FULL History of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms - Part 1

hey guys a state vge here i want to talk about the three kingdoms or as it's known in its literary form the romance of the three kingdoms the name deriving from the tripartite division of China these three kingdoms are Sawa Shu Han and rule this period of Chinese history goes for almost a hundred years starting from the disintegration of the Han Dynasty to the founding of the Jin dynasty this period is one of the most bloody times in Chinese history after the general unified China a census was taken at determined that there was 60 million habitants left in China but just before the collapse of the Han Dynasty they were recorded 56 million people this historical period has been greatly romanticized in the college's of China Japan Korea and Vietnam it's been celebrated and popularized operas folk stories novels and even films televisions and video games but the primary reason why this period of history is so highly regarded is due to the Ming dynasty's author law quite wrong his historical novel was the way the story would propagate near and abroad by which the fame of the exploits of the individuals picked it will become as well-known as the characters in the Bible are to us in fact such as the fame of this book it's considered one of the sannin jewel the four great books of China the only other way to compare what this book means Chinese people is to compare it to the Bible or to Shakespeare as it's a little bit of both of one part it's a historical model on the other hand it's a romanticized drama driven by an amazing novelist the history is factual however law quite drawn crafted and easily discernible narrative out of the historical depiction so let's get straight into it so the beginning of the book actually starts with the beginning of the decline of the Han Dynasty and it discusses the over alliance of the court on eunuchs in 105 ad a series of hand emperors ascend to the throne while still use and the facto imperial how often rests where the emperor's older relatives as his powerful caregivers were often unwilling to give up the influence of power Emperor's upon reaching maturity had to be forced and relying on political alliances with senior officials and eunuchs just to achieve control of the government and the party that would have mostly gained throughout all this are the eunuchs whilst us met with protests by many people in the government they often met with failure and execution load of high-level government officials all over the realms started to exert despotic control over their lands and citizens on top of all this there were a number of natural disasters during this time now when introduced after less charactered the story his name is Zhang Jian he's one of the primary unique leaders and according to the story of the Three Kingdoms he went to a wild place and a mystic man came to him out of the ether shall we say and gave him a sacred book and in the sacred book were there the written works of the mysteries astrology and healing and magic and the eunuch jeong-ja started this book intensely became a sage with magical powers so he started a cult it's called the way of supreme peace and it's a Taoists movement the followers of the practice would be taught divine superstitions but was also a fifth column in this disintegrating Han Empire that was ready to start a rebellion Giavotella knew that there were enemies all around him and a lot of people despised the power he had over the Emperor and it'd only be a matter of time before people start to depose him and in 184 ad they launched their rebellion and they were called yellow turbans because they were known to rap yellow pieces of cloth around their head it amassed the following of hundreds of thousands and became the greatest threat to the Han Empire and although the yellow turbans were eventually defeated they would spread out throughout the frontiers and the mountains and become a constant source of chaos for China despite all this the eunuchs still controlled a court notice the ten to ten their exploitation of the Emperor and the power that he had was known to all of the high-end officials and all the Warlord's in the country during this time of chaos it was decidedly best sent for don't draw a general VN province to come and slay the eunuchs dong-chul came and saw the blue yang capital was ablaze as a result of the power struggle between the eunuchs and his civil service they came and seized the factor control over the government at loyal the key here is for dong zhuo's showed his traitorous intent dong Zhuo would be formally recognized as the trader as interposed Logue in the current Han Emperor in favor of yoshiya so you can continue to use dosha as a puppet there was a lot of rape looting in a famine in Luo yang central government power started to completely collapse and his reputation as a brute would spread throughout the realm this is where the heroes of the story start to enter the fray now in this entire book there are hundreds of characters and at least twenty or thirty of them are very important so I don't want to saturate you with too many names so you're probably not gonna remember so I'm just gonna try to bring up the ones that are very important so in eastern China there was a coalition that joined together in order to rebel against don't draw one of these participants was Leo Bey so spoiler alert the old babe would eventually become the Emperor of one of these three kingdoms in the end so we need to pay attention to him he had two generals with him almost called Zhang Fei and the other was called Guan Yu these three characters that I mentioned have incredible amounts of fame even still to this day and have practically been they fired I just want to quickly mention Guan Yi for instance Guan Yu is considered the God of War practically in China and is greatly worshipped by Asian