Chapter 1
Figures Who Drive the Chaos: Establishing the Three Kingdoms / 13
1.
The ideological and value tendencies of the lords and subordinate warriors of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms _20
2.
Personality Types of the Lords and Subordinate Generals in Romance of the Three Kingdoms _40
3.
The Wei Dynasty in Romance of the Three Kingdoms: The Dream of a World-Landing Lord and His Subordinate Generals _66

Chapter 2
Cao Cao, the hero of troubled times who ushered in a new era of history, founding the Wei Dynasty / 75
1.
The Life Trajectory of the Character Cao Cao _77
2.
A man of great courage who led the way through troubled times with external influence and internal law _105
3.
Building a foundation for the founding of the nation, a cruel ruler who missed out on unifying the country, a hero in troubled times _122
4.
The Remaining Discussions of Lord Cao Cao _165

Chapter 3
The unfortunate leader Sun-wook, who tried to build a stronghold for the Qise Dynasty but was ultimately defeated / 173
1.
The Life Trajectory of the Character Sun-wook _175
2.
Confucian scholar Yuga Jeokhyeon, who pursued the throne through a path of persecution, actually had a wish for the revival of the Han Dynasty. _186
3.
A strategist who led the way in pacifying troubled times with his analytical and meticulous personality _195
4.
The Remaining Discussion of Mosin Xun Yu _225

Chapter 4
Military Sunyu, who presents a strategy for hegemony without revealing flexibility / 231
1.
The Life Trajectory of Sun-Yu, a Character _233
2.
A noble strategist who pursued hegemony through wisdom _241
3.
A strategist who led a great undertaking with a bold yet rational personality _248
4.
The Remaining Discussion of Mosin Sunyu _266

Chapter 5
Jeong Wook, a ruthless advisor with the courage and wisdom to protect Yeonju and contribute to the conquest of the Central Plains / 271
1.
The Life Trajectory of Jeong-wook _273
2.
A patriot who seemed out of sync with Confucianism _280
3.
Boksin, who supported Cao Cao with a stubborn personality and no regard for means _285
4.
The Remaining Discussion of Mosin Jeong-uk _302

Chapter 6
Guo Jia, the aide who tragically died while realizing his master's potential / 307
1.
The Life Trajectory of Guo Jia _309
2.
A nonsensical strategist who pursued the path of tyranny and ignored the rites of passage _318
3.
A future-oriented character who realizes the potential of the lord _325
4.
The Remaining Discussion of the Mosin Guo Family _346

Chapter 7
Gahu, the master of transformation, who uses his wit and improvisation to devise flawless strategies / 351
1.
The Trajectory of the Life of a Character Gahu _353
2.
A Political Engineer Whose Life Stands Out: Myeongcheolbosin _362
3.
A strategist with a witty personality and an outstanding sense of reality _369
4.
The remaining discussions after the death of Mosin _388

Chapter 8
The one-eyed general Xiahou Dun, who stood at the forefront of battle and served as a driving force for the rear forces / 393
1.
The Life Trajectory of Xiahou Dun _395
2.
A man who showed his Confucian qualities through rough behavior _401
3.
A general with both an active personality and administrative skills _405
4.
The Remaining Discussions of the Armed Forces Xiahou Dun _418

Chapter 9
Xiahou Yuan, the final field army commander, boasting mobility and courage but overconfidence and vain deeds / 421
1.
The Life Trajectory of Xiahou Yuan _423
2.
The Swordsman Who Lived for Cao Cao to the Point of Taking Sin _429
3.
A pioneer who achieved numerous feats with his impulsive personality _433
4.
The Remaining Discussion of the Armed Forces of Xiahou Yuan _444

Chapter 10
Commander Jo In, a courageous and strategically minded commander with exemplary leadership / 447
1.
The Life Trajectory of the Character Join _449
2.
A warrior who, unlike his chivalrous nature, displayed a legalistic side _457
3.
The head of the school, who maintained prosperity with his meticulous and strict personality _463
4.
The Remaining Discussion of the Armed Forces _478

