Romance of The Three Kingdoms (三国演义), originally written about 600 years ago by Luo Guanzhong (罗贯中, 1330 AD - 1400 AD), a pioneering work of historical romance novels, is one of the four classic novels of Chinese literature. It is also first literary novel and the first Zhanghui (章回) style novel in the history of the Chinese literary tradition (in the Zhanghui style of traditional Chinese novel, each chapter is headed by a couplet providing the essence of the corresponding text). The novel narrates the period of Chinese history of nearly a hundred years from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty (东汉, 25 AD - 220 AD) to the beginning of the Western Jin Dynasty (西晋, 266 AD - 316 AD). It mainly describes the wars and battles among the heroes in the late Eastern Han Dynasty (东汉末年) and the political and military struggles among the Wei (魏), Shu (蜀), and Wu (吴) Kingdoms (三国). In the end, Sima Yan (司马炎) unified the three kingdoms and established the Jin Dynasty (晋朝). The story thoroughly reflects the transformation of various social struggles, contradictions in the era of the Three Kingdoms and summarizes the historical changes of the contemporary era shaping a group of heroic figures of the Three Kingdoms.
The book has 6 chapters in the following order:
Chapter 1: A Group of Men Competing Against Dong Zhuo (第一回 群雄逐鹿 扳倒董卓)
Chapter 2: Defeat of Yuan Shao (第二回 曹吕之争 大败袁绍)
Chapter 3: Liu Sun and the Three Kingdoms (第三回 三国鼎立之刘孙合作)
Chapter 4: First Sight of the Three Kingdoms (第四回 魏蜀吴三国初见端倪)
Chapter 5: Three-pointed World (第五回 三分天下 诸葛军师定乾坤)
Chapter 6: The Unification (第六回 天下一统 晋国成立)
The current book volume, China's Great Classical Novels 2, is a Level 6 Chinese reading practice book. It would introduce you to the famous Chinese novel Romance of The Three Kingdoms. The 2nd volume in the Classical Novels of Chinese Literature (中国古典文学) series includes both the Chinese text (simplified characters) and pinyin Romanization. With about over 1300 unique Chinese characters, the volume would be suitable for the lower intermediate and advanced level Chinese language learners (HSK 3-6). Overall, the reading series offers you a variety of elementary level books (Level 1/2/3/4/5/6) to understand China as well as practice Chinese reading fast.
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