The last of the Han, a tr. of chapters 59 to 63 of the Tzu-chih t'ung-chien of Ssu-ma Kuang

Under the Han dynasty the Chinese empire was united for four hundred years, and the destruction of the Han at the end of the second century AD was the beginning of almost four centuries of division. During the first years of division, for most of the third century AD, the empire was partitioned among the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu. The period of the Three Kingdoms marks a great bread in Chinese history, and the division of the empire at that time patterned the economic and political divisions of the Northern and Southern dynasties. So a study of the events of this time could describe the end of one of China's great dynasties and the origins of a long period of division.(First paragraph of introduction)