Records of the Three Kingdoms

Records of the Three Kingdoms

A fragment of the biography of Bu Zhi from the Records of the Three Kingdoms, part of the Dunhuang manuscripts
Author	Chen Shou
Original title	三國志
Country	China
Language	Classical Chinese
Subject	History of the Three Kingdoms period
Publication date	3rd century

The Records of the Three Kingdoms is a Chinese historical text which covers the history of the late Eastern Han dynasty (c. 184–220 AD) and the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD). It is widely regarded as the official and authoritative historical text for that period. Written by Chen Shou in the third century, the work combines the smaller histories of the rival states of Cao Wei, Shu Han and Eastern Wu in the Three Kingdoms period into a single text. The Records of the Three Kingdoms provided the basis for the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century.

Together with the Records of the Grand Historian, Book of Han and Book of the Later Han, the Records of the Three Kingdoms is part of the early four historiographies of the Twenty-Four Histories canon. It contains 65 volumes and about 360,000 Chinese characters which are broken into three books. The Book of Wei contains 30 volumes, the Book of Shu 15 volumes, while the Book of Wu contains 20 volumes. Each volume is organised in the form of one or more biographies. The amount of space a biography takes up is dictated by the importance of the figure.

The original author was Chen Shou, who was born in present-day Nanchong, Sichuan, in the state of Shu. After the fall of Shu in 263, he became an official historian under the government of the Jin dynasty, and was assigned to create a history of the Three Kingdoms period. After the fall of Wu in 280, his work received the acclaim of the senior minister Zhang Hua. Prior to the Jin dynasty, both the states of Wei and Wu already had their official histories, such as the Book of Wei by Wang Chen, the Weilüe by Yu Huan, and the Book of Wu by Wei Zhao. Chen Shou created the Records of the Three Kingdoms with these preexisting works as a foundation. However, since the state of Shu lacked documents about its history, the Book of Shu in the Records of the Three Kingdoms was composed by Chen Shou himself based on his personal memories of his early life in Shu and other primary sources he collected, such as the writings of Zhuge Liang. The Records of the Three Kingdoms used the year 220 AD — which marked the end of the Han dynasty — as the year in which the state of Wei was established. The Records of the Three Kingdoms referred the rulers of Wei as 'Emperors' and those of Shu and Wu as 'Lords' or by their personal names. This was to uphold the legitimacy of the Jin dynasty as the inheritor of the Mandate of Heaven from Wei — because Wei must first be "designated" as the true successor to the Han dynasty in order for Jin's claim to be effective.