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[Yue Fei]

1. He willingly surrendered.
2. He still chose to openly serve another lord, something the likes of Chen Gong, Gao Shun and Tian Chou refused to do.
3. "Oops...my bad."
4. And he also refrained from killing Bei when he had the chance.  Cao was playing towards popularity, not kindness.

1. According to his bio, he was captured and Cao Cao kept him in his ranks.
2. Nothing wrong with this, seeing as how Liu Bei was nowhere to be found.
3. Cao knew his intentions and let him go.
4. In this case Cao Cao likely wasn't playing towards popularity, in regards to a relatively unknown person. In the same way, his not killing Liu Bei is also in regards to kindness more than popularity. He had plenty of people killed prior to this, what would one more relatively unknown person matter?

[looknohands]

Cao's bio directly contradicts your account:

Liu Bei fled to join Yuan Shao and the Duke captured his wife. Liu Bei directed Guan Yu to garrison Xiapi. The Duke besieged it once more and Guan Yu surrendered.

Guan Yu a. knew that Bei was alive, and b. was ordered to defend Bei's holdings in Xiapi.  He surrendered and then proceeded to join the enemy of his Lord as opposed to choosing death/imprisonment.

As to #4, Cao's bio:

Liu Bei came in flight and Cheng Yu said to the Duke: “By observation, Liu has the endowment of a hero and holds the hearts of the people. He will never follow others forever; we would be wise to take care of him early.” The Duke replied: “This is a time to accept heroes into our camp. To kill one person would be to lose the hearts of All Under Heaven. We cannot.”

and from Guo Jia's:

Liu turned to Cao Cao for aid and Mengde treated Liu kindly. Cao named Liu Bei the governor of Yuzhou. A man suggested to Cao, "Liu has boundless ambition, it would be ill for us if we do not get rid of him quickly." Cao consulted with Guo Jia who said, "Ours is a force of justice which stamps out tyranny. This is why people come to us. Liu has a good name with the common people and if we killed such a hero who should come to us if we were in a poor position? Many talented men would not see you as a wise lord and would likely join others. Then who shall you, my lord, be able to rely on to support your great cause? It is not wise to lose the world for a single person!"

Also of interest- Cao's bio mentions only that Yu and Zhang Liao attacked and killed Yan Liang (with no individual credit given to Yu) and, mentions only that Yu "fled back to Liu Bei."  Odd...do we take that as propaganda?  For who?  Yu's bio would actually portray Cao in a positive light (an act of kindness more than anything) whereas Cao's- the one you'd expect such to find such propaganda in -portrays it more as Yu pulling up stakes and ditching Cao.  Nor does his bio mention anything of trying to win Yu over to his side.

Strange!

[Hammerhead]

Also of interest- Cao's bio mentions only that Yu and Zhang Liao attacked and killed Yan Liang (with no individual credit given to Yu) and, mentions only that Yu "fled back to Liu Bei."  Odd...do we take that as propaganda?  For who?  Yu's bio would actually portray Cao in a positive light (an act of kindness more than anything) whereas Cao's- the one you'd expect such to find such propaganda in -portrays it more as Yu pulling up stakes and ditching Cao.  Nor does his bio mention anything of trying to win Yu over to his side.

First off, I read one of your earlier comments.  You said Wu was renowned for their cavalry... that's an absolute joke.  Wu had little to no cavalry.  Instead they were known for being naval, infantry, and bow soldiers... pretty much everything but horsemen.  Horses were rare in the region, unlike the north.

BTW, SGZ's were compiled by many records by Chen Shou and Pei Songzhi.  They would not contain bias... as every accomplished person of the time got their own biography simply stating what happened and wasn't intended to distort the truth but simply convey what happened, in the best sense it can.

Back on subject... a war of Shu vs. Wu would be a tough and bloody one.  Depending on who were the commanders and who were the generals would make a big difference.  Wu under Lu Su couldn't have beaten Shu.  Wu under Zhou Yu and Lu Meng and Lu Xun could have, but Shu still had Zhuge Liang.  Not to mention Guan Yu and Zhang Fei and the bunch.  Wu's greatest curse was their able officers dying much to young, as we see with Sun Ce, Zhou Yu, Lu Meng, and countless others.

[Nick]

BTW, SGZ's were compiled by many records by Chen Shou and Pei Songzhi.  They would not contain bias... as every accomplished person of the time got their own biography simply stating what happened and wasn't intended to distort the truth but simply convey what happened, in the best sense it can.

