Introduction

'The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide.' At the end of the Eastern Han the empire falls into chaos and warlords rise on every side: Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei swear brotherhood in the peach garden; Cao Cao holds the emperor hostage to command the lords; Sun Quan holds the lands south of the Yangtze. Liu Bei visits the thatched cottage three times to win Zhuge Liang to his side, and the fire at the Red Cliffs divides the realm into the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu. Then come Guan Yu's ride through five passes and his defeat at Maicheng, Zhuge Liang's seven captures of Meng Huo and six campaigns from Qishan, his death before his work was done, and the final union of the three kingdoms under Jin. This novel of a hundred and twenty chapters spans nearly a century and more than a thousand characters; its stratagems and heroes are known to everyone across East Asia. We publish the complete translation in volumes.