Timeline

Zhang Jue, called the Great Teacher, organized the Way of Great Peace around healing and the slogan that the azure heaven was dead and a yellow one should stand. In 184 the rebels wrapped their heads in yellow cloth. Ji and Yingchuan rose together. Huangfu Song, Lu Zhi, and Zhu Jun broke the main armies that year. Remnants lasted for years.

The year does not found the Three Kingdoms. It marks the failure of Han local government and conscription together. Liu Bei gathered men in Zhuo. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei’s companionship is written from this period. Cao Cao, as a cavalry commandant, fought around Yingchuan. The novel begins with an oath in a peach garden and puts private loyalty before the revolt. The histories have the Turbans first, and only then these names without land.

Dong Zhuo absorbed He Jin’s men and Ding Yuan’s troops and became the strongest armed force in Luoyang. He deposed Liu Bian and set the nine-year-old Liu Xie on the throne. Emperor Xian would reign for more than thirty years: moved to Chang’an by Dong Zhuo, taken to Xu by Cao Cao, and at last made to abdicate to Cao Pi.

The deposition cost Dong Zhuo the recognition of the eastern gentlemen. Yuan Shao fled Luoyang. Cao Cao spent his family’s wealth to raise troops. The novel heightens the cruelty. Deposing one emperor and enthroning another is the plain start of the record.

After Emperor Ling’s death the young emperor Liu Bian succeeded, with Empress He as regent. General-in-chief He Jin and Yuan Shao planned to wipe out the eunuchs. He Jin hesitated, and secretly called Dong Zhuo’s army in to overawe the palace. The eunuchs struck first and killed He Jin at a palace gate. Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu shut the gates and killed eunuchs without distinguishing age.

The palace armies collapsed. When Dong Zhuo reached Luoyang he did not find a successful purge. He found a capital with no master. Many of the wars can be counted from the Yellow Turbans. The break in Luoyang politics starts in this year.

In 190 the eastern governors rose and named Yuan Shao their leader. Cao Cao was among them at Suanzao. The allied armies were large and jealous, and few actually marched west. Dong Zhuo, unable to win in the east, moved the capital to Chang’an, drove the people of Luoyang west, burned the palaces, and opened tombs.

The novel sets Hua Xiong and Lü Bu at Sishui and Hulao, and gives Guan Yu the warmed wine and the three heroes their fight with Lü Bu. Those scenes turn a loose alliance into a battle. The historical result is sharper: Luoyang was ruined, and the alliance never became a new center. The governors went home to their own provinces.

Sun Jian was a fierce general on Yuan Shu’s side and had entered Luoyang. In 191, fighting Liu Biao, he was shot at Xian Mountain by Huang Zu’s men. His troops passed for a time to Yuan Shu.

The conquest of Jiangdong is his son Sun Ce’s later work. Do not make Sun Jian an emperor already seated at Jianye.

Wang Yun and Shisun Rui brought Lü Bu into the plot. In the fourth month of 192, as Dong Zhuo entered court, Lü Bu killed him. The histories say the people of Chang’an celebrated. It was a coup, not a duel at the front.

Lü Bu’s affair with one of Dong Zhuo’s maids is the private motive the Records give. The maid has no name. The novel turns it into a chain plot directed by Wang Yun and carried out by Diaochan. After the murder, Li Jue and Guo Si broke into Chang’an, killed Wang Yun, and put Emperor Xian back in the hands of Liangzhou soldiers. Killing Dong Zhuo did not restore the Han court. It changed the men who held the emperor.

After Li Jue and Guo Si fought, Emperor Xian moved east in hunger. Luoyang’s palaces were already ruins. In 196 Cao Cao brought him to Xu and became Minister of Works and acting General of Chariots and Cavalry. The wandering court stopped.

Xu was not a simple restoration of Luoyang. The emperor was present. The orders increasingly came from Cao Cao. “Holding the emperor” is a later summary, not an office title of 196. The place is Xuchang. The move gave Cao Cao, in the contest with Yuan Shao, the name of the Han.

See the battle of Wancheng. Cao Cao later employed Zhang Xiu again, an ending the novel underplays.

Liu Bei’s early patron ends here. Zhao Yun is no longer in that army.

After Lü Bu took Xu province he fought both Liu Bei and Cao Cao. In 198–199 Cao Cao besieged Xiapi and diverted the Yi and Si rivers into the city. Hou Cheng, Song Xian, and Wei Xu bound Chen Gong and surrendered. Lü Bu was captured. He asked to serve. Cao Cao hesitated. Liu Bei recalled that Lü Bu had killed both Ding Yuan and Dong Zhuo, and Cao Cao had him strangled.

The long plea at White Gate Tower, and Cao Cao stroking his beard, is the novel’s scene. The record keeps the decision: an extraordinary fighter with no political base could not be trusted by anyone once the city fell. Diaochan is not in this passage.

