JCC: Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義 Court of Liu Bei 劉備法院 Crisis Directors: Matthew Owens, Charles Miller Emails: [email protected], [email protected] ​ ​ ​ Chair: Isis Mosqueda Email: [email protected] ​ Single-Delegate: Maximum 20 Positions Table of Contents: 1. Title Page (Page 1) 2. Table of Contents (Page 2) 3. Chair Introduction Page (Page 3) 4. Crisis Director Introduction Pages (Pages 4-5) 5. Intro to JCC: Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Pages 6-9) 6. Intro to Liu Bei (Pages 10-11) 7. Topic History: Jing Province (Pages 12-14) 8. Perspective (Pages 15-16) 9. Current Situation (Pages 17-19) 10. Maps of the Middle Kingdom / China (Pages 20-21) 11. Liu Bei’s Domain Statistics (Page 22) 12. Guiding Questions (Pages 22-23) 13. Resources for Further Research (Page 23) 14. Works Cited (Pages 24-) Dear delegates, I am honored to welcome you all to the Twenty Ninth Mid-Atlantic Simulation of the United Nations Conference, and I am pleased to welcome you to JCC: Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Everyone at MASUN XXIX have been working hard to ensure that this committee and this conference will be successful for you, and we will continue to do so all weekend. My name is Isis Mosqueda and I am recent George Mason