Its main ideas are as follows:
1. The description of military, political and diplomatic events between the three countries vividly reflects the experience and wisdom of various struggles at that time. These can be used for reference. Kong Ming embodies the experience, wisdom and talent of various struggles.
2. Revealed the contradictory and turbulent situation at that time. This can help us understand the darkness of the society at that time and the reactionary nature of the feudal ruling class.
3. To some extent, it reflects the miserable life of the people and their desire for peaceful reunification in turbulent times. The novel describes the historical facts that feudal warlords slaughtered and plundered people, resulting in rural desolation, withered production, mountains of bones and hunger and cold everywhere. The author attacked and mocked the warlords who insisted on separatism. For Cao Cao, although he did not approve of unifying the world by him, he described his great talent truthfully when he wrote about his struggle with the northern warlords. The author originally hoped to mold Liu Bei and Kong Ming into benevolent men, and hoped that they would make great contributions to the reunification of China and let the people live and work in peace and contentment. This idea of opposing separatism and advocating reunification reflects the wishes of the broad masses of people, conforms to the trend of historical development and is of progressive significance.
4. The ideological tendency of "respecting Liu and belittling Cao" is very clear. Respecting Cao or Liu is a long-standing debate in the field of history, which is just a different expression of feudal orthodoxy under different historical conditions. The tendency of "respecting Liu over Cao" in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms not only inherits the literary tradition of "respecting Liu" from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms to Pinghua since the late Tang Dynasty, but also inherits the historical tradition of "respecting Liu" in the Eastern Jin and Zhu Dynasties. It shows the ideological tendency of striving for the orthodoxy of the Han Dynasty and opposing foreign domination and aggression in the Eastern Jin and Southern Song Dynasties, and reflects the national consciousness of the Han people in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties.
In addition, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms also vigorously promotes the "loyalty" of Liu, Guan and Zhang. The content of loyalty and righteousness is very complicated, which not only permeates the moral concepts of the feudal ruling class, but also contains the moral ideals of the people at that time. Some of them had positive significance and inspiring power at that time, such as the unity between people and the mutual help of friendship. But loyalty is often used by the feudal ruling class, because it is not from the perspective of class, but often from personal grievances. Although The Romance of the Three Kingdoms takes history as its theme, it is not a history book after all, but a literary work. Because of artistic processing, there are many fictions.