Yuan Shao had the men. Cao Cao had the smaller camp and was nearly out of grain. Xu You defected and pointed to the stores at Wuchao. Cao Cao’s night raid broke the main army, and Yuan Shao fled north. The campaign is the battle of Guandu.

The same year is often told as Guan Yu killing Yan Liang and then leaving Cao Cao. Baima comes before the decision at Guandu. It is the opening of the same war, not a different book.

Guandu comes later in the same year. Jiangdong’s succession and the northern decision share a calendar.

Guandu did not kill Yuan Shao at once. He died two years later. The north unraveled more slowly.

Red Cliffs is after his death. A dying plan that settles Liaodong is the novel’s addition.

Liu Biao died, Liu Cong surrendered, and Cao Cao came east by land and water. Sun Quan chose to fight. Zhou Yu and Cheng Pu commanded. Huang Gai used fire. Cao Cao withdrew. The disputed site and the battle are Red Cliffs and the battle.

The same year Cao Cao made himself chancellor. Red Cliffs did not cost him the north. It cost him a quick unification. Liu Bei, who had barely a foothold, became a power in southern Jing.

Autumn and winter of this year run into Changban and Red Cliffs. Liu Biao does not live to see them.

Lu Su succeeds him and is softer toward Liu Bei than Zhou Yu was.

His death marks the crack between Cao Cao as a Han minister and Cao Cao as Duke of Wei.

See the battle of Ruxu.

In 211 Liu Zhang asked Liu Bei into Shu to face Zhang Lu in the north. Liu Bei camped at Jiameng and then turned south against Liu Zhang. Zhuge Liang, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Yun came up the river and joined him. In 214 they besieged Chengdu. Liu Zhang surrendered.

Liu Bei became governor of Yi. Zhuge Liang was his army-advisor general. Fa Zheng and Dong He shared the civil work. The move fulfills half of the Longzhong plan: Yi was taken, and Jing still had to be held, by Guan Yu. The novel stresses benevolence. The histories show a guest army becoming the master.

The planner of the Shu entry dies before the victory. Fa Zheng remains.

The policy of lending Jing ends with him.

The contest for the basin is the battle of Hanzhong. After the royal title, Liu Bei ordered Guan Yu to attack Xiangyang and Fan from Jing. In the same year the title in the west and the flooded armies in the east brought Liu Bei’s group to its height and exposed it to Cao Cao and Sun Quan together.

King of Hanzhong was a claim about the Han, not a governor’s courtesy promotion. When Cao Pi replaced the Han the next year, the title became one of Liu Bei’s reasons to take the imperial name.

The royal title and Guan Yu’s death share a year. The height and the fall are stacked.

Guan Yu’s northern campaign shook the region and emptied Jiangling behind him. Lü Meng pleaded illness. The still-young Lu Xun wrote to lull Guan Yu. Lü Meng then crossed the river in plain clothes and took Nan commandery. Guan Yu could not recover the city, fell back toward Mai, and was killed. The head was sent to Cao Cao.

The twelfth month of Jian’an 24 falls in early 220, which is why the death is usually dated 220. Nan commandery passed to Wu. Liu Bei’s later eastern campaign is buried in this winter. The novel adds the scraped bone, the details of pride, and an apparition after death. The seizure itself is history.

In the first month of 220 Cao Cao died in Luoyang. Cao Pi succeeded as King of Wei and chancellor. In the tenth month Emperor Xian abdicated. Cao Pi took the imperial title, changed the era to Huangchu, and honored Cao Cao as Emperor Wu. The Han name stopped.

The documents of abdication are complete. The transfer was not free of pressure. The novel’s scenes of Cao Pi forcing the palace match the direction of the record and heighten the drama. Liu Bei’s proclamation the next year rests partly on the claim that the Han sacrifices had ended and that a kinsman should resume them.

When news of Cao Pi’s enthronement reached Yi, Liu Bei took the imperial title in Chengdu as a kinsman of the Han and refused Wei’s abdication. The state name remained Han. Later ages say Shu Han to distinguish it. Zhuge Liang was chancellor.

The same year Zhang Da and Fan Qiang killed Zhang Fei at Langzhong and sent the head to Sun Quan. After Guan Yu, Liu Bei lost Zhang Fei as well. The morale and command of the eastern campaign suffered. The proclamation itself turned the war into a war between states, not a private quarrel of Han ministers.

In 221 Cao Pi made Sun Quan King of Wu. In 222 Lu Xun won at Yiling with fire. Liu Bei fell back to Baidi. The military confrontation paused, and the two states later exchanged envoys again. The campaign is Yiling. The novel’s scale is the linked camps.

Sun Quan was King of Wu before Yiling. He was not emperor until 229. The kingship, the imperial title, and this battle are not the same year.

After Yiling, Liu Bei stayed at Baidi and renamed Yufu as Yong’an. In the fourth month of 223 he summoned Zhuge Liang and Li Yan. He told Zhuge Liang to support Liu Shan if the boy could be supported, and if not, to take the throne himself. Zhuge Liang answered that he would spend his strength in loyal service. Liu Bei died and was titled Emperor Zhaolie.

