Three Kingdoms - Periodisation

Periodisation

There is no set time period for the era, and many arbitrary definitions are given. The strictest rule of dating would be to deem the era to be from the point where all three states coexisted as independent states (229, with the foundation of Eastern Wu) up until the downfall of the Shu-Han Kingdom (at which point, only two kingdoms continued to exist rather than three.) Mao Zonggang, a commentator on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, mentions in his commentary on Chapter 120 of the novel that:

"The three kingdoms formed when the Han royal house declined. The Han royal house declined when the eunuchs abused the sovereign and officials subverted the government.").

In doing so, he suggests that the historiography of the Three Kingdoms should begin at the rise of the Ten Eunuchs to power. He further argues that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms defines the end of the era as 280, the downfall of Wu, justifying:

"As the novel focuses on Han, it could have ended with the fall of Han. But Wei usurped Han. To end the tale before Han's enemy had itself met its fate would be to leave the reader unsatisfied. The novel could have ended with the fall of Wei, but Han's ally was Wu. To end the tale before Han's ally had fallen would be to leave the reader with an incomplete picture. So the tale had to end with the fall of Wu."

Many Chinese laymen extend the Three Kingdoms into the Later Han Dynasty, variably to 184 (to the Yellow Turban Rebellion) or to 189 (the Ten Eunuchs' coup).

By traditional Chinese historiography, no Three Kingdoms era officially existed, since in a legal sense the Mandate of Heaven was passed legitimately from the Han Emperor Xian to Cao Wei, and then on to the Jìn Dynasty.