Sanguo Legend
01 · Historical Records
The Three Kingdoms legends of Hubei have a long history: the Tang poet Hu Zeng's “Tan Creek” tells the story of Liu Bei leaping the Tan creek on horseback. This shows that at least by the Tang the Three Kingdoms legends were already current in Hubei. After the Ming Romance of the Three Kingdoms appeared it further promoted the circulation, enrichment and development of the related folk legends.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Three Kingdoms legends are the legends about Three Kingdoms figures, place names and natural features and customs that have been widely current for a thousand years. Such legends circulate throughout the country but are relatively concentrated in Hubei, the core area including Jingzhou city, Dangyang city, the Xiaoting district of Yichang, the Hongshan district of Wuhan, Xiangyang city, Xianning city and the cities and counties of Ezhou, Yangxin, Yidu, Changyang and Yicheng. More than three hundred Three Kingdoms legends circulate in Hubei, of which the main content includes figure legends—such Three Kingdoms figures active in Hubei at the time as Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang and Guan Yu; place-name legends—such as the Three Kingdoms Mound, the Crown Prince Bridge, Zilong Street, the Dangyang Bridge and Zhuodao Spring, legends associated with the ancient battlefields and remains of the Three Kingdoms; and legends of local features and customs, such as the Dragon-and-Phoenix Pair and Zhuge's Vegetable. The “Liulang Bank” in the poet Lü Wen's “Song on Passing Liulang Bank”, today Xiulin town of Shishou city, Hubei, is the place in the legend where Liu Bei married Lady Sun. The Hubei Three Kingdoms legends have a striking local colour; in the legends such figures as Lord Guan and Zhao Zilong are invincible, and the people believe they have the divine power to avert calamity and drive out evil, to punish evil and reward good and to protect the state and its people, with corresponding rites of sacrifice to them through the seasons. The Three Kingdoms sites are famous tourist attractions where real historical events and the legendary stories created by the people enrich the content of the sites and draw large numbers of visitors. Most of the bearers are men, who transmit the Three Kingdoms legends mainly through everyday oral telling, folk-art performance and folk activities.
Liu Bei Leaps the Tan Creek on Horseback
The story of Liu Bei leaping the Tan creek on horseback, written of by the Tang poet Hu Zeng in “Tan Creek”.
Liu Bei Marries Lady Sun (Liulang Bank)
The place in the legend where Liu Bei married Lady Sun, the Liulang Bank at Xiulin town in present-day Shishou.
Place-Name Legends of Zhuodao Spring and the Dangyang Bridge
The system of place-name legends associated with the ancient battlefields and remains of the Three Kingdoms.
The Custom of Seasonal Sacrifices to Lord Guan
The rites of sacrifice through the seasons, the people believing Lord Guan and Zhao Zilong to have the divine power to avert calamity, drive out evil and protect the state and its people.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Three Kingdoms legends correspond to Three Kingdoms remains and place names, and the figures and legends are regarded by the local people as the real deeds of their forebears, told with relish and handed down generation after generation. The tellers include intellectuals, lovers of folk literature and the local people of the important Three Kingdoms sites.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Three Kingdoms legends circulate among the people by word of mouth, transmitted within families and socially, social transmission being the more prominent. As the Three Kingdoms sites have become famous tourist attractions, tour guides too have joined the ranks of those transmitting the legends. The Hubei Three Kingdoms legends reflect the local people's view of history, their moral outlook and their aesthetic ideals, and have shaped many lifelike and fully rounded figures, so that Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu and others have become symbols of particular spiritual qualities; in artistic expression and language they have their own features and a wide influence, and they are of some reference value for the study of folk belief and custom. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Xiong Yuangui, male, Han, born August 1933, a native of Gong'an county, Hubei, a student of the Three Kingdoms legends. His mother, Xu Chuanxi, was a famous “story bag” and folk singer of Buhe town in Gong'an county. Influenced by his family he loved folk literature from childhood, and long exposure and oral instruction gradually enabled him to tell with skill the Three Kingdoms stories and legends current in Jingzhou. He has persisted in field collecting, and by the 1990s had gathered and sorted 4.5 million characters of folk-literature materials—stories, legends, songs and proverbs. In recent years he has devoted himself the more to studying and sorting Three Kingdoms legendary materials and has published fourteen works including Three Kingdoms Legends of Jingzhou and Three Kingdoms Idiom Stories of Jingzhou. These Three Kingdoms legends are rich in content, intricate in plot and full of artistic charm. He is a representative bearer of the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the Three Kingdoms legends.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xiong Yuangui 05-2027
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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