The exchange is in Zhuge Liang’s biography in the Records. The novel did not invent it. The novel fills the room with tears and ceremony. Liu Shan succeeded, the era became Jianxing, and Zhuge Liang opened the government. Shu Han changes from founding to keeping at Baidi.

After Liu Bei’s death the southern commanderies of Yi were unstable. In 225 Zhuge Liang campaigned in person. He took Ma Su’s advice to win the heart first. After the revolt he employed local chiefs and did not leave a large Han garrison. Nanzhong’s goods and men later fed the northern expeditions.

The seven captures of Meng Huo are not in Chen Shou’s text. They are a set piece of later storytelling and of the novel. The campaign as a successful internal war is history. The number seven is fiction. Do not let the captures replace the administrative result.

This is the first great failure of the northern expeditions. The action is the battle of Jieting. The same year Zhao Yun also lost at Jigu. After Jieting, Zhuge Liang repaired the government and, that winter, came out by Sanguan and failed to take Chencang. The northern war is a series of attempts, not one march from Qishan.

The empty fort is not part of this report. Sima Yi is not the opponent at Jieting.

Jieting is not the only defeat of the northern war.

Sun Quan had been King of Wu since 221. Only in 229 did he take the imperial title, change the era to Huanglong, and exchange envoys with Shu Han. Each recognized the other’s emperorship and they agreed to divide the world. The capital was settled at Jianye.

The three titles are then complete: Wei in 220, Han (Shu) in 221, Wu in 229. The standoff on the map is older than the titles. Sun Quan’s enthronement completes a name. It does not suddenly create Wu.

The retreat from Wuzhangyuan is also an internal struggle.

In 234 Zhuge Liang came out by the Xie valley, camped at Wuzhangyuan, and faced Sima Yi, who would not fight. Zhuge Liang died in camp. Yang Yi kept the death secret and withdrew the army in order. Sima Yi pursued and was beaten off. People said a dead Zhuge had put a living Zhongda to flight. Pei Songzhi preserves the saying.

The empty fort is a different story, and Pei rejects it. Do not attach it to this retreat. Zhuge Liang’s death ends his northern expeditions, not Shu Han. Liu Shan remained emperor for nearly thirty years more.

Emperor Cao Fang and General-in-chief Cao Shuang went to Gaopingling. Sima Yi, in the empress dowager’s name, shut the gates of Luoyang, seized the arsenal, and memorialized Cao Shuang’s crimes. Cao Shuang surrendered, expecting to live, and was then destroyed with his clan.

After the coup the army and the government belonged to the Sima house. Sima Yi died in 251. His sons Sima Shi and Sima Zhao kept the power. Gaopingling is not the end of the Three Kingdoms. It is the start of a change of house inside Wei. The novel makes Sima Yi a man who has long pretended illness. The illness has a source. So does the coup.

After Gaopingling, even an emperor’s own rising fails.

In 263 Sima Zhao ordered the invasion. Zhong Hui’s main army attacked Hanzhong. Deng Ai took a side force through the Yinping paths and appeared unexpectedly at Jiangyou and Mianzhu. Zhuge Zhan died at Mianzhu. Liu Shan, taking Qiao Zhou’s advice, opened Chengdu and surrendered. He was made Duke of Anle.

Shu did not fall because Zhuge Liang had died in 234. It fell because the Hanzhong line was broken and Yinping was a surprise. Jiang Wei was still holding Jian’ge against Zhong Hui. The next year Zhong Hui rebelled, Jiang Wei tried to use the chaos to restore Shu, and both were killed. The end in Chengdu is colder than the novel’s joke about pleasure: a state, after one surprise march, chose not to defend the city.

He is not Sun Quan. The Jin conquest faces Sun Hao.

The year after Shu falls, both Wei commanders of the invasion are dead.

After Sima Zhao’s death, his son Sima Yan accepted the Wei abdication in the twelfth month of 265, which falls in February 266. The state was Jin. The capital was Luoyang. Cao Wei, from Cao Pi’s enthronement, had lasted about forty-five years.

Three generations of Sima power — Yi, Shi, and Zhao — become a formal dynasty in this year. Shu was already gone. Wu remained. The map was no longer three kingdoms. It was Jin in the north and Wu on the Yangzi.

Wu’s last emperor was Sun Hao, not Sun Quan. Sun Quan had died in 252. After taking Shu, Jin prepared for more than a decade. In 280 six armies invaded Wu. Wang Jun built ships in Yi, came down the Yangzi, and broke the iron chains in the river. Sun Hao surrendered in Jianye and was made Marquis of Guiming.

From the Yellow Turbans in 184 to this year is about a century. The novel closes the three states with a historian’s verse. The record is more concrete: tower ships, iron chains, a surrender, and a Yellow River and a Yangzi that are no longer divided in three.