Sure, we've already done an episode on Three Kingdoms. But so many interesting characters and gripping tales come from that era, both as history and in fictionalized form from "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms," that we can easily do a dozen episodes or more.

This time, let's focus on the trio of men whose friendship opens the novel and serves as the through line for much of the rest of the book: Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei.

Not only that, but the relationship among these three goes on to help define Chinese civilization, its values and its foibles. The peach garden in which the three swear allegiance to one another remains today a symbol of undying friendship.

Not to mention their respective individual impacts on Chinese culture: Guan Yu, for one, comes to be deified as the god of war.

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