The Ravages of Time

Infobox manhua


imagesize=
caption = Cover of "The Ravages of Time" volume 16
zh_hanzi = 火鳳燎原
romanized = Huǒ fèng liáo yuán
genre = Historical drama, Action, Philosophical, Psychological
multigenre=y
Adventure = y
Historical = y
author = Chan Mou
publisher = flagicon|Hong Kongflagicon|Taiwan Tong Li Comics
publisher_en =
publisher_other = flagicon|Japan Media Factory
flagicon|Thailand Burapat Comics
demographic =
magazine = flagicon|Hong Kong 新少年週刊
flagicon|Taiwan 新少年快報
flagicon|Japan Sangokushi Magazine
first = June 15 2001
last = ongoing
volumes = 32
subcat=Hong Kong comics
sort=Ravages of Time, The
zh=y

The Ravages of Time (火鳳燎原) is an on-going Chinese "manhua" series re-telling the events in the Three Kingdoms Period of Chinese history, and the story revolves around the many exploits of the young Sima Yi. Both the art and the story are directed by the artist Chan Mou from Hong Kong, and the series is currently ongoing.

The series is known for exercising a large degree of creativity with regards to several aspects and characters of the Three Kingdom's history. While the milestone events were left relatively untouched (e.g. outcomes of major battles, death of certain characters), many finer details were changed and largely dramatized. For example, Sima Yi is portrayed in the story to be much older than his historical counterpart. Other characters Liu Bei, Zhao Yun, Zhang Fei, Diao Chan and Lü Bu are also portrayed differently from historical accounts or popular conception.

The plot puts a good deal of focus on the politics and warfares of the Three Kingdoms Period, as such one of the main attraction of the series are the associated mind games, military strategies and tactics. However, Chan Mou also regularly zoom in on to the personal developments of the main protagonists, detailing their dynamic responses and attitudes to the events unfolding around them.

The Ravages of Time is currently serialized in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan, with compiled volumes published in Mainland China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore as well. It is one of the few Chinese manhua of its format to reach such an extensive foreign market.

Plot

"The Ravages of Time" is an adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, showing the fortunes of Liu Bei, Cao Cao, the Sun family, and the Sima family. The Simas are a successful and rich merchant family, led by the young Sima Yi, who has shown a flair for spotting profitable business venture ever since a young age. The Sima family, however, possesses a sinister side as they command the Crippled Legion (殘兵) - a group of mercenary assassins reputed to be infallible. The story opens with the Crippled Legion assassinating Xu Ling, a fictional advisor to Dong Zhuo, in order to repel Dong Zhuo's advances to subdue the various merchant clans.

As the series progresses, Sima Yi finds himself being dragged reluctantly into the wars of the Three Kingdoms period, and eventually ends up at the mercy of Cao Cao.

Sima Yi and his band of assassins frequently are the catalyst of events in the story. They are involved in the downfall of Dong Zhuo, confront Cao Cao when the latter invades Xu Zhou, and defeat Lu Bu at the Battle of Puyang. Sima Yi's story is a common thread which runs through the narrative.

The story is also told from the point of view of the "Eight Enigmas" (八奇), a group of elite military-advisors trained by Water-Mirror (水鏡), also known as Sima Hui. They consist of Yuan Fang (a fictional character), Jia Xu, Xun Yu, Guo Jia, Zhou Yu, Pang Tong and Zhuge Liang, with the identity of the eighth enigma unknown. Each of the advisers have their own motivations for following their ruler and some chapters are devoted to revealing their background story and intents.

Story arcs

Throughout the manhua, there are multiple story arcs. Before volume 27, the four main arcs cover

# Cao Cao's Rise to Power, Struggle with Lu Bu, Receiving the Emperor, "Training" his Army
# Liu Bei's Fortune and Misfortune in Xuzhou and coming to realise his political stance
# The fortunes of Sun Ce and how Zhou Yu aided him to conquer Jiangdong
# Sima Yi and the Crippled Legion and how they were involved in the above plot arcs.

After volume 27, with the destruction of the Sima family and that Sima Yi submitted to Cao Cao, Plot Arc 3 and 4 are merged. Lu Bu's part in the story was entangled with Sima Yi, Cao Cao and Liu Bei.Volume 32 ends with death of Lu Bu.The new story arc will be about the death of Sun Ce.

Cao Cao's rise to power

Cao Cao, after attaining the services of Xun Yu and Guo Jia, went on a conquest of Xuzhou on the latter's suggestion, on the pretense of avenging Cao Cao's dead father. Other than expaning, Guo Jia's other purpose in Xuzhou was to gather food as military supply but were unexpectedly defeated by the teaming up of Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi.

