You may find my list of important characters during the Three Kingdoms (三國) period somewhat unconventional. It is in fact quite a good personality test to see what characters do one pick for this list.
An obvious name that I should not have put up is Zhuge Liang (諸葛亮) - generally regarded as the wise man of all-time.
It is not only because he made little material contribution to the Battle of Red Cliffs (赤壁之戰) (which was actually a victory of Zhou Yu 周瑜), or that he was outwitted many times by his unrelenting rival, Sima Yi (司馬懿). Most people think that Zhuge could not have better military achievement because of various environmental factors; I would not agree - the history had provided a perfect case control study:
楚漢相爭,劉邦被分封到巴蜀漢中(也就是劉備的蜀漢),但不久即以"明修棧道,暗渡陳倉"之計,奪回關中.其時關中守衛,乃名將章邯;而三國鼎立,諸葛亮棄魏延計不用,二出岐山俱未能成功,其時關中,只二世袓夏侯琳矣.(無獨有偶,"暗渡陳倉"亦非張良之計,實陳平之功也.)
Alas, as Sherlock Holmes used to say: It doesn't matter what you do in this world, but rather, what you can make people believe that you have done.
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