Romance of the Three Kingdoms Cartoon AnimationRomance of the Three Kingdoms (simplified Chinese: traditional Chinese: pinyin: sānguó yǎnyì), written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century, is a Chinese historical novel based upon events in the turbulent years near the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era of China, starting in 169 and ending with the reunification of the land in 280. It is acclaimed as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, with a grand total of 800,000 words, nearly a thousand characters, most of them historical, in 120 chapters. Romance of the Three Kingdoms recorded stories of a Buddhist monk called Pujing, who was a friend of Guan Yu. Pujing made his first appearance during Guan's arduous journey of crossing five passes and slaying six generals, in which he warned Guan of an assassination plot. As the novel was written in the Ming Dynasty, more than 1000 years after the era, these stories showed that Buddhism had long been a significant ingredient of the mainstream culture and may not be historically accurate. Luo Guanzhong preserved these descriptions from earlier versions of the novel to support his portrait of Guan Yu as a faithful man of virtue. Guan Yu was since then respectfully addressed as "Lord Guan" or Guan Gong.
An illustration of the book Author Luo Guanzhong Original title Country China Language Chinese Genre(s) Historical novel Publication date 14th century ISBN 978-7119005904 OCLC Number 49389330 LC Classification PL2690.S3 E53 1995