mystic societies such as the Triads or the Yakuza it's a very very common for Yakuza members to have a depiction of Guan Yu on their body as he represents martial prowess and loyalty so why is Zhang Fei Guan Yu and Liu Bei why they've together what is their story during the chaotic period of the Yellow Turban rebellion the Empire was already in chaos now the obey is a scion of the Han house he's from the LIA family the original yo was young he is actually the one who founded the Han Dynasty and he's a descendant from and is only one or two generations away from a prince however his part of the family was ruined financially and over the course of two generations he'll be living out in a small village in some small province with master living but despite this held a really strong sense of loyalty to the current ruling dynasty one of the really important values to discern in this ancient Chinese society is something called filial piety this is a value that spread it really as a result of Confucianism and the idea is that you value your mother and father with high honor you value your Lord and you highly value the ruling Emperor and many of these characters would report feeling gratitude for the bounty they've received from the Han Empire they have a lot of love for the Emperor and have a lot of love for the ruling dynasty after all even still today people are called Han Chinese because of the Han Empire 2,000 years ago the language they speak is Han Yu which is essentially the language of the hand so the connection they have to the dynasty isn't just about who's the ruler it's ultimately about the unity of their collective civilization and the obey was known as one the most loyal and loyal subjects of his generation and witnessing their empire crumble before his eyes was really hard for him he felt like as a scion of the hand he had a duty to rectify the situation and although he was just the Weaver of mats he had a big dream and his dream was to restore the ruling house as he's depicted in the book he wasn't described as someone who was greedy or his alpha power himself he wanted to selflessly restore the ruling house and give the power back to the emperor and bring back the good old days now any small town could meet - at the time nameless individuals Guan Yu and Zhang Fei Kuan Yew who was a fugitive and Zhang Fei who was a butcher and he told them of his dream to restore the Han to its greatness then comes the very famed oath of the peach garden where the three of them would take a sworn oath the fraternity whereby although there were not blood brothers they vowed that they would die on the same day together and pledge the goal to the heavens to restore the hand to its former greatness now these still partially nameless individuals although they they served that pod in the Yellow Turban rebellion now they're sitting amongst great generals and warlords in a coalition against don't draw so now I'm moving on from the obey Kwon Yu and Zhang Fei we're gonna move on to sow sow the most pivotal figure in the story and as betrayed by the book the MEK primary antagonist salsa was a cavalry commander in the good old hollandaise and during the reign of dong Zhuo he cozied up to him and was able to win his trust but only with the intention of assassinating him he secretly convinced the officials that his attempt to assassinate don't draw was to bring the Han back to greatness however his temp failed and it was forced to escape becoming a fugitive so he met up with his coalition of heroes recruiting troops and finding suppliers and tousle along with Leo Bayon his brothers and all the other warlords at the coalition would start a war against strong draw decided to see military success while that's going on we need to bring another plot into the story and the capital of Liu Yan were dong geun's hi Minister Wang noon would devise a conspiracy to overthrow don't or by using the beauty of his daughter diao Chan the first step of this plan was to promise the general blue boo her hand in marriage Lu Bo and diao Chan perform in love and the next step after that one noon sent for dong Zhuo to come to his residence and have some wine where he sees the beautiful diao Chan there who would become enraptured by her long lien promises to give his daughter to dong Zhuo as a concubine Wang Lin and his daughter would conspire behind these two powerful men's backs to ensure they wouldn't be able to find a reasonable solution to being in love with the same girl Lou boo being exasperated with his current predicament returned to Wang noon and Wang noon suggested assassinating the Emperor while promising ritual wards and high reputation for being the one that slays the trader and the usurper of the Han Dynasty boo boo consents and he ends up the same dong zhuo soldiers world to the Han reestablished control over Liu yang and peace for now resumes however dong Zhuo is two main generals Vedra and war soon find themselves pursued by this loyalist Han army being low on supplies to a desperate strategy of attempting to retake the capital lawyer the capital once again fell into ruins the young emperor would flee for his life with a small retinue servants swung in would die and Lu Bo and his newfound wife would go to the central plains of China would become one of the warlords to vie for power and establish a foothold in this new chaotic landscape meanwhile this coalition with no enemy to fight anymore satyr fight amongst themselves and started a vie for power as Lulu also did so they all went back to the individual realms excited to strategize against each other the Han Empire has officially broken up into pieces and entered a warlord era salsa with his band of elite cavalry would build up his power base by warring with the yellow turbans that remained in China there was still a major pest and then taken over a lot of towns and cities throughout China with his band of elite cavalry