Brotherhood Forged in the Peach Garden

Toward the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty(25-220) China was war-stricken. After a royal edict to recruit soldiers in Zhuozhou, three heroes surfaced. One was Liu Bei, a descendent of Liu Sheng, Prince Jin of Zhongshan during the Han Dynasty. Liu Bei was sighing while reading the posted edict when he heard an impatient voice behind, " What use is just sighing, without a man's devotion to his country?"
Then the man introduced himself: "I'm Zhang Fei and my livelihood is selling wine and slaughtering hogs."
"I do want to devote myself to the country," Liu explained after telling Zhang his name. "But how can I help if I'm empty handed?"
"You needn't worry," said Zhang. "I'm willing to give up my fortune to build an army and embark on this new career with you."
While the two talked merrily over cups in a small restaurant, in came a martial looking, handsome man with a huge build and a red complexion. Liu and Zhang invited him to join them. They learned that the man was named Guan Yu. As he had upheld justice by killing a local tyrant, he had fled home and wandered about for many years. During an amiable conversation the three found that they shared a common ambition and the next day in a peach garden they swore brotherhood to heaven and earth before lit candles and joss sticks, Liu Bei the eldest, Guan Yu the second-oldest and Zhang Fei the youngest. They vowed devotion to China. Later, the three sworn brothers had successful career. Liu Bei ascended to the throne of the State of Shu in 221A.D in present-day Sichuan.

Culturally, due to the popularity of the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, Liu Bei is widely known as the ideal benevolent, humane ruler who cared for his people and selected good advisors for his government. His fictional character was a salutary example of a ruler who adhered to the Confucian set of moral values, such as loyalty and compassion. Historically, Liu Bei was a brilliant politician and leader whose skill was a remarkable demonstration of a Legalist. His political philosophy can best be described by the Chinese idiom "Confucian in appearance but Legalist in substance," a style of governing which had become the norm after the founding of the Han Dynasty.

Zhang Fei was described to be an alcoholic, and his obsession with wine caused his judgement to be affected from time to time. Throughout the novel Three Kingdoms, Zhang Fei was shown as an exceedingly loyal and formidable warrior, but also a short-tempered man, who often got into trouble more often when he was not on the battlefield. Zhang Fei's impulsive and reckless nature was demonstrated in one incident at Gucheng.

Guan Yu (died 220)was a general serving under the warlord Liu Bei during the late Eastern Han Dynasty of China. He played a significant role in the civil war that led to the collapse of the Han Dynasty and the establishment of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period, of which Liu Bei was the first emperor.

Battle of Red Cliffs - Three Kingdoms

The Battle of Red Cliffs, otherwise known as the Battle of Chibi, was one of the novel Three Kindoms' secondery stories. During the confrontation of the Three Kingdoms in China, The Battle of Red Cliffs was a decisive battle at the end of the Han Dynasty, immediately prior to the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. It was fought in the winter of 208/9 AD[1] between the allied forces of the southern warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan and the numerically superior forces of the northern warlord Cao Cao. 
After the Duke of Wei, Cao Cao had controlled all of the North China Plain, he led the troop of 800.000 soldiers to south aiming to eliminate his main southern rivals swiftly and unify China. Meanwhile, Zhou Yu and Lu Su, the generals of Wu and Zhuge Liang of Shu accurately analyzed the situation and disadvantages of Cao army, including its unstable rear supply despite of the claimed 800 thousand soldiers, exhausting expedition and inexperience in water battle, and developed their strategy of confronting the army.
There were altogether 50,000 soldiers, including 30,000 trained naval soldiers led by Zhou Yu, the general of Wu and others led by Liu Bei of Shu organized to confront the Cao army. Since Cao Cao's troop was already decimated by seasickness and lack of water experience, it lost control in battle effectiveness and had to camp northern of the Yangtze River with the Wu and Shu troops in the south. Later Cao Cao ordered to chain his entire fleet together with strong iron chains to drill the navy. Zhou Yu then adopted Huang Gai’s plan of an attack that he pretended to surrender to Cao Cao and got the chance to get close to Cao’s fleet and attacked Cao Cao with fire ships. Cao Cao simply assumed that superiority in number would eventually defeat the Wu and Shu navy and gave Huang Gai the chance to approach his fleet. This eventually brought the debacle of his fleets, which were intruded by Huang Gai’s boats with all firewood ignited at the same time. The Cao army became a sea of fire immediately, which extended to the camps on bank and caused decisive damage of the army. Zhou Yu and others seized the opportunity and chased the Cao force along the way and successfully beat it. Cao Cao had to flee with the remaining troops. The ally then chased to enlarge their victory.
The decisive battle of red cliffs was brought to an end under the background that Cao Cao held the favorable position but underestimated his enemy and made the wrong decision that led to his defeat. During the battle, Sun and Liu allied to repel the strong enemy, leveraged their advantage in water battle and adopted the fire attack to finally defeat the stronger with the weaker. The battle laid the foundation for the confrontation of the latter three kingdoms, Wei, Shu and Wu.
A combination of Cao Cao's strategic errors and the effectiveness of Huang Gai's ruse had resulted in the allied victory at the Battle of Red Cliffs. Zhou Yu had previously observed that Cao Cao's generals and soldiers comprised mostly cavalry and infantry, and few had any experience in naval warfare. Cao Cao also had little support among the people of Jing Province, and thus lacked a secure forward base of operations. Despite the strategic acumen Cao Cao had displayed in earlier campaigns and battles, in this case he had simply assumed that numerical superiority would eventually defeat the Sun and Liu navy. Cao's first tactical mistake was converting his massive army of infantry and cavalry into a marine corps and navy: with only a few days of drills before the battle, Cao Cao's troops were ravaged by sea-sickness and lack of experience on water. Tropical diseases, to which the southerners had long been immune, also plagued the soldiers of the north with the debilitating effects of sickness rampant in Cao Cao's camps. Although numerous, Cao Cao's men were already exhausted by the unfamiliar environment and the extended southern campaign, as Zhuge Liang observed: "Even a powerful arrow at the end of its flight cannot penetrate a silk cloth"

Four Classic Chinese Novels

"Journey to the West", "Outlaws of the Marsh", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and "A Dream of the Red Mansions" are universally accepted by all Chinese people as their greatest novels. Even the illiterate Chinese are intimately knowledgeable with the plot and the main characters of these novels because they have been the sources of much popular entertainment, whether it was the traveling opera of old or the contemporary movies and TV serials. In terms of how well the story is told, "Three Kingdoms" and "A Dream of Red Mansion" are vastly superior to the other two works. In fact each of their fans, Chinese and foreign, consider their respective novel the best novel ever written. Anywhere. "Three Kingdoms" is the best novel in the strategy and action/adventure category while "A Dream of Red Mansions" is the greatest romantic novel.
These novels are long, some being over 3,000 pages long, depending on the edition. Abridged versions are available but we strongly recommend against reading just the abridged versions of "Three Kingdoms" and "A Dream of Red Mansions", because you'll want to read the full version sooner or later. On the other hand, "Journey to the West" and "Outlaws of the Marsh" are written as a series of loosely connected stories and therefore may not lose as much from abridgement.