Banners of the Three Kingdoms

Banners of the Three Kingdoms is a Three Kingdoms time-travel conquest web novel by Dongfang Zhizhu, a contracted author on Zongheng Chinese Network. Serialization began on June 6, 2012, and concluded on September 28, 2013, running to roughly 1.4 million Chinese characters. The protagonist, Li Zhong, is an ordinary actor who works as an extra on modern film sets. He wakes one morning to find himself in a ruined mountain temple at the end of the Eastern Han, hurled into the torrent of history at the turning point of the first year of Yonghan (189), when the realm is about to descend into chaos. He has no aura of kingly dominance, no peerless martial skill, and no sorcerer-like cunning; all he has is foreknowledge of Three Kingdoms history plus a little luck as he gropes for a way to survive in a chaotic age. The story unfolds from Taishi Ci of Donglai, Mi Fang, Dong Zhuo's misrule, the Suanzao alliance, and the battle at Hulao Pass; the protagonist builds his own following around Guangwu, Mayi, and Yinguan in Hebei and becomes entangled again and again with Yuan Shao, Cao Cao, Lü Bu, Zhang Yan, Gao Gan, and other powers. As Yuan Shao dies and Cao Cao rises, he seizes the moment to shift toward contention in the Central Plains, clashing head-on with Cao's armies and Wuhuan cavalry at Yecheng, Nanpi, and other battlefields, gradually pushing the situation toward the grand pattern of the realm divided in three. The novel's spine is how an ordinary man raises his own banner in the sweeping Three Kingdoms era, emphasizing the thrill of historical foresight and a grassroots rise; it also includes a good deal of risqué material and harem threads, making it a distinctly styled entry in the early-2010s Three Kingdoms time-travel genre.