Cunning Three Kingdoms

Three kingdoms. Three kingdoms. Three kingdoms. Three kingdoms. Three kingdoms. Three kingdoms. Three kingdoms. Three kingdoms. Three kingdoms.

Question. Is there romance in this?

TLDR: This is a slow burn story of Records of the Three Kingdoms. If you are completely ok with reading slow burn stories with slice of life chapters and no super generals then I recommend giving it a try. I am on chapter 415 as I write this review story is incredibly slow burn. 100 chapters spent in Luoyang introducing the MC and his familial ties and what benefits it afforded him this includes somehow meeting Li Ru and becoming a disciple of Cai Yong. Another 100 Chapters is then spent with the MC traveling to Jing province another 100 is spent on becoming Pang Degong's disciple being appointed as a temporary official under Liu Biao getting married to Huang Yueying. RIP my boy Zhuge Liang getting NTR'd then the travel back to Luoyang as the coalition army goes to attack Dong Zhuo. However due to MC's butterfly effect nothing is going according to script The Yuan brothers aren't even a part of the coalition due to their own circumstances and Liu Bei arrived late and MC was already gone from the coalition as it was obviously a shitshow with Cao Cao being the only capable one and he is not even in any position to affect the coalition being of low rank and having a relatively small army compared to the others. MC snuck into Luoyang and proceeded to try and convince and save Cai Yong and by extension his daughter Cai Yan. Gets into a ploy by the Noble scholar factions to delay the transfer of the Capital by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Survives and turns the table on the enemy wins and get recognized as a capable commander gets promoted and MC chooses self-exile in order not to get dragged even deeper into Dong Zhuo's faction and avoid getting targeted by the other noble families. Picks Bingzhou as his place of Exile Li Ru decided to make MC an acting Governor and now MC is fighting against Barbarians, Yellow Turban Rebels and backstabbing noble families that want to take over the place in the last 100 chapter. Over 300 chapters before we even got into the Kingdom building part and I am still not sure who he is going to side with or if he would just try to avoid the civil war and focus on fortifying Bingzhou into his own little kingdom. Skilled and strong generals exist but they're not invincible that can take on 1000 men alone they can take down 10 maybe 20 men only because they're better trained better equipped and better fed than a peasant conscript.