postgres Diaochan is a fictional character in the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a concubine of Lü Bu who in the story is Wang Yun's adopted daughter and uses a beauty trap to set Dong Zhuo and Lü Bu against each other. Chinese Wikipedia stresses that the Records of the Three Kingdoms and the Book of the Later Han record only that Lü Bu had an affair with a maid of Dong Zhuo and never give the name Diaochan.[^wikidata][^zhwiki] /en/people/diaochan-q1137442/relation.html person_cn_q1137442 person diaochan-q1137442 貂蝉

Diaochan is a fictional character in the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a concubine of Lü Bu who in the story is Wang Yun's adopted daughter and uses a beauty trap to set Dong Zhuo and Lü Bu against each other. Chinese Wikipedia stresses that the Records of the Three Kingdoms and the Book of the Later Han record only that Lü Bu had an affair with a maid of Dong Zhuo and never give the name Diaochan.[^wikidata][^zhwiki]

published category-literature tag-fictional-character tag-classics wikidata https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1137442 zhwiki https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B2%82%E8%9D%89 2026-10-25T00:00:00+08:00 2026-10-25T00:00:00+08:00 user:admin 4 Diaochan is a character in the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Wikidata's Chinese label is 貂蝉, and it lists the other forms 貂蟬, 任紅昌 and 刁蟬. Its description is a fictional character of the novel, a concubine of Lü Bu, and the dynasty of the work's setting is Han. The Chinese Wikipedia article is also titled 貂蝉, so the heading stays as it is.[^wikidata][^zhwiki] ## No such name in the histories Chinese Wikipedia points out that the Records of the Three Kingdoms and the Book of the Later Han record only that Lü Bu had an affair with a maid of Dong Zhuo, and never give the name Diaochan. The Biography of Lü Bu says that Dong Zhuo often had Lü Bu guard the inner gate, and that Lü Bu, who had an affair with one of Dong Zhuo's maids, feared discovery and was uneasy. When the minister Wang Yun secretly planned to kill Dong Zhuo, he used Lü Bu as his inside man and the maid is not mentioned, nor does Pei Songzhi's commentary say anything about her. The Book of the Later Han changes the word for maid to another word written with the character fu. Some researchers guess that fu is close in form to ren, which may be how Diaochan came to be given the surname Ren, while others hold that ren must be a miswriting of fu.[^zhwiki] ## Where the name comes from, and the variants The article says that in Qin and Han times diaochan was the name of a male official's cap and dress, and in the Han it was the dress of the emperor's close attendants, which is thought to be the source of the name. A Yuan zaju play has her as the daughter of Ren Ang, with the childhood name Hongchang, a village girl from Shanxi. The article also cites the Qing writer Ping Buqing, quoting a passage preserved in the Kaiyuan zhanjing in which Cao Cao is said to have offered a Diao Chan to confuse Dong Zhuo. If true, Diao Chan would have been a real person, but the book cited, the Hanshu tongzhi, is long lost and the passage is not in the surviving text, so it cannot be established whether Diao Chan and Diaochan are the same person or whether it was her real name. Since these accounts do not agree and have no secure common basis, this entry does not replace the heading with any of them.[^zhwiki] ## In Romance of the Three Kingdoms In the novel she is a maid of the minister Wang Yun, later his adopted daughter, sixteen years old and beautiful, with a wish to serve the state. Learning that Wang Yun is helpless against Dong Zhuo's misrule, she offers herself to deal with the traitors. With a beauty trap she wins the affection of both Dong Zhuo and Lü Bu, who called each other father and son, and drives a wedge between them, and she later helps bring Lü Bu to join Wang Yun in killing Dong Zhuo. After Lü Bu flees Chang'an the novel says little of her. Chapter 16 says that Lü Bu later took Diaochan as a concubine and that she bore no children. In chapter 19, while Lü Bu is fighting Cao Cao, his adviser Chen Gong urges him to take light troops to cut Cao Cao's grain route, and Lü Bu, undecided, asks his wife and concubines. Diaochan advises him not to go out in person, so he resolves to hold the isolated city, drinking day and night with his wife Lady Yan and Diaochan. Morale collapses, the officers drift away, and Lü Bu is finally destroyed by Cao Cao. After this she does not appear again.[^zhwiki] ## Later retellings The article says that contemporary researchers note her background grew from simple to complex through successive works, and that before the novel some versions made her Lü Bu's lost wife. Folk drama often links her to Guan Yu. In one play she is released by Guan Yu under the moon and is never heard of again. Another borrows the story of Jiang Taigong beheading the masked Daji, and presents Guan Yu fearing that her beauty would bring chaos to the realm. In a Ming play she becomes Guan Yu's concubine. The article lists texts from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing periods, and later stage, film, television, game and comic adaptations.[^zhwiki] ## Disputed hometown The article records a dispute over Diaochan's hometown among Lintao and Kangle in Gansu, Xinzhou in Shanxi and Mizhi in Shaanxi, and notes that such disputes over famous people's hometowns are common on the mainland and that Diaochan, though fictional, is no exception. On 28 April 2011 Lintao county announced that it had registered Diaochan and Diaochan's hometown as trademarks, and Mizhi county objected.[^zhwiki] ## Basic facts - Description: fictional character in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, concubine of Lü Bu[^wikidata] - Other forms: 貂蟬, 任紅昌, 刁蟬[^wikidata] - Dynasty or state of the work's setting: Han[^wikidata] - Appears in: [[work_cn_q70806|Romance of the Three Kingdoms]] /people/diaochan-q1137442.html en zh en Character in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms true literary character relation_cnworks_depicts_q70806_q1137442 work_cn_q70806 depicts person_cn_q1137442 work_cn_q70806 wikidata Related works work_cn_q70806 The Romance of the Three Kingdoms /en/works/romance-three-kingdoms-q70806.html true work_cn_q70806 The Romance of the Three Kingdoms /en/works/romance-three-kingdoms-q70806.html work depicts Related works relation_cnworks_depicts_q70806_q1137442 work_cn_q70806 depicts person_cn_q1137442 work_cn_q70806 wikidata Related works work_cn_q70806 The Romance of the Three Kingdoms /en/works/romance-three-kingdoms-q70806.html true en zh en is_fictional Fictional yes person_category Person category literary character disambiguation Disambiguation Character in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms 1 50 1 1 1 1