Romance of the Three Kingdoms in Vernacular Chinese

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is China's first chapter-length novel. The reason why Chinese novels developed from short stories to long novels is related to storytelling. Storytelling became popular in the Song Dynasty, and storytelling became a profession. Storytellers liked to use the stories of ancient figures as themes to perform. The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms written by Chen Shou and annotated by Pei Songzhi has many characters, multiple protagonists as clues, and numerous events, which is the best material for writing stories. Some sporadic fragments of the Three Kingdoms story had originally been circulated among the people. As storytellers used materials over a long period of time, the content became richer and richer, and the characters became more and more fleshed-out. Finally, many independent stories were gradually combined into a long masterpiece. These isolated stories were passed down orally in society for a long time, and were finally processed and compiled into a book, becoming China's first chapter-length novel. This is a remarkable collective creation, which is different in form from novels written by a single author. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is believed to have a certain inspiration for later novels. This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.