Five Tiger Generals
| Five Tiger Generals | |||||||||||
| Chinese | 五虎將 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|||||||||||
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Wǔ Hǔ Jiàng |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Jyutping | Ng5 Fu2 Zoeng3 |
The Five Tiger Generals is a popular appellation in Chinese culture for any five military generals serving under a ruler. This term is used in literature texts, plays and popular culture. In historical contexts, "Five Tiger Generals" usually refers to the five best military generals serving under the ruler. The term does not appear in Chinese historical records and is not used officially.
When applied to the Three Kingdoms period, the "Five Tiger Generals" refer to five generals from the state of Shu Han. In the historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi), the biographies of Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao and Huang Zhong are placed in the same volume. In the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Yanyi), which romanticises the events before and during the Three Kingdoms period, the Shu emperor Liu Bei actually bestowed the titles of "Five Tiger Generals" on these five generals. The historicity of the Tiger Generals is unknown; those generals existed but it is uncertain whether they were granted the titles contemporarily or posthumously honoured as such.
In the classical novel Water Margin, five of the 108 outlaws at Liangshan Marsh – Guan Sheng, Lin Chong, Qin Ming, Huyan Zhuo and Dong Ping – are named the "Five Tiger Generals" of the Liangshan cavalry.
The Qing dynasty writer Li Yutang named Di Qing, Shi Yu, Zhang Zhong, Li Yi, and Liu Qing as the "Five Tiger Generals" in his works Romance of Di Qing, The Five Tigers Conquer the West, and The Five Tigers Pacify the South.
...
Wikipedia