The Three Kingdoms (AD 220–280),
Although relatively short, this historical period has been greatly romanticised in the cultures of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. It has been celebrated and popularised in operas, folk stories, novels and in more recent times, films, television, and video games. The best known of these is Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a Ming Dynasty historical novel based on events in the Three Kingdoms period. The authoritative historical record of the era is Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms, along with Pei Songzhi's later annotations of the text.
The Three Kingdoms period was one of the bloodiest in Chinese history.