he was easily able to overwhelm the untrained and poorly armed yellow turbans had in their defeats he would recruit them to his armies drill them and increase the size of his forces Sasser would really cut his headquarters to present a shootout and consolidate his power now all this time the Emperor's wandering around barefoot in poverty escaping bandits and the troops sent by Quarren leader come to capture him so he sends a message out to all the Warlord's to come and rescue him Sal Sal receiving this message was deeply concerned that the other warlords particularly 1un Shu who was most powerful warlord at this time would come to save the Emperor and essentially use the power for himself so Sal Sal not wasting this opportunity cape riding day night with a large group of cavalry to come save the Emperor and so the young powerless emperor would fall into Sal's hands now the capital or young of this stage has been devastated by war it's in the control of warlords and despite being the capital for hundreds of years Sal Sal convinces the Emperor to come back with him to Shu Chun and officially make at the new capital this would be such a huge boon for Sal Sal as the Emperor had no power there was no central authority he had no army and essentially no officials underneath him so Sal could easily control the Emperor and the Emperor was still valuable because the realm was still deeply loyal to the Emperor and could still issue edicts to shell punishment and reward and we're still considered the highest figure in the land at least on paper that is so Southside would keep the young Emperor in a gilded cage in Shu chok won't be forced to sign documents and edict and as such would effective have imperial power now it's at this point of the story sow sow you obey and lubu their fates are gonna become intertwined as the governor of shrew province tout en had a subordinate John Kai and he was the ex Yellow Turban and people of this sort rather thuggish and John Kai would be responsible for the murder of sows house father during an armed robbery and although not directly the fault of tout Shen salsa would go to war with him in order to take Xu province yellow Bay being characterized with divine levels of propriety decided to come to Tara Chen's aid knowing that our Chen is in fact an upright ruler who unlike the warlords of the time simply just wanted to rule his people justly and just focus on sustaining me the state of the Empire and who was also a loyal subject of the hand the obey having very few forces roughly only a thousand had just enough to distract and delayed Sal Sal by sheer coincidence at the exact same time lubu comes in and takes the yen province which is controlled by the south and just adjacent to Xu province County and being so enamored by the propriety exhibited by the obey decided to give the province over to him as he was on his deathbed as a capable leader and skilled commander you'd be very capable of taking care of Xu province Luber would eventually be driven out of yen province and it would come to Lee obey to seek shelter south sell at the meantime would take the opportunity to use the Empress power to send an eating till the obey to go to war with un shoot and listeners to this would think gee that's a bit strange why would you let your enemy command you to do something that would ultimately hurt you but again I just need to emphasize the character of Lee obey at least in the way that is described by the text his loyalty that a han dynasty is so strong that even though he knows that the Emperor is simply a puppet for a traitor a usurper the obey still feels compelled to obey the order so he practically empty Suja the capitalist shoe in order to attack you and shoot to the south John Fay the brother in general of the obey was set to guard Xu Zhuo got into a drunken rage and started to came what the if officials who was a relative over lubu lubu seizing on this opportunity took the followers that he had and took over the city it's at this point in the story that the obey junk fan Kuan Yew and their small manner follows once again homeless and being able to withstand doable and you ain't sure they then fled to South our salsa would accept the heroes now I think it's important to mention in order to illustrate the drama and his Shakespearean element of the story that's written is that lil Bay is a map we have art with no real power and when he went to the coalition originally with his two commanders and a small ragtag following he was greatly disrespected by the other warlords the only person who held him in high esteem was SAS ha there's a story that during the battle with dong jaw one of their leading generals came out to initiate a one-on-one duel with whoever who would accept a duel iam supposedly this was quite common now I actually don't know how historically accurate this is but supposedly at least according to the book this is something that they actually did two of the strongest warriors would fight it out and whoever wins would have the morale advantage and would have a significant advantage over the enemy who's lost their general slash strongest warrior so here comes this warrior from dong zhuo to come challenge anyone who will fire challenging generals from you and shuya and Chou and other warlords would come out to fight him but he would single-handedly defeat them in one-on-one combat and this warrior of dong zhuo bested all of his opponents and as a result the coalition's morale was weakened and they didn't know how to fight him now why they didn't just decide to order an all-out assault and just overwhelm the strong enemy I don't know but supposedly when in the camp most of the strong War II heroes were decimated by this one general then up stands guan yu worrying tatters for robes dirty in a forum with nobles and warlords and says i will challenge him nobody expected success from this unknown warrior but there was