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THE THREE KINGDOMS ERA

the Three Kingdom Era is one of the most mythical period in chinese history,most of what we know about this period come from a novel written 500 year after the era and a lot of it is just pure fiction,the most accurate source we got from this period are the official record of the TK era but its scarce and we are missing a lot of information. We know that it started with the yellow turban rebellion in 84 AD which was a popular uprising which claimed that the emperor at the time has lost the mandate of heaven or the right to rule by the gods names and needed to be replaced.The rebellion started in eastern china and its spreaded all around the empire. The empire at the time was plagued by corruption, the emperor was selling publics fonctions to his favorites, and those man squeezed the peasantry to pay the emperor, the state was also affected by famine and flood which participated to the popularityof the uprising. The emperor was too weak to deal with the uprising so he tasked his generals to deal with it but all the ambitious generals used this opportunity to gain autonomy among them was Cao Cao renown for his ruthlessness and his sense of strategy and scheming, he repressed the uprising with violence. Around those time a young man named Liu Bei and his two sworn brothers Guang Yu and Zhang Fei where gaining popularity by defending their homeland against the yellow turban. Those two were not the only ambitious generals, in fact in a matter of just years the empire was divided among numerous warlords.

Things grew more complicated when the emperor died without designating an heir, his death plunged the royal palace into anarchy and in a political war between the eunuchs and the royal family.The emperor’s brother had the eunuchs leader executed and proclaimed the first son of the former emperor new leader of the Han Empire. The eunuchs assassinated the brother and tried to capture the empe-

ror but they were surrounded by the palace guards and killed. Seeing an opportunity a ambitious and cruel warlord,Dong Zhuo entered the city and declared himself regent,he deposed the former emperor and named his younger brother emperor. His tyrannical reign was so horrible that a group of warlords lead by Yuan Shao and Cao Cao created a coalition to oppose his rule. After a series of battles the wars was at

a stalling point but a event occurred,a retainer assassinated Dong Zhuo in the palace hall. Cao Cao seized this opportunity to seize the emperor and drag him in a new capital in the state of Wei. In 200 ad the conflict between the two former ally Cao Cao and Yuan Shao was inevitable,the army of Yuan Shao had 110 000 men including Liu Bei against the 20 000 men of Cao Cao, Cao Cao had to use cunning to fight. He discarded some baggages train with loots and used them as decoy,when Yuan Shao mens saw the loot then started

pillaging it allowing Cao Cao cavalry a chance to strike, Liu Bei barely escape with his life.Cao Cao retreated to a village named Guandu.Yuan Shao started besieging it and starving Cao Cao’s army. Cao Cao manage at one point in the siege a supply strike in Yuan Shao’s provision destroying all of their foods and he struck them in the morning after when they were demoralised. Liu Bei fled in a region governed by a distant relative and ask the aid

of a famous tactitician Zhou Ul Liang.Liu Bei started to fight again the Sun clan who tried to annex the territory of his relative.When his relative died Liu Bei started a civil war against the latter's sons. Cao Cao seized the opportunity to attack the Jing Province of Liu Bei,Liu Bei had to flee again.Liu Bei allied with the Sun clan under Sun Quan who was wary of Cao Cao’s expansionist project .The alliance had 50 000 men against 180 000 men of Cao Cao’s army,the alliance use numerous tactics to pick apart the other army, they sent empty boats with oil to burn the enemy fleet,they use the panic to cut off the retreat of Cao Cao’s army at the battle of the Red Cliff in 208 AD. After this battle three power emerged, the kingdom of Cao Wei,the kingdom of Sun Wu and the kingdom of Shu Han.

After Cao Cao death his son named himself emperor in Wei, Liu Bei follow the idea shortly after and Sun Quan did also the same thing.in 263 the Shu empire manage to repulse a invasion by Wu but Wei seeing them as easy target attacked and annexed the entire empire. The Cao Wei family was deposed shortly after by a family of general,the Jin family. In 280 AD the Jin would complete the conquest of Wu reuniting China once again. This is how ended the Three Kingdoms era one of the most romanticised period in china history and which lead to numerous cultural figures very popular in china like Cao Cao. It's a incredibly rich period with a lot of other interesting character i didn’t mention like Lu bu, Dong Zhuo general who was undefeated in duel until his execution by Cao Cao or Zhang Yan the famous black mountain king. The Jin empire would last until until 420 where they were splitted in 16 kingdoms by the south Song dynasty.

Autor:Yann