A historic crusade

Yuan Guangyu, 40, still remembers his youth when he was passionate about the history and culture of the Three Kingdoms (220-280), a period when China was dominated by three warring states, and numerous famous heroes emerged following the demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220).

"Many men of my generation share the experience of reading comic books about the Three Kingdoms when we were younger, reading the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms, watching its namesake TV adaptation and playing computer games about it," recalls Yuan.

They also made a lot of calculations about characters in the book, trying to classify them into groups based on their gender, weapons and family name, and drew cartoons inspired by stories in the book, following the style of renowned cartoonist Tsai Chihchung, who has published books about the Three Kingdoms.

When Yuan entered university as a computer major, many of his peers created websites about things they were interested in, and he was one of them, establishing sanguocn.com in 2003, a website centered around the Three Kingdoms period.

At that time, there were a number of other sites covering the subject, but according to Yuan, his was among the most popular, with, on average, about 2,000 concurrent visitors each day.

His website was popular for its film and television pages, where people could not only find swathes of information about the various film and television productions pertaining to the Three Kingdoms, but also enjoy interactive elements like dubbing videos and engaging in debating competitions. Inscriptions written by actors who played characters in the 1994 TV series Romance of the Three Kingdoms were another highlight in that section of the site.

According to Cheng Zhang, a writer who became friends with Yuan when they discovered their shared interest in the history and culture of the Three Kingdoms, "When I was first introduced to Yuan, I realized that I was already familiar with his website, as I often used it to search for information when I was at university.

"I used to believe there was a company, or a group of people behind the website, but it was only run by Yuan himself. It's really great," says Cheng.

Years later, the popularity of such websites began to wane, and many of those centered around the Three Kingdoms shut down. In 2011, recording fewer visitors to his site, Yuan decided to close his as well, but restarted it in 2014 after numerous complaints over the website closing, since it was associated with happy memories for many people.

"At first, establishing the website was my own hobby, but then I wanted to promote the history and culture of the Three Kingdoms through it. When I restarted it in 2014, I decided to make it last as long as I could," says Yuan.

In his spare time, he usually visits places related to the Three Kingdoms, and found that, except for the famous sites, some lesser-known areas of interest are not easy to find, with vague location descriptions in books and no indications on maps.

He decided to rectify this, so, in 2016, he started to fix locations of the sites and show them on mapping tools such as Gaode Map and Tencent Map. So far, he has highlighted 500 locations. He also created a mini program on WeChat, through which people can see the accurate locations of the sites, and navigate there directly.

Locating some of the sites that either he himself, or friends of his, had visited was easy. The majority of the sites, however, had to be located with the help of satellite maps. As an engineer doing work related to city planning in a government-sponsored institution in Ju'nan county, Shandong province, Yuan is good at using satellite maps in his daily work.

For example, when he tried to locate the tomb of Zhao Ju, a foster daughter of Zhang Lu, a warlord of the late Eastern Han Dynasty, he first scoured history books to find out the basic area in which it should be located－Hongmiaoliang village, Mianxian county, Shaanxi province－where there should be a memorial temple and a tomb.

He remembered watching a documentary which mentioned Mianxian, and especially highlighted bandenglong, a local dance that is listed as a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage. When he watched the documentary again, he saw people performing bandenglong just in front of a temple that was located next to a tomb. After comparing the video with descriptions he found in books and online, he figured that it must be the tomb that he was looking for. After checking the satellite map, he found the site and was able to label it.

"To identify the locations, I often need to search a lot of material," says Yuan.

"Sometimes, when I visit some sites, Yuan asked me to give him my accurate longitude and latitude," explains Cheng. "At first, I didn't understand why he was so strict with the numbers, but later I learned that a minor difference in numbers could, in reality, point to another, more distant, place from the site, especially in mountainous areas.

"Yuan's efforts bring a lot of convenience for those who want to visit these sites," Cheng adds.

About 1,800 years have passed since the Three Kingdoms period, and it's hard to identify whether some sites purporting to be from that time are genuine. However, Yuan doesn't think this is a problem.

"Of course few genuine historical sites remain, like the tomb of Cao Cao, a warlord of the late Eastern Han Dynasty, identified by archaeological studies. Many others were built in the later dynasties to honor people of the Three Kingdoms period, like the numerous Guandi temples located around China to commemorate legendary general Guan Yu.

"Just as late Three Kingdoms expert Shen Bojun once said, 'Most of the sites we regard as being from the Three Kingdoms period today are actually not left from that time, but gradually formed in the later long history about it.' When we visit the 'fake' sites, we can get to know the spread and changes of Three Kingdoms stories, and the broadness of its culture," says Yuan.

As a result, he tries to label all the possible sites he knows on the mini program. He also plans to add more information, including introductions and pictures for all of the sites he has labeled so far.

"He has a genuine love for the Three Kingdoms period. Although he is neither a professional expert in this area, nor a specialist in literature or history, he has kept the hobby and insisted on doing so many things," says Cheng.

"There are numerous Three Kingdoms enthusiasts from all walks of life making contributions to digging into, and promoting, the culture of it. Maybe that is an important reason why the Three Kingdoms culture is still very popular today," he adds.