Back on subject... a war of Shu vs. Wu would be a tough and bloody one.  Depending on who were the commanders and who were the generals would make a big difference.  Wu under Lu Su couldn't have beaten Shu.  Wu under Zhou Yu and Lu Meng and Lu Xun could have, but Shu still had Zhuge Liang.  Not to mention Guan Yu and Zhang Fei and the bunch.  Wu's greatest curse was their able officers dying much to young, as we see with Sun Ce, Zhou Yu, Lu Meng, and countless others.

There is bias in the SGZ.  I don't mean to insult you, but you have clearly not done enough research on this subject if you believe there is none.  There are countless examples, (such as contradictions found within each bio that flatter the subject of the bio)  There are two basic examples: Wei being held as the "righteous" descendant of the Han (it was written during Jin, so he had to make Wei the legitamet successor).  This led to certain details regarding the Emperor to be changed, altered, or deleted.  Further, Shu is called Shu-Han, rather than Han (which Liu Bei called his kingdom). Second Chen Shou, as a son of Shu officers, has been clearly noted to include much more content dealing with Shu than you would expect considering the size of its territory, army, and officer pools.  He built up praise on certain Shu officers, but such praise is not found for the officers of the other kingdoms (other than a few in Wei, again due to reason number 1).

Pei Songzhi's bias is worse, and much more blatant. As a for example, look at the story of the Nanman campaign.  Now compare it to any of the Shanyue campaigns undertaken by Wu.  Notice anything different?  Like.. oh say... an incredible amount of "unbelievable" folktale-ish details that are missing from the Wu stories (there is one with details, but nothing to compare to Pei's Nanman story).  Some historians believe that Pei's annotations are tainted with fiction, as they were added a few hundred years later... long enough for the folklore and stories to mar the truth.

There are specific and concrete details, but rather than look them up, I hope that you yourself do a bit more research on this particular topic and discover them for yourself.  In the back of Moss Robert's translation of ROTK there is an amazing article that details this exact subject, and I am sure that there are threads in every forum where you can find more details.

You mention Guan Yu if your post... you obviously haven't read the past page or two. lol.   If you would like to get involved in the debate, feel free to.

[Hammerhead]

There is bias in the SGZ.  I don't mean to insult you, but you have clearly not done enough research on this subject if you believe there is none.  There are countless examples, (such as contradictions found within each bio that flatter the subject of the bio)  There are two basic examples: Wei being held as the "righteous" descendant of the Han (it was written during Jin, so he had to make Wei the legitamet successor).  This led to certain details regarding the Emperor to be changed, altered, or deleted.  Further, Shu is called Shu-Han, rather than Han (which Liu Bei called his kingdom). Second Chen Shou, as a son of Shu officers, has been clearly noted to include much more content dealing with Shu than you would expect considering the size of its territory, army, and officer pools.  He built up praise on certain Shu officers, but such praise is not found for the officers of the other kingdoms (other than a few in Wei, again due to reason number 1).

Pei Songzhi's bias is worse, and much more blatant. As a for example, look at the story of the Nanman campaign.  Now compare it to any of the Shanyue campaigns undertaken by Wu.  Notice anything different?  Like.. oh say... an incredible amount of "unbelievable" folktale-ish details that are missing from the Wu stories (there is one with details, but nothing to compare to Pei's Nanman story).  Some historians believe that Pei's annotations are tainted with fiction, as they were added a few hundred years later... long enough for the folklore and stories to mar the truth.

There are specific and concrete details, but rather than look them up, I hope that you yourself do a bit more research on this particular topic and discover them for yourself.  In the back of Moss Robert's translation of ROTK there is an amazing article that details this exact subject, and I am sure that there are threads in every forum where you can find more details.

You mention Guan Yu if your post... you obviously haven't read the past page or two. lol.   If you would like to get involved in the debate, feel free to.

Let me rephrase... the SGZ does contain bias, but not on a near noticeable level as say SGYY.  Everything contains some sort of bias, but the SGZ has done remarkably well for what it is to keep things fair on all fronts, for the most part.  At any cost, SGZ is the most reliable source when it comes to Three Kingdoms.

Apparently you need to do your homework too... Pei Songzhi purposefully included folklore, tales and other more questionable sources to add a bit more depth to the SGZs, as after Chen Shou alone they were very bland.  Some stories could very well be true, others are too farfetched.

And don't mistake me, I know my stuff sir.  Trust me.

