Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Part 1

Author: Luo Guanzhong
Translator: Luo Moushi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-03-01
Features: Luo Guanzhong Translated from the Chinese with Notes and an Afterword by Moss Roberts. Foreword by John S. Service. "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has always been." With this characterization of the inevitable cycle of Chinese history, the monumental tale Three Kingdoms begins. As important for Chinese culture as the Homeric epics have been for the West, this Ming dynasty masterpiece continues to be read and loved throughout China as well as in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. The novel offers a startling and unsparing view of how power is wielded, how diplomacy is conducted, and how wars are planned and fought; it has influenced the way Chinese think about power, diplomacy, and war to this day. Three Kingdoms portrays a fateful moment at the end of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) when the future of the Chinese empire lay in the balance. Writing more than a millennium later, Luo Guanzhong drew upon oft-told tales of this turbulent period to fashion a sophisticated, compelling narrative, whose characters display vivid individuality and epic grandeur. The story begins when the emperor, fearing uprisings by peasant rebels known as the Yellow Scarves, sends an urgent appeal to the provinces for popular support. In response, three young men—the aristocratic Liu Xuande, the fugitive Lord Guan, and the pig-butcher Zhang Fei—meet to pledge eternal brotherhood and fealty to their beleaguered government. From these events comes a chain of cause and consequence that ultimately leads to the collapse of the Han. Moss Roberts's new translation provides for the first time an authoritative, annotated English-language version of this great and enduring work of world literature.
A Centennial Book
Luo Guanzhong (1330?-1400?) was a novelist and dramatist who played an important role in the development of Chinese popular fiction. Moss Roberts is Professor of Chinese at New York University. He has published an acclaimed translation of Three Kingdoms (Pantheon, 1976) and is the translator of Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies (Pantheon, 1979). John S. Service, the son of an American missionary, was born in China and was a Foreign Service officer there from 1933 to 1945. He is a Fellow at the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and is an authority on Chinese culture and politics. He is also the editor of Golden Springs: The China Memoirs of Grace Service (California, 1989). Published in cooperation with University of California Press
Jacket design: Wang Zhi
Excerpt:
His plot exposed, Zhang Jue mustered his forces in great haste. Titling himself General of Heaven, his first brother General of the Earth, and his second brother General of Men, he addressed his massed followers: "Han's fated end is near. A new age is due to appear. Let one and all obey Heaven and follow the true cause so that we may rejoice in the millennium." From the four corners of the realm, the common folk, nearly half a million strong, bound their heads with yellow scarves and followed Zhang Jue in rebellion, gathering such forces that the government troops scattered at the rumor of their approach. Regent-Marshal He Jin appealed to the Emperor to order every district to defend itself and every warrior to render distinguished service in putting down the uprising. Meanwhile, the regent also gave three Imperial Corps commanders—Lu Zhi, Huangfu Song, and Zhu Jun—command of three elite field armies with orders to bring the rebels to justice. As for Zhang Jue's army, it began advancing on Youzhou district. The governor, Liu Yan, was a native of Jingling county in Jiangxia and a descendant of Prince Gong of Lu of the imperial clan. Threatened by the approaching rebels, Liu Yan summoned Commandant Zou Jing for his estimate of the situation. "They are many," said Jing, "and we are few. The best course, Your Lordship, is to recruit an army quickly to deal with the enemy." The governor agreed and issued a call for volunteers loyal to the throne. The call was posted in Zhuocounty, where it drew the attention of a man of heroic mettle. This man, though no scholar, was gentle and generous by nature, taciturn and reserved. His one ambition was to cultivate the friendship of the boldest spirits of the empire. He stood seven and a half spans tall, with arms that reached below his knees. His earlobes were elongated, his eyes widely set and able to see his own ears. His face was flawless as jade, and his lips like a dab of rouge. This man was a descendant of Liu Sheng, Prince Jing of Zhongshan, a great-great-grandson of the fourth Han emperor, Jing. His name was Liu Bei; his style, Xuande. Fourteen generations before, during the reign of Emperor Wu, Liu Sheng's son, Zhen, was made lord of Zhuoluprecinct, but the fief and title were later forfeited when Zhen was accused of making an unsatisfactory offering at the eighth-month libation in the Emperor's ancestral temple. Thus a branch of the Liu family came to settle in Zhuocounty. Xuande's grandfather was Liu Xiong; his father, Liu Hong. Local authorities had recommended Hong to the court for his filial devotion and personal integrity. He received an appointment and actually held a minor office; but he died young. Orphaned, Xuande deserved his widowed mother with unstinting affection. However, they had been left so poor that they had to sell sand and weave mats to live. The family resided in a county hamlet called Two-Story Mulberry after a tree of some fifty spans just southeast of their home. Seen from afar, the mulberry tree tall and spread broadly like a carnage canopy. "An eminent man will come from this house," a fortune-teller once predicted. While playing beneath the tree with the boys in the hamlet, young Xuande often boasted, "When I'm the Son of Heaven, my chariot will have a canopy like this." Impressed by these words, his uncle Liu Yuanqi remarked, "This is no ordinary child." Yuanqi sympathized with the impoverished family and often helped his nephew. At fifteen, Xuande was sent away by his mother to study, and Zheng Xuan and Lu Zhi were among his teachers. He also formed a close friendship with Gongsun Zan. Xuande was twenty-eight when Governor Liu issued his call for volunteers. Reading the notice in Zhuo that day, Xuande sighed heavily. "Why such long sighs?" someone behind him asked brusquely. "A man should be serving his emperor in the hour of peril." Xuande turned and faced a man eight spans tall, with a blunt head like a panther's, huge round eyes, a swallow's heavy jowls, a tiger's whiskers, a thunderous voice, and a stance like a dashing horse. Half in fear, half in admiration, Xuande asked his name.