Chapter 11
General Jang Liao, who defeated 100,000 Wu troops with 800 warriors at the Battle of Hapyeong and displayed his courage / 483
1.
The Life Trajectory of a Character Minister _485
2.
Successful skills based on the principle of "giving one's life for those who understand oneself" _493
3.
Martial arts that led to victory in the Battle of Hapbi with courage and cool-headedness _499
4.
The Remaining Discussion of the Armed Officers _514

Chapter 12
Zhang He, a skilled general who used strategic tactics to block Zhuge Liang's advance into Qishan / 519
1.
The Life Trajectory of Jang Heop _521
2.
Skills honed through pro-Confucianism _529
3.
A general with both courage and wisdom, a meticulous personality, and an adept at improvising _535
4.
The Remaining Discussion of the Armed Forces _545

preface

I was born in a rural village at the foot of Mt. Deogyusan and attended elementary school under the strict education of my grandparents and parents, while also receiving loving care.
I went to a middle school in a big city where the city hall was located, but I was extremely lonely and couldn't stop thinking about my hometown.
On days when school ended early, I would run to the public library near my boarding house and read anything I could find, from literary works to popular novels, to soothe my thoughts about home.
During that time, my attention was drawn to the four major Chinese classics: Journey to the West, Water Margin, The Golden Plum, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Journey to the West is a story of absurd imagination, while Water Margin is a very exciting story about the Liangshanbo bandits.
Although the story of the Golden Plum Blossom was also a likely human story, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms was considered by far the most enjoyable to read, as it contained lessons of loyalty and wisdom about life.
It had a magic that went beyond simple fun, making it impossible to put down once you picked it up until you finished reading it.

At that time, I read almost all the different versions of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but among them, I read over and over again the 10-volume Romance of the Three Kingdoms published by Jeong-eumsa in 1954.
At the time, the booklet listed Choi Young-hae as the translator and publisher, but it was only much later that I learned that the original translator was Park Tae-won of Kubo, who defected to North Korea after completing about half of the translation, and that Choi Young-hae, the publisher, finished it in that style.
Anyway, I liked the style of the translation so much that I spent more than a few nights in my boarding house reading it.
I still vividly remember that I had borrowed the Romance of the Three Kingdoms from the library and was reading it deeply on a bench in the bamboo forest when the wind blew and the bamboo leaves swayed.
At that very moment, the thought that 'history flows' crossed my mind is still vivid as if it were yesterday.

When I entered high school and was a freshman, I had to take a year off due to family circumstances, so I followed my grandfather's advice and went to a seodang (traditional private school) in my hometown for a year.
There, I learned about Jiang Zhi's "Tonggamjeolyo" (Comprehensive Aid to Government-General), and found out that volumes 20 to 26 were the history of the Three Kingdoms period, and that the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" that I had read in middle school was actually a novel called "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" by Luo Guanzhong.
During my first and second year of college, I took courses in the Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, the Analects of Confucius, Mencius, and the Book of Songs, which naturally brought me closer to the original Chinese texts and led me to devour Chen Shou's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," a historical book on the Three Kingdoms period.
After graduating from college and graduate school, and then becoming a professor, my days were filled with research and lectures in my major field of social science, and I spent a considerable amount of time away from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Then, in 1992, while hiking Mt. Gwanak with some professors, I happened to talk about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
This led to the formation of the 'Professors Who Love the Three Kingdoms', and with considerable support from enthusiasts, regular 'Three Kingdoms Seminars' were held in spring, summer, fall, and winter for over 20 years.
As I took an active part in this, I came to deeply study the 〈Comments of Pei Songzhi in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms〉, Fan Ye’s 〈Annals of the Book of the Later Han〉, and among them, the 13 characters in the 〈Biographies of the Book of the Later Han〉, whose biographies overlap with those of the 〈Romance of the Three Kingdoms〉.
Next, I delved deeply into the history of Sima Guang's "Zizhi Tongjian" (Volume 55, First Tang Dynasty War) to Volume 81, the Jin Dynasty's unification of the country, and the Chronicles of Emperor Xuan, Biography of Du Ye, and Biography of Wang Jun in Fang Xuanling's "Book of Jin".