cell-cell sitting in the background looking at a three jung fake war nearly obey the obey was derided into city into a lowly looking chair practically a wooden block in amongst the other warlords just as he had no power he wasn't respect did hardly anyone um and he introduced himself practically as a waiver of mats despite this Sal Sal looked upon them and when Guanyin came to stand up he had a striking feeling about the power these three gentlemen the obey had a very respectable and very calm matter about him well when you exude an aura of stoicism and hidden strength one you got up and hardly even spoke to anyone else there God knees horse rode up slayed the commanding general took his head back to the headquarters threw it down on the ground in front of all the warlord and this house house saw the true strength of these three individuals none of them batted an eyelid according to him it was all as if it was completely normal they were in high-fiving each other there was no praise it was just as if it was written by fate so Sal Sal was always wanted to recruit these individuals into his forces knowing how special they were and here's his chance at this time the obey and his brothers come to South South for aid and they reside in Shushan there's another famed scene in the book where Sal Sal Ali obey are sitting in a pavilion and sows are asking obey who he thinks are the heroes of the time the obey would never of course say himself the obey of course then goes on to list all the great warlords of the current time or the great administrators or the great minds and you list them out to sow sow sow sow individually robots all of them you enshou is too indecisive lubu may be the greatest warrior of our time but he has no strategy and he's a brute the ODI was meek and has no ambition and he goes on and on and on so Liu Bei asks so who are the heroes then and sow sow points a finger at him and points into himself and the reason why this is important part of the story at least for the sake of the dramatic element as written in the book is that the obey a weaver of Matt's military defeat after defeat is being told by its house Sal arguably the second biggest warlord of that time are the only contenders of this hero status at least according to sow sow sow sow feared and respected this powerlessly obey so it's during this time that the obey would assist sour cell in it packing boo-boo in order to regain shrew province Luba would be defeated and executed it's at this time in the capital shoe charm the obey would become officially acquainted with his long-lost relative the Emperor the Emperor being a young man in very powell is still through a great amount of Hope in his new acquaintance with the obey who was a sign of the imperial house and clearly showed his devotion to the ruling Han house it's at this time the Emperor's gilded cage would write a secret edict to loyal hand servants to come and set him free supposedly at least according to the book he wrote a message written in blood for loyal hand servants to come up assassinate sau sau and again restore the hand this edict would be passed around by loyal servants including the obey and many of them would sign a secret pact to fulfill the plan however during the conspiracy a botched attempt to assassinate sau sau was discovered as adopted try to poison him do be alarmed by the new change in events quickly fled and all the conspirators were eventually executed during the time of this conspiracy the obey was very keen to get out of Shu Chun and out of the grips of sau sau noting that one of the enemies of Sal Sal one event shoot one of the very powerful warlords of the South was fleeing to his brother in the north un char as yin xiu had just suffered a defeat by his house al and he wanted to combine his forces with the enshou and preserve himself so the obey petitions how sell to burl force and intercept you and shoot the obey would be fulfilling two goals first would be able to get away from south Sal's grip and also kill the traitor who just declared himself Emperor now at this time venture had made a grave error the reason why he was so defeated by his house al was that he made the great mistake of declaring himself Emperor during the times of the chaos he had come across the Imperial seal and what this is it's a large sculpture combat of jade and covered with precious gems and it signified the authority of the Emperor so if the emperor gave this to an official the official could then use that to represent the authority of the Emperor and wield the same power as he does so you ain't sure happening upon the seal decided to name himself Emperor thinking it'd be a good consuming the hand days are over but only invoked the ire of all the other warlords especially considering that everyone was so so loyal to the Han Dynasty and this was an affront to the civilization as a whole therefore Leo Bey was much too belies to destroy this pretender so escaping Xu Chang with a bowls of force lent to him by its how Sal he intercepted you and shooed defeated him and with his large army he would then go on to establish himself elsewhere the obey widdy's army would go to Xu province and take the shitty of Sharpie as his new base he would stay there and consolidate his power but the threat from south Sal was always looming large the obey had always hoped that the cold war existing between salsa and you enshou the two large powers right next to each other would keep him safe but salsa would take a gamble he would gamble on the indecisive nature of you and Xiao to commit to decisions so he could take his forces to sharp he in order to defeat the obey once and before before he becomes the bigger threat the obeys forces quickly disintegrated and trooper omens felted sows are and they just fled with their lives however Kuan Yew was left behind he was surrounded and originally refused to surrender rather willing to