Three Kingdoms Encyclopedia is a static guide for reading the novel and Chen Shou’s history in one set of entries. It is not a journal, and it does not replace either book.
The two books
The Records of the Three Kingdoms are Chen Shou’s Western Jin history in annals and biographies, divided into the books of Wei, Shu, and Wu. Pei Songzhi’s fifth-century commentary quotes many works that were later lost, and the notes are often longer than the text. The quotations disagree, and Pei sometimes rejects one. When this site says “the Records,” it means Chen Shou’s text and the notes that have to be mentioned. A quotation in Pei is not automatically a settled fact.
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a chapter novel built on earlier storytelling, traditionally credited to Luo Guanzhong. The text most people read was revised in the early Qing by Mao Lun and Mao Zonggang. The novel keeps the order of the great battles and rewrites motives, speeches, and many famous scenes. The peach-garden oath, Diaochan, the empty fort, and the borrowed arrows belong to that tradition.
Three marks
Every entry carries one source mark.
Romance means the scene comes from the novel or later storytelling. The Records do not have it, or keep only a faint parallel.
Records means the frame is Chen Shou, with Pei’s notes where they are needed. Novel scenes are not stated as fact.
Both means the event happened, and the novel changes the person, the scale, or the cause. The fire at Red Cliffs is “both”: the fire is real, the borrowed east wind is not.
Figure pages no longer mix the two books in one running essay. The first section follows the Records and the Pei notes worth naming. The second retells the Romance. A Wikipedia link at the foot of the page is there for checking. Places, battles, and stratagems still use the source note in the header.
Years
Years use the usual Common Era conversion. The end of a lunar year often falls in the next Common Era year. Guan Yu’s death is one of these: the winter of Jian’an 24 is already 220. Entries say so when it matters. Unknown births stay unknown. They are not filled in.
What this is not
The prose here is a guide written for the site. It is not a series of extracts from Chen Shou or Luo Guanzhong. Short quotations appear only to mark a difference. New entries belong in the content folders as Markdown, with slugs for related figures, places, battles, and stratagems. Japanese routes are reserved. The Japanese text is not written yet.