The first episode finds the empire in turmoil and three men of valor vowing to do something about it.

* Transcript

* Map of Key Locations

* Graph of Key Characters and Relationships

From left: Zhang Fei, Liu Bei, and Guan Yu in the peach garden

Zhang Fei is not amused.

Transcript

PDF version

Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast. This is Episode 1.

Actually, this is a re-recording of episode 1. After doing the podcast for about a year, I feel inclined to go back and redo some of the early episodes to bring their quality, both stylistically and technically, more into line with the later episodes. So if you hear a few better-sounding episodes at the beginning, followed by a few, umm, not as-good-sounding episodes, that is why. This is something I’m doing slowly, since I have to keep producing new episodes as well. Alright, on with the show.

Before we dive into the narrative, we’re going to begin with a poem. This is a common device in ancient Chinese literature. The poem at the beginning of a long epic often provides a meta view of the saga that is about to unfold. So keep the images and ideas from this poem in mind as we progress through the story of the Three Kingdoms.

 

The song goes:

O so vast, O so mighty, The Great River rolls to sea,

Flowers do waves thrash, Heroes do sands smash,

When all the dreams drain, Same are loss and gain.

Green mountains remain, As sunsets ingrain,

Hoary fishers and woodcutters, And some small rafts and calm waters,

In autumn moon, in spring winds, By the wine jars, by porcelains,

Discuss talk and tale, Only laugh and gale.

 

Ever since antiquity, domains under heaven, after a long period of division, tend to unite; and after a long period of unity, tend to divide. For instance, the Zhou dynasty lasted almost 800 years, from 1046 to 256 BC. Nearing the end of the Zhou, however, seven kingdoms sprang up and made war on each other until the kingdom of Qin prevailed and founded the Qin dynasty. This was the dynasty that gave China its first emperor. But the Qin dynasty only lasted 15 years, and when it fell, the kingdoms of Chu and Han battled for control of the realm, and Han emerged victorious.

The rise of Han began when, according to legend, Liu Bang, the man who would become its first emperor, slew a white serpent to signify the beginning of his uprising. Liu Bang would go on to unite the country under his rule, found the Han dynasty in 202 BC, and become referred to by posterity as the Supreme Ancestor. You will hear that title come up from time to time as various characters in the novel refer back to the great deeds of the first emperor of the Han dynasty.

The empire created by the Supreme Ancestor was handed down through successive emperors for two hundred years, but these rulers became less and less supreme, until in 9 A.D., a court official named Wang Mang usurped the throne. Wang Mang’s rule, however, only lasted 14 years before Liu Xiu, one of many descendants of the royal house of Han, overthrew him and resurrected the Han Dynasty. The Han dynasty that came before Wang Mang’s usurpation is commonly called the Western Han, while the Han dynasty that followed the usurpation is called...