The story begins when the emperor, fearing uprisings by peasant rebels known as the Yellow Scarves, sends an urgent appeal to the provinces for popular support. In response, three young men—the aristocratic Liu Xuande, the fugitive Guan Yu and the pig-butcher Zhang Fei—meet to pledge eternal brotherhood and fealty to their beleaguered government. From these events comes a chain of cause and consequence that leads ultimately to the collapse of the Han Dynasty. Moss Roberts’s new translation provides, for the first time, an authoritative, annotated English language version of this great and enduring work of world literature.