The history
Who was Lu Bu, and why is he always the strongest
, updated 3 minute readBy Gitkonek Studio
In short
Lu Bu was a cavalry commander of the late Han who died in 199 AD, remembered as the finest fighter of his era and one of its worst judges of a situation. He served Ding Yuan and killed him, served Dong Zhuo and killed him, and was strangled on Cao Cao's orders after his own officers tied him up. Games make him the strongest character because both the history and the novel agree he was, and that it never saved him.
Lu Bu is the answer to a question the Three Kingdoms keeps asking: is being the best at fighting enough.
It is not, and he is the proof.
The history
He was born in Wuyuan, on the northern frontier, where the Han empire met the steppe and everyone who mattered could ride. Contemporary accounts call him unmatched with a horse and a spear, and give him the nickname Flying General.
His career is a short list of betrayals, each one an upgrade at the time.
He served Ding Yuan, the Inspector of Bing Province, as a trusted officer. When Dong Zhuo wanted Ding Yuan’s army, Lu Bu killed Ding Yuan and brought it to him. Dong Zhuo adopted him as a son and made him a bodyguard. When the minister Wang Yun wanted Dong Zhuo dead, Lu Bu killed Dong Zhuo too, at the palace gate, in 192.
After that nobody would keep him. He fled east, was beaten by Cao Cao, and was taken in by Liu Bei, who gave him a place to camp. He waited until Liu Bei marched out, then took the province from behind.
In 199 AD, Cao Cao besieged him at Xiapi and diverted two rivers into the city. His officers, who had watched him execute men for losing, tied him up and opened the gates. He offered Cao Cao a deal: spare me, put me in front of your cavalry, and nobody will stand against you. Cao Cao considered it. Liu Bei said one sentence about Ding Yuan and Dong Zhuo. He was strangled.
The legend
Most of what people picture comes from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Luo Guanzhong’s novel, written around 1400 and drawing on a millennium of accumulated storytelling.
The novel gives him the scene at Hulao Pass, where he holds off Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei together and withdraws in good order. Nothing like it is in the history. It exists to establish a ceiling, and it worked so well that every adaptation since has had to honour it.
It also gives him Diaochan, and a plot in which Wang Yun sets him against Dong Zhuo by promising her to both. The history records an affair with one of Dong Zhuo’s serving women and Lu Bu’s fear of being found out. The novel turned an anxiety into a conspiracy.
Why games make him unbeatable
Because both sources agree on the same two facts, and those two facts are unusually easy to turn into design.
The first is that he wins fights. That makes him a natural ceiling: the strongest unit, the hardest duel, the boss of the early game.
The second is that winning fights did not work. He had the best personal record in the setting and died at thirty eight with nothing, because every alliance he made he eventually stabbed, and eventually nobody was left to stab.
A character who is simultaneously the strongest and the clearest cautionary tale is rare. Most settings make you choose.
What we did with him
He is the prize of the Kingdom War, and he is the only General in the game with no other source. He is not in the Imperial Summon. No purchase reaches him. He is assembled from shards, and the shards come only from ranking in the top hundred in a week of the war, by Honor and map influence together.
A hundred shards assemble him, five a week at best, so twenty qualifying weeks. It is the longest road in the game, and the only one that runs through an event you can lose.
That seemed right for him. The strongest man in the Three Kingdoms should cost something other than money, and it should be possible to come away with nothing.
Sources
The history here follows Chen Shou’s Records of the Three Kingdoms, written in the third century, with Pei Songzhi’s fifth century annotations. The duel at Hulao Pass and the plot around Diaochan are from Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a novel of the fourteenth century. Where the two disagree, this post says which is speaking.
Questions
Was Lu Bu a real person?
Yes. He appears in the Records of the Three Kingdoms, the official history compiled by Chen Shou in the third century, which is a separate and earlier source than the fourteenth century novel most adaptations draw on.
Did Lu Bu really fight Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei at once?
That duel at Hulao Pass is from the novel, not the history. It is the scene that fixed him as the strongest man in the setting, and it was invented for that purpose more than a thousand years after he died.
Who killed Lu Bu?
Cao Cao had him executed. Lu Bu was strangled at Xiapi in early 199 AD, after his own officers bound him and surrendered the city, and after Liu Bei advised Cao Cao against sparing him.
How did Lu Bu die?
Besieged at Xiapi in 199 AD. His own officers bound him while he slept and handed him to Cao Cao's army. He asked to be spared and put to use, Liu Bei reminded Cao Cao what had happened to his previous masters, and he was strangled.
Why is Lu Bu the hardest character to get in this game?
Because he is the only General with no purchasable source. He is assembled from shards, and the shards come only from ranking in the weekly Kingdom War, which takes at least twenty qualifying weeks.
Keep reading
- The Five Tiger Generals of Shu: who they wereGuan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao and Huang Zhong. Who the Five Tiger Generals were, what each did, and why the title is the novel's.
- Who won the Three Kingdoms? None of the threeWei, Shu and Wu all lost. The Sima family took Wei from inside, founded the Jin dynasty in 266, and reunified China in 280. Here is how.
- Games like Mafia Wars in 2026, and one set in the Three KingdomsMafia Wars closed years ago, but its loop of energy, jobs, properties and fights lives on. Here is where to find it now, including in 200 AD.