fight to the death how this also so admired Guan Yu and we should take him into his service that he refused to have him come unto home however Guan Yu only agreed to go with south-south if he could guarantee that he could stay with the obeys family whom he was sworn to protect and as soon as he gets notice of the workouts of his brothers he would be immediately allowed to go to them and those are his conditions so in South our greed through the messenger to these conditions when you set off with Sal Sal would stay in Shu Chung with him it's during this time in the story that we see the exploits of Guan Yu come into full play it's true to say then sow sow really loved Guan Yu he was majestic had a deep sense of loyalty which is something that sow sow seems to respect above all else despite the fact that southside respects guan yu so highly for his loyalty he's also predisposed to trying to corrupt him and sear him away from his lord his lord being the obey some of his gifts include in an apartment and many female servants and concubines none of which guan yu had anything to do is Sal Sal noticing one you was wearing basically nothing but all tatters after years of traveling abroad and fighting many battles so he gave him a new silk outfit top of the line back in the day one you didn't refuse but he put it underneath the tattered roads he already had Sal so asked why do you put it underneath your tattered robes because this tattered robe he was gifted to me by my Lord and this only increased the level of respect Sal Sahad for Guan Yu even though his intention had the opposite effect Sal Sal noticed that when the family of Liu Bei who was residing in the apartment would fall asleep one you would stay up all night stand by God Sal Sal deeply touched by sense of flower piety to his brother and Lord Sal saw either went as far as to gift one you would one of the most precious gifts to give someone he decided to give red hair the same red hair that was captured from Liu boom after his defeat he gave it to guan yin supposedly could run a hundred miles a day it could run up hills like it was even terrain and the first thing one who says great thank you as soon as I find using my brother's I'll be able to find them faster they saw they increased the mixed feelings of Sal Sal who deeply admired Guan Yu but couldn't seem to win his loyalty groin II fell the deadest service the south-south I was compelled to join him in battle against his new rival un Xiao Yu and sha who we mentioned before was the largest warlord at the time and he directly bordered south side to the north supposedly he had up to a million soldiers and South South was challenging him with only 200,000 yen Chow said his general Yong Yong to lead an army to attack South sounds garrison it's here that Guan Yi would repay his services sau sau by going into battle and returning with the beheaded head of Yong Yong it was said that Guan Yu road deep into the midst of the enemy disregarding all the enemy soldiers surrounded headed straight for the commander engaged with him in a duel and defeated him back in Xu chung kuo knee decides to make his leave he received word that the obey was currently with Yin Chou at this current moment having a small bit of information one you decided to set off quote I am aware that Lord's how it treats me very generously however I've also received many favors from general lo and I just want to follow him until I die I cannot break my own I will leave eventually so maybe you can help me convey my message to Lord Sal South I would say about Guan Yu the subject who serves his war but doesn't forget his origins is truly a man of righteousness when you left all the presents given by a sow sow all except for red hair and left Sal Sal chose not to oppose this and go against his word so granny went off it was said the on his way to Yen shouts territory he encountered many of the south-south subordinates who were not aware of sowas magnanimous decision to let Guan Yu go so we said five times he was stopped by an opposing general Guan Yu only taken with him a small family of the obeys in a carriage and a few guards were at the mercy of many large groups of border guards and regional commanders vying for sowas favor for stopping this dangerous and powerful fugitive but as the legend goes he defeated five of these combatants in one-on-one combat he did all this for the sake of returning to lower bay and her filling the oath they made in the peach garden all those years ago all right guys that's enough for part one make sure to leave a like if you enjoyed this video and if you want to see part two make sure to let me know in the comments and subscribe and I'll see you in the next video

Channel: DaveeyG Does Chinese

Views: 49,360

Rating: 4.8831463 out of 5

Keywords: three kingdoms, total war, china, education, history, edutainment, han dynasty, romance of the three kindgoms, chinese history, yellow turban, cao cao, liu bei, lu bu, its lu bu, dong zhou

Id: YY-DsT5et9s

Length: 27min 2sec (1622 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/daveey_g]

Hey guys I've been crazy obsessed with the 3 kingdoms ever since I moved to China years ago. I started off watching the 2010 series of the same name, re watched, read the book then re watched the series again.

So during this time of covid 19 related isolation I made a video going through the 3 kingdoms era.It's not a 10 minute long 'summary' of an almost 100 year period but we are going to dive in deep and discuss the key characters arch's, the history, the meanings and significance of this book. It's going to be a multipart series considering it took a while to make so subscribe if you want to see the next one.

[u/Rmocj51066]

This is great. Good job. I’m going to show this to some people. I wish there was a three kingdoms group on steam. I’d post this there.

[u/Fall7timesGetup8]

加油加油，我的兄弟！ You have a new subscriber!