Sections
Derivatives
The novel, the history, television, film, and games. These pages describe the works. They do not turn those plots back into fact.
Book
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The historical novel that fixed the empty fort, Diaochan, and the borrowed arrows. Most readers meet the Qing revision by the Mao family, not an earlier print.
Completed in the Western Jin; Pei Songzhi’s commentary presented in 429RecordsRecords of the Three Kingdoms
Chen Shou’s history in annals and biographies: the books of Wei, Shu, and Wu, sixty-five chapters. Pei’s notes quote many lost works and are longer than the text. Not every quotation is equally sound.
Yuan dynastyRomanceSanguozhi pinghua
A Yuan storytelling book. Rougher than the later novel, already full of legend around Zhang Fei and Zhuge Liang. One ancestor of the Romance.
From 2001RomanceThe Ravages of Time
A Hong Kong manhua that rewrites the counselors and assassins. The Sima Yi school and similar devices are the author’s fiction.
Television
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1994 television)
The CCTV serial based on the novel. Sun Yanjun, Tang Guoqiang, Bao Guo’an, Lu Shuming, and Wu Xiaodong play Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, Cao Cao, Guan Yu, and Sun Quan. It spreads the Romance, not the Records.
2010BothThree Kingdoms (2010 television)
Called the new Three Kingdoms. Faster and more intrigue-heavy than the 1994 serial. It still follows the novel’s relationships, not a film of the Records.
2006BothYi Zhongtian on the Three Kingdoms
A television lecture. Modern spoken retelling with historical comment. Not a chapter-by-chapter Romance, and not a full scholarly book.
Film
Game
Dynasty Warriors
An action series named for Three Kingdoms officers. The characters mostly follow the novel. The play is a modern crowd-combat game. It is not the same series as Koei’s strategy game Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
2019BothTotal War: Three Kingdoms
The Total War system set in the late Han. The game offers Romance and Records modes, which point the same way as this site’s two sources. Both modes are still game rules.
From 1985BothRomance of the Three Kingdoms (Koei strategy)
A strategy series. In English it shares the title Romance of the Three Kingdoms with Dynasty Warriors, which is a different game.
2008RomanceLegends of the Three Kingdoms (card game)
An identity card game. The hero skills exaggerate the novel. The rules are a modern design.