[scholar]

There is also the possibilities that Chou (or later historians even) tainted the historical record.  Having been a descendant of Shu, it has been noted before that he has placed a certain bias in it.  How likely is it that what Sun Quan or Lu Meng said was ever directly written down?  It might account for the praise, which is our biggest piece of evidence.

We can assume there is some bias in the record because we can clearly see bias within the record. But to disregard what the record holds merely on the suspicion that there may be bias behind it is, in my opinion, silly. Everything written inside of the SGZ and ZZTJ is unfalsifiable because there is little to no secondary sources that survived till modern time. Cao Zhi and Cao Cao wrote volumes of poetry, but fewer than a dozen remain for each. Do we assume that the record was tainted and that there were really only a dozen poems because that's all there is direct evidence for? No, because it is reasonable to assume that they would have done so.

With Guan Yu we find a bunch of opinions in very high regard from the various kingdoms, but very little evidence to back this up except for inferred information. Guan Yu was put in charge of Jing after being inside of the enemy camp for a long time, why would he get this position if his ability was in question? Or more important, his loyalty? It makes little sense to give a position to someone just because they are loyal or long service, which I might add was in question at some point in time. It is because of this I view this the same as the untold, unverifiable, volumes of poetry that have been lost to time and war from Cao Cao and Cao Zhi. Did they exist? probably. Can we prove it? no. Is it reasonable to assume that they existed? yes. So for Guan Yu it would be something similar: Did Guan Yu had talent that we don't actually have solid evidence for? probably. Can we prove it? no. Is it reasonable to assume that he would have talent based on the available information? yes.

This is how I see it.

[Hammerhead]

While I'm not a Shuist, nor a big fan of Guan Yu, you can't help but still give him credit.

If only look at Fan Castle.  Hell, Cao Cao even considered moving the capital because of Guan Yu.  And had Mi Fang and Fushi Ren had supported Guan Yu as he ordered, perhaps he would've had more success before getting reversed by Xu Huang and ultimately captured by Wu. 

Sorry... I haven't read all 17 pages in this topic, so I'm kind of just jumping in here.

[Nick]

Let me rephrase... the SGZ does contain bias, but not on a near noticeable level as say SGYY.  Everything contains some sort of bias, but the SGZ has done remarkably well for what it is to keep things fair on all fronts, for the most part.  At any cost, SGZ is the most reliable source when it comes to Three Kingdoms.

Apparently you need to do your homework too... Pei Songzhi purposefully included folklore, tales and other more questionable sources to add a bit more depth to the SGZs, as after Chen Shou alone they were very bland.  Some stories could very well be true, others are too farfetched.

And don't mistake me, I know my stuff sir.  Trust me.

I agree that SGZ is remarkably solid, especially considering all the factors surrounding its creation.  And, of course, it is definitely the most reliable source.  I agree with everything you say in the first paragraph.  It does, however, directly contradict what you said previously, and as such, I apologize for taking your first post as your stance on the subject.  There is bias, and when you said there was none, you were incorrect.  I merely wanted to ensure that here, in the history section, all the participants in these discussions knew all the facts.

As for the second post, Pei at no point in time said that they were false, never suggested that he was "telling a better story", or anything like that.  He presented it as fact.  I'm not sure I understand what I said that was incorrect, given that as far as I see, my statements are all true and relevant...

By Pei presenting all of them as fact, certain characters have benefited much from it, while others have suffered, and historians everywhere have gotten into heated debates and gotten headaches trying to weed fact from fiction.

scholar, I don't disagree with you on any part.  It is specifically that reasoning that explains why I don't bring up bias during our debates.  I only mentioned it to open up the topic and see what conversation stemmed from it.  I then elaborated because Hammerhead had originally said there was no bias.  I won't dismiss anything from the record simply due to a possible or perceived "bias".

hammerhead, just to be clear, you weren't referring to me about the Wu's calvary statement, were you?  Also, the thread was only recently resurrected... it only goes back about a page or two.

[Hammerhead]

No, I was talking to Looknohands

[scholar]

scholar, I don't disagree with you on any part.   It is specifically that reasoning that explains why I don't bring up bias during our debates.  I only mentioned it to open up the topic and see what conversation stemmed from it.  I then elaborated because Hammerhead had originally said there was no bias.  I won't dismiss anything from the record simply due to a possible or perceived "bias".

Nick, I want a debate! You're not helping matters.

Oh well, since we are in total accord, I don't have much else to say unless LNH or Yue Fei decide to jump in and add something.