Romance of the Three Kingdoms is based on the history of the Three Kingdoms. Referring to the romance in Chen Bing Miscellaneous Notes, Zhang Xuecheng said: "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms has three realities and seven vacuities, which confuses viewers. Three-point realism, seven-point fiction, confusing readers, I don't know whether it is true or not. " Many wonderful plots in Romance are eternal legends, which are deeply influenced by local legends and anecdotes in unofficial history.

After the May 4th Movement in the early years of the Republic of China, anti-traditional scholars actively clarified the history of the Three Kingdoms to re-evaluate traditional positive figures such as Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu and Liu Bei. Innovative scholars such as Hu Shi and Lu Xun also took the lead in interpreting The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chinese mainland scholars, out of clarifying the real history and Mao Zedong's personal preference for Cao Cao, often inherited the explanations of Zhuge Liang and Guan Yu given by anti-traditional scholars before the reform and opening up.