The question of "history flows" that came to mind when I read the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" in the bamboo forest of the library during middle school has now focused all my attention on the thesis of "What is the driving force that led the Three Kingdoms period, a long war that lasted about a century 1,800 years ago?" through the historical "Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

In the Three Kingdoms period of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang once said in the Longzhong period, “Compared to Yuan Shao, Cao Cao’s reputation was faint and his military force was small, but the reason Cao Cao was able to defeat Yuan Shao and go from being weak to strong was not only because of heavenly timing, but also because he relied on human strategy.”
Ultimately, the driving force that drives history is the will of humans.
Also, Mao Zedong said in his “On the War of the Earth” that “conscious activity is a unique human characteristic.
This trait is particularly evident in war.
Clearly, victory or defeat is determined by a whole series of unique conditions for both sides waging war.
However, these conditions only determine the possibility of victory or defeat, and conscious activity in war is necessary to bring about the decision about victory or defeat,” he emphasizes.

In this paradigm of historical change, the Later Han Dynasty collapsed, and the Three Kingdoms period of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms entered a turbulent period of about 100 years, passing through a period of warlords and finally condensed into the establishment of the Three Kingdoms of Wei, Shu, and Wu, and each of these three countries, with the driving force of the 'will and strategy' of their lords, ministers, and military commanders, fought for the unification of the world.
In this series, “Character Studies of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” we will unfold the epic history of these figures, who have blazed a trail through history.

In “The Merchant of Shen Yuanchun,” Mao Zedong asks, “Oh, how vast is the expanse / I ask, on this vast earth / Who is it that presides over all human destinies?” and asks what the driving force of history is, to which he responds in “The Narrative of Shen Yuanchun,” “Everything has flowed away / If you truly want to find a hero / You must look to today.”

The magic that will unleash the ancient historical driving force of the Three Kingdoms period in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is none other than your present day.
I hope to find a genuine point of intersection between the past and the present in the historical understanding of the text of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and I would be most grateful if this horizon could resonate, even in the slightest, with the readers of this book.

On a snowy spring day in March 2008, I began my first lecture on “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the World of Life” at Seoul Citizens’ University, and at the same time, I began to think about writing “A Study of the Characters in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.”
There was great excitement and also fear.
I was wandering around a mountaineering equipment store with the intention of climbing Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, without any experience climbing a high mountain.
As the saying goes, "You have to be crazy to be crazy," in 2017, after nearly eight years of being completely immersed in the world of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I published "A Study of the Characters of the Three Kingdoms Warlords," which can be considered the prologue to "A Study of the Characters of the Three Kingdoms."
Although he received encouragement for upgrading the level of Romance of the Three Kingdoms aimed at Romance of the Three Kingdoms enthusiasts, there were also many shortcomings as a first work, such as overlapping historical materials, as he attempted to analyze the personalities of the characters of Romance of the Three Kingdoms through a multifaceted prism.
After that, another eight years passed, and now, two volumes, “Romance of the Three Kingdoms: The Warlords Who Served Cao Cao and Who Dreamed of Building a World” and “Romance of the Three Kingdoms: The Warlords Who Served Liu Bei and Who Dreamed of Building a Han Dynasty,” which can be said to be the essence of “Studies on Characters of the Three Kingdoms,” are being published simultaneously.
Looking back, after planning to write “Study of Characters in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms” in March 2008, I was crazy about the world of “Study of Characters in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” but I had many shortcomings as an author, such as doing a lot of research. However, the two books published this time cover the essence of “Study of Characters in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” so I express my sincere feelings that I wrote it as I wanted to, and I hope that Donghak Jehyeon will show interest and receive many criticisms.

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my seniors, friends, and juniors who have consistently encouraged and supported me throughout my long writing career, and I would also like to express my gratitude to the members who have participated in the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the World of Life” course and have spent time with me.
I would also like to express my gratitude to my students at the Department of Social Welfare, Seoul Metropolitan University, who spared no effort in organizing the manuscript.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the planning, marketing, and editorial staff at Park Young-sa, who generously took on the task of publishing this book.

October 2025
At Gogeumjae
Author Han Hyeong-su