Later on, Cao Cao fought Lu Bu at Puyang. Cao Cao faked death to lure Lu Bu out, but faced near defeat at Puyang when Chen Gong correctly predicted that Cao Cao's faked death was just a ruse, and had surrounded the city beforehand. Chen Gong had also bought over Mr Tian (a similar character in chapter 12 of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", a novel that Ravages of Time is loosely based on; in the novel, he is a wealthly man that helped Cao Cao and since only his surname, Tian, is mention, it is the reason this character is only called Mr Tian), a supposedly trusted aide of Cao Cao, to give Cao Cao an illusion of success. Cao Cao's army lured into Puyang and was ambushed. Lu Bu singled-handedly defeated Xu Chu and Dian Wei, and took on Cao Hong, Han Zhao and others of Cao Cao's generals. Cao Cao himself fled and Lu Bu gave chase. At the last minute, Liaoyuan Huo and the Crippled Legion appeared to save Cao Cao. It was revealed later in a flashback that Xun Yu has foreseen all this and enlisted Sima Yi's help to save Cao Cao, using Sima Yi's involvement in defeating Cao Cao in Xuzhou as a bargaining chip. Meanwhile, Sima Yi defeated Chen Gong's army which was attempting to intercept Xun Yun's forces which was attacking Lu Bu's base at Chenliu. Later, it was revealed that Mr Tian all along was siding Cao Cao. During this incident, Sima Yi was also forced to serve Cao Cao as Cao Cao realized that Sima family was behind the infamous Crippled Legion; the latter began to make unreasonable demands from the merchant family, slowly bleeding it dry.

It was also revealed that Cao Cao had feigned defeat to test his troops and to train them, since they lack experience and feared men will flee the battlefield too quickly. He was gratified that they had proven their loyalty and valor. Guo Jia later revealed that all this was to prepare for a much greater crisis, against a foe much wealthier, much more powerful and stronger than them, and allude to the later battle of Guandu, where he will "use one man to deny a hundred". To prepare for the battle of Guandu, Cao Cao enlisted Mr Tian's niece, Shan Wuling (later reveal to be Lady Zhang Chunhua, wife of Sima Yi, since her godfather has the same name as Zhang Chunhua's father, Zhang Wong and confirmed chararcter introduction at the beginning of some volumes) and the Defeated Generals, a group leaded by Crippled Legion's first leader(revealed in the a side story published in Taiwan's newspaper, Apply Daily). Their goal is to reduced Yuan Shao's forces, which lead to the "Rise of Sun Ce" arc.

After this incident, Xun Yu and his ally in Chang'an, Xu Huang, arranged for the Emperor to escape from the clutches of Guo Si and Li Jue. Cao Cao took the opportunity to "rescue" the Emperor, planning to use him as a political weapon. Unexpectedly, the dispirited Emperor took on a sudden change while fleeing, realizing his role as Emperor, and upon meeting Cao Cao, humiliated him. Cao Cao began to suspect that Xun Yu had all this planned, which is true.

The latter volumes, however, show an abrupt turn in fortunes for Cao Cao. Due to the ploys of Pang Tong, an alliance of lesser warlords, along with Liaoyuan Huo, tried to destroy Cao Cao when Zhang Xiu surrendered. Zhang Xiu was deceived by Pang Tong to rebel and Cao Cao fought hard to escape. Sima Yi was also entangled by Pang Tong to rebel and cut off Cao Cao's resources and food supply, but ultimately his rebellion was crushed by Cheng Yu and Xu Ding(Xu Chu's brother). Xu Ding became the new Crippled Legion leader by killing Cao Pou(at the end of volume 22). He joined the Legion to investigate his father's death because he believed they killed his father(in volume 1). Seeing this as a chance for revenge, he killed many memebers and servants of the Sima family. He did this with a group of people that he befriended. At the same time, he continued Cao Cao's food supply. Lu Bu and Yuan Shu also agreed to attack Cao Cao, but Xun Yu and Xun You convinced them not to.

Though Pang Tong's plans to destroy Cao Cao failed, it weakened his forces badly and lead to the death of Dian Wei and Cao Ang, Cao Cao's oldest son. Furthermore, many of Cao Cao's controlling areas have been abandon to save Cao Cao, as the troops defending those areas were send to save Cao Cao.

Characters' designs

The main or plot related characters all have their own unique designs, which contrast the general idea that Chinese in that period of time all had long hair and it was a social taboo to have one's hair cut. Many characters have bizarre and distinctive facial designs that make the characters look very distinguishable from others. For example, Zhang Fei, traditionally pictured as a bearded chubby man, is displayed in the story as an artist who painted his face in a fashion similar to that of a Chinese opera mask. Zhao Yun is described as a skillful assassin who can't feel pain or other physical sensations.Lui Bei's hair style along with his facial design mirrors the stereotypical 'white jesus'. Other characters in the story feature tons of bizarre but very memorable and interesting designs; some characters have different hair colors, weird hairstyles, tattoos and other markings on their faces, clothing and equipment more akin to that of various fantasy genres such as Wu Xia, etc.

Themes

The story of "The Ravages of Time" revolves around the famous battles in the Three Kingdoms era, military doctrines, mind-games, ethics and philosophy.

Military doctrines

"The Ravages of Time" usually interweave military doctrines into its story, showing how characters uses the same doctrine to attain victory over each other. Sometimes, a doctrine becomes the theme for the entire volume.

Morale

According to the manhua, morale plays an important role as the backbone of the entire army. It is the will of the soldiers to fight, and without morale, an army cannot function. Hence, generals and advisors in the manhua seek ways, some orthodox, some unorthodox, to bloster morale.

Of particular interest is Water-Mirror's fictional "Discourse on Morale". It is an article on how to prevent morale from dissipating when facing a stronger enemy. Its main points are:

# If an enemy general attains victory early in the battle, brand him as being reckless.
# If an enemy general still attains victory, rebuke your own advisors for reading the situation incorrectly.
# If an enemy general always attains victory, brand him as one having courage but lacking in strategy (有勇无谋).

The phrase "having courage but lacking in strategy" has been attributed to Lu Bu, Yan Liang, Wen Chou and Zhang Fei.

Assassination

Assassination is considered as a valid tactic, after diplomacy and strategical ploys. A number of characters in the manhua are assassins, such as Zhao Yun, Dian Wei and Zhang Liao. Also, faking death and letting the opposition believe that the assassination attempt has succeeded has also been used as a tactic.

The Thought Process of the Eight Enigmas

It has been hinted throughout the story that the Eight Enigmas think differently from the conventional military advisor. Here are some instances when some insights are revealed about their thinking process.

# In chapter 102, Volume 13, Chen Gong stated that the Enigmas think of all enemy generals as a "God of War". "God of War" is a title attributed to Lu Bu, a peerless general in the manhua.
# In chapter 119, Volume 15, Chen Gong while confronting Sima Yi, said "A military advisor must not just consider the opponent's next step. He should also have the foresight of a merchant".
# However, in chapter 149, Volume 18, Zhou Yu said that the first step to comprehend the Eight Enigmas' thinking process is to acquire what one needs according to the current situation.

The Best Strategy Ever

The "Best Strategy Ever" has been often repeated by Lu Bu, Cao Cao and Pang Tong, among others, and it goes as "The best strategy is to let your opponent know your next move. Even better is to let your opponent know your next two moves".

Mind games

Beside military tactics, characters in the manhua engaged in numerous misdirections and feints to confuse and befuddle their enemies, such as delibrately letting their enemy know their next move in a battle, going along with an enemy's plan to gain certain advantages and more.

Ethics

A common recurring theme throughout the manhua is that of ethics. It questions the conventional Chinese traditional thoughts on loyalty and touches on the utilitarian and the moral rights models of ethics.

Two of the Eight Enigmas, Guo Jia and Jia Xu, as well as Sima Yi and Lu Bu, believed that ending the fighting quickly was the best for the people (a form of negative utilitarianism), regardless of the methods used or how many innocents had to die. As long as the civil war can be ended quickly, it is the best for all the people.

Zhuge Liang and Xun Yu opposed this line of thinking, maintaining the peace and order brought by adhering to the traditional teachings and through just and benevolent means last longer. The conflicts of this two belief system recurred throughout the manhua.

Morals

The manhua took a skeptical view of morals, especially the values, laid down by the sages in the Zhou Dynasty. Lu Bu openly showed disdain for them on a couple of occasions, especially during the battle of Puyang, and in Volume 27 in the duel against Guan Yu. Sun Ce used it as a tactic to boost the morale of his troops. Liu Bang, founder of the Han dynasty, was also referred to as having done all sort of questionable acts, but was still revered as a good ruler.

Historical inaccuracy

Another prevalent theme in the manhua is that history is subjective. Chen Gong said, "All histories are subjective. In the eyes of all rulers, all their generals are as strong as Lu Bu". Liu Bei maintained that there were no bad Emperors; historical records made ill of some of them to justify the beginnings of new dynasty. On one occasion, Zhang Fei expected himself to be inaccurately depicted in historical records.