The Three Kingdoms: When China Shattered Into Legend

The Mandate Of Heaven

You’ve heard about the Three Kingdoms a billion times — through Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Dynasty Warriors, and a thousand operas. But the real history is far darker than the legend.

This video traces the full sixty-year collapse of Han China and the rise of Wei, Shu, and Wu, from the Yellow Turban Rebellion to the abdication of 220 AD, the battles of Guandu and Red Cliffs, Zhuge Liang’s tragic Northern Expeditions, and the silent rise of the Sima clan that swallowed all three kingdoms by 280. Forty million people died. Most of them never made it into the novel.