undecided. If liu bei had succeeded in taking xu chang cao cao would be in serious trouble. Yuan shao didn't outnumber cao cao as much as the novel would like you to believe but his territory was still considerable. Cao cao smashed yuan shao at guan du then smashed liu bei at runan, at this point guan yu couldn't go back to the Cao camp.

There is also rumors of threats on his life from jealous generals of cao, but this is probably false. It's very likely they were jealous, but extremely unlikely they would dare to do anything.

Sima Yi

>He managed to gather the most incredible leaders of the time
>Guan Yu
>who got BTFOd by some sick old man who wasn't even literate for like half his life.
lmao.

Guys, if you're going to talk about the novel, talk about the novel and quit trying to bring in historical records to argue one way or the other. You're undermining the actual history in doing so.

And I would generally advise not trying to bring in actual history into it, because chances are you're going to talk about it all wrong. I've looked at many of the "translations" of excerpts from Sanguozhi, Houhanshu, and Jinshu made by "fans" floating around online, and they're pretty much all terrible and wrong.

>chances are you're going to talk about it all wrong

Get over yourself jesus christ. There are countless works by talented scholars available in many languages.

If anyone is interested Rafe de Crespigny has published a lot of english work available online.

Liu Kang was more honorable and cant afraid of nothing

>Best man
>Liu Bei

Wew lad. How the fuck do you think a hypocritical, indecisive, backstabbing piece of shit like Liu Bei is the best man in RotTK?

That's what I mean. People should be reading Rafe de Crespigny, but instead everyone here cites some nobody called "the-archlich" on tumblr, or even worse the articles on "kongming.net" apparently written by people who can't actually read Chinese.

In Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Liu Bei.

In the actual historical Records of the Three Kingdoms? Cao Cao.

Zhang Liao was the man.

>zhuge liang

someone post the blog

>Romance of 3 Kingdoms

Is there an easily digestible book (more so than the original tale) to get the whole story of this?

>lead 500 men into a camp of 10,000
>fight your way out alone
>remember you should probably bail those guys who fought with you
>fight your way back into the camp alone
>fight your way back out with your boys
>at some point challenge the leader of the camp to combat, he just grabs a spear and camps the top of a hill

True MVP right there

It's interesting that Guan Yu was made into a God and even today is venerated by Triads and Policemen while every other notable figure during this time wasn't or at least isn't as popular. Does anyone know why?

Long story.

It started as a local cult based on a story of a monk meeting Guan Yu's ghost, telling Guan Yu how much of a dick he was while alive, and guiding Guan Yu to achieve posthumous redemption and enlightenment. As a result, Guan Yu became a minor deity that served as a guardian of temples.

From there it just sort of grew from there as stories of Guan Yu's spirit appearing to save the day accumulated over the centuries, eventually reaching the point the cult achieved official Imperial recognition and thus sponsorship, creating a positive feedback loop causing the cult to grew across the entire Empire.

Even with the ancient history I've been taught in the US I still know next to nothing about the three kingdoms.

Can one of you Chinese anons summarize it?

openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/html/1885/42048/3KWJin.html

Late Han Emperor sucks dick so much, along with a famine,that a peasant rebellion rises up preaching peace, but ravages the land and fucks shit up. After the main rebellion is put down, some dick named Dong Zhuo forces his way into control of the Emperorship. Dong Zhuo is a massive dick and is kept in power almost solely be a strong dude called Lu Bu. Eventually a coalition of warlords against Dong Zhuo forms, and out of this coalition lots of major players emerge, even though the coalition ended up failing. Sun Jian and his followers head south to make their own country out of bandit territory. Cao Cao stays in the north and fueds with the largest warlord, Yuan Shao. Liu Bei goes and does some shit I don't know. eventually Lu Bu betrays Dong Zhou for a hoe, and with Dong Zhou's death China formally decends into chaos with Wu led by the Suns (quite a few of them died quickly) in the south, Wei led by Cao Cao in the north, and Shu led by Liu Bei in the west. There's no real way to summarize it quickly as theres so much going on all the time for multiple different reasons, that it's better to learn the events leading up to the three kingdoms, then study the individual kingdoms. the RotK games are actually pretty good about teaching the history with lots of events, cutscenes and characters.

Completely wrong.

>After the main rebellion is put down, some dick named Dong Zhuo forces his way into control of the Emperorship.
Dong Zhuo's seizure of power occurred due to the vacuum after the eunuch and gentry factions destroyed one another during the succession dispute after Ling-di's death. Ling-di and the Yellow Scarves had little to do with it.

>kept in power almost solely be a strong dude called Lu Bu
Completely wrong. It was Dong Zhuo's army that kept him in power. Lü Bu was only one subordinate commander of several, albeit one of Dong Zhuo's more favored and trusted ones.

>Sun Jian and his followers head south to make their own country out of bandit territory.
Completely wrong. Sun Jian was killed in action against Liu Biao and Huang Zu and never held an independent position. It was his son Sun Ce who established an independent position in the south.

>eventually Lu Bu betrays Dong Zhou for a hoe
Gross oversimplification. While Lü Bu did have an affair with one of Dong Zhuo's maidservants and was afraid of being found out, there were many other reasons for him to be doubtful of his position. Dong Zhuo was becoming increasingly erratic and violent, and there were many plots against him.

>the RotK games are actually pretty good about teaching the history with lots of events, cutscenes and characters.
Dear god, do not do this. Just read Rafe de Crespigny's narrative histories. You can start with: openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/html/1885/42048/3KWJin.html

Since this is Veeky Forums and not Veeky Forums Cao Cao did nothing wrong.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=LJms1CGHjn8

>Liu Bei believed only virtue could save China.
>most treacherous cunt in the whole period

>He managed to gather the most incredible leaders of the time
>romance aside, his best generals (who weren't any better than Wei's or Wu's) were constantly relegated to secondary roles while favoritism ruled his court

Dude, SGZ in Veeky Forums, ROTK in Veeky Forums pls.

>the RotK games are actually pretty good about teaching the history
Top fucking kek you gotta be kidding me.
I admit they've toned down the MUH BENEVOLENCE angle a bit since 7, but it's still basically an extremely oversimplified parody of the romance, which is nowhere near historically accurate either.