Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sānguó yǎnyì 三國演義) is a historical novella based on the Three Kingdoms era of China and written by Luo Guanzhong. It is more famous than Chen Shou's Records of Three Kingdoms among the casual Three Kingdoms fan.

Overview
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is based upon the turbulant years near the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period; starting with the Yellow Turban Rebellion and ending with the unification of China by Jin.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, as a whole, is traditionally attributed to its author Luo Guanzhong, but it should be noted that Luo Guanzhong has taken inspiration of many other (fictional) works and that Romance of the Three Kingdoms could be seen as a compilation. The word 'compilation' is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, because Luo Guanzhong has added many characters and events himself, but the base of the novel lies within other works.

One of the sources that Luo Guanzhong took inspiration from was Sanguo zhi, or Records of the Three Kingdoms. The historical work written by Chen Shou for the Jin Dynasty. Qing Dynasty historian Zhang Xuecheng once wrote that Romance was 70% historically correct and 30% of it was fictional. Those 30% were taken from various fictional accounts such as Sanguozhi pinghua (Historical Narrative of the Three Kingdoms), from which the Peach Garden Oath was taken, various folklores and opera's (where Diao Chan's story comes from), and, of course Luo Guanzhong's own mind.

With Romance Luo Guanzhong has become the most succesful author of fictional Three Kingdoms. To this day his work still serves as main inspiration for TV series, movies and videogames.