Page "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" Paragraph 37

Some fifty or sixty Yuan and early Ming plays about the Three Kingdoms are known to have existed, and their material is almost entirely fictional, based on thin threads of actual history.

The novel is thus a return to greater emphasis on history, compared to these dramas.

The novel also shifted towards better acknowledgement of the Southland's historical importance, while still portraying some prejudice against them.

Zhang Xuecheng famously wrote that the novel was 70 % fact and 30 % fiction.

The fictional parts are culled from different sources, including unofficial histories, folk stories, the Sanguozhi Pinghua, and also the author's own imagination.

Nonetheless, the description of the social conditions and the logic that the characters use is accurate to the Three Kingdoms period, creating " believable " situations and characters, even if they are not historically accurate.