Three Kingdoms games · Master Archer
The Brocade Robe at Bronze Sparrow Terrace
210 AD. Bronze Sparrow Terrace is finished, and Cao Cao feasts his officers. He hangs a robe of red Shu brocade on a drooping willow branch and sets up a target a hundred paces off: whoever hits the red heart wins the robe, and a miss is punished with a cup of water. Cao Xiu, Wen Pin, Cao Hong, Zhang He, Xiahou Yuan and Xu Huang ride out in turn. You loose all six arrows.
100 paces from the line to the target (about 139 m)
The Brocade Robe at Bronze Sparrow Terrace
A hundred paces, six arrows from the saddle: the red heart, a backward shot, the middle of four arrows, the willow twig
What the two books say
Records of the Three Kingdoms is history; Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a novel. They tell the same shot differently.
- Where the robe hung
Records of the Three Kingdoms
Not recorded
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
「乃使近侍將西川紅錦戰袍一領，挂於垂楊枝上，下設一箭垛，以百步為界。」
He had an attendant hang a red brocade battle robe from Shu on a drooping willow branch, set up a target below it, and mark a line a hundred paces off.
Romance, ch. 56
- Red robes and green
Records of the Three Kingdoms
Not recorded
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
「曹氏宗族俱穿紅，其餘將士俱穿綠。」
The Cao clan all wore red; the other officers all wore green.
Romance, ch. 56
- Zhang He's backward shot
Records of the Three Kingdoms
Not recorded
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
「郃飛馬翻身，背射一箭，也中紅心。」
Zhang He galloped, turned in the saddle and shot backward, and he too hit the red heart.
Romance, ch. 56
- Xiahou Yuan's arrow
Records of the Three Kingdoms
Not recorded
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
「正在四箭當中」
right in the middle of the four arrows
Romance, ch. 56
- Xu Huang and the willow
Records of the Three Kingdoms
Not recorded
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
「恰好射斷柳條」
cut the twig clean through
Romance, ch. 56
- What became of the robe
Records of the Three Kingdoms
Not recorded
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
「那領錦袍己是扯得粉碎。」
By then the brocade robe was torn to shreds.
Romance, ch. 56
- Bronze Sparrow Terrace
Records of the Three Kingdoms
「冬，作銅爵臺。」
In winter, he built Bronze Sparrow Terrace.
Records, vol. 1
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Not recorded
- The other contest on the terrace
Records of the Three Kingdoms
「時鄴銅爵臺新成，太祖悉將諸子登臺，使各為賦。」
Bronze Sparrow Terrace at Ye had just been finished. Cao Cao took all his sons up it and had each write a rhapsody.
Records, vol. 19
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
「武將既以騎射為樂，足顯威勇矣。公等皆飽學之士，登此高臺，可不進佳章以紀一時之勝事乎？」
The generals have shown their courage in riding and shooting. You gentlemen are all men of learning; now that you have climbed this terrace, will you not offer fine verses to mark the day?
Romance, ch. 56
- Did it happen?Scholarship
- The archery contest for the robe, the six generals' shots and Xu Chu tearing the robe apart are the novel's; the Records do not tell of them. The history records only that in the winter of 210 Cao Cao built Bronze Sparrow Terrace at Ye; when it was finished he took his sons up it and had each write a rhapsody, and Cao Zhi wrote his at once. The novel turns that day into two contests: the generals shoot, the scholars bring poems.