Luo Guanzhong

Luo Ben, known as Luo Guanzhong and calling himself 'the Wanderer of Lakes and Seas', lived at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming dynasty; he came, by different accounts, from Taiyuan or Hangzhou. Little is known of his life. He is said to have been a man of few companions who took part in the risings against the Yuan before devoting himself to writing. Drawing on Chen Shou's official Records of the Three Kingdoms and on centuries of storytellers' tales and plays, he wrote the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and founded the Chinese tradition of the historical novel. He is also said to have had a hand in The Water Margin.