The Three Kindgoms: Book Two (completed)

Now, time to talk about book two of The Three Kingdoms saga. To be truthful, the novel is split into four seperate books due to the fact that the story is about 2500 pages. That's a really long story. Anyhoo, onward with book two!!

So, during book one, Liu Bei and his sworn brothers joined the army and used his cunning tactics to defeat the Yellow Scarves and successfully killed Zhang Jiao and his sworn brothers (apparently, swearing brotherhood with other warriors was a popular trend back in the day). However, with all of the corruption still existing in the Chinese government, Liu Bei had some trouble before he was finally acknowledged as a significant role in the victory of the royal army. While Liu Bei has his troubles, the royal court is in complete chaos. There are a numerous amount of uprisings and bitter rivarlies that come into play but to make a extremely long story short, a general by the name of Dong Zhou manages to capture the throne for himself after he eliminates the young princes that were supposed to inherit the throne from their father. When Dong Zhou is founded to be the mastermind behind the chaos of the court, the roal army general Cao Cao issues an imperial order to all the warlords and governers to rally their armies and stand together against the threat of Dong Zhou. However, due to poor leadership skills, the armies only manage to pester Dong Zhou, at best, and fail to do any significant damage to him. However, he is later killed by his son Lu Bu in a fight for the beautiful maiden Diao Chan. (Apparently, that was also a popular thing to do) After the death of Zhou, Cao Cao frees the princes from their prison cell guarded by Zhou's followers and sets up a new government. Lui Bei, who participated during the war against Dong Zhou, refuses to serve Cao and takes Xi Provinence for himself, which sparks another civil war in the country. After saying all of this, I only got through a eighth of the storyline in this epic struggle in China for power. In addition to those who like historical fiction, I also recommend the book to people interested in the old ways of war and strategies.

The Three Kindgoms: Book One (completed)

I just finished reading the first book of The Three Kingdoms, by Luo Guanzhong. The book was made back during ancient China during the Han dynasty and has been one of the most treasured books in Asian countries such as Taiwan, China, Japan, and Korea. (Well, South Korea, since North Koreans can't even afford to buy a book in the first place, considering how their yearly income is about a hundred dollars). The book begins in during the end of the Han dynasty and there is A LOT of political corruption going on. Thanks to this corruption, the people being a rebellion and form an army under the command of Zhang Jiao, a warrior who uses sorcery to give his army the advantage on the battlefield, such as creating mist to hide the troops or summoning lightning bolts to crush his enemies. Due to the fact that the peasants have such an incredible leader, they being what is known as the Yellow Scarves Rebellion, since they peasant soldiers all wear yellow scarves on their heads as their uniform. This army proves to be incredibly fierce, as they experience victory after victory on the battlefield and spread chaos in the country as the royal army is powerless to defeat them. In order to obtain reinforcements, the army hangs up enlistment posters in local towns. The hero of this story, Lui Bei, who is the nephew of one of the nobles in the Chinese court, sees this poster and wishes to destory the rebellion but due to the lack of resources and men, this is an impossible dream. Acknowledging this, Liu Bei sighs deeply and catches the attention of Zhang Fei, a local swine herder. He askes Liu Bei why he sighed and when Liu Bei replies, Zhang Fei laughs and claims that he can easily raise a small army due to the many connections he has and the two become friends fighting for a common goal. Then, they went into the local bar for a drink when they are greeted by Guan Yu, a warrior from a neighboring city who was exiled when he was caught attacking the hooligans there. After hearing Liu Bei's story, Guan Yu in interested in participating in the war and joins the two men. With three men having the same goal, they agree to form a brotherhood where they will never betray each other and would meet the same fate together and the story goes from there. Actually, what makes the book a masterpiece is that it actually focuses on a extremely wide range of characters and portrays their backstory while at the same time sticking to the main plot of the book. My father wanted me to read this book since it is such a literature masterpiece. At first, I was skeptical but once I got into the next couple of pages, I was enchanted and I couldn't put the book down. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who loves either Chinese history or historical fiction in general.

The Fall of the Templar (completed)

This is the third and final installment to the Brethren trilogy by Robyn Young. At the end of the second book, The Crusades, the city of Acre falls when the Muslim forces conquer the city after a failed attempt by the Christian knights to steal the Black Stone, which was the focus of the Islam religon. In a daring plan to crush the Muslim forces and their faith, it suddenly backfired and served as a rally point which motivated the Muslim empire to finally take the offense in the war and land the crushing blow that ended the Crusades with the defeat of the Christian forces. During all of this chaos, the main protagonist Will Campbell finds his wife dead and later discovers that his daughter is actually the daughter of his best friend who betrayed him in the first book Brethren, Lyon. In rage, Will kills Lyon but not before hearing that King Edward of England was the one who pulled all of the strings, from the near fall of the Anima Templi, to the events that led up to the Crusade and the lost of millions of lives. Will then discovers a new-founded hatred for the king of England and swears that he will make him pay for his crimes. Our hero carries this hatred for ten long years up to the point when The Fall of the Templar begins. Now that the Crusades are over and their headquaters in Acre gone, the Templars have scattered across Europe with a majority of them stationed in Paris, France with Will as their commander. Over the past ten years, Will has tried to restore the power of the Templars and prevent the collapse of the organization but a new predictament comes up that makes this task nearly impossible. King Edward has declared war on the rebel Scots from Scotland, Will's homeland and is requesting the Templars for assisstance. With a choice between his brotherhood and his home nation, Will abondons his post as commander and joins the fight against England.

In my personal opinion, this was the greatest conclusion to any series I've ever read. I love how Will has to do his best to resolve all of the these conflicts whirling inside of him and that he doesn't know what side to pick in this huge battle that could change the path of history. This is a nice change to other endings of series I've read before, such as Harry Potter, where the main character knows what side they fight for and that's it, happy ending, good times, yay. I recommend this book to anyone who loves a good conflicting character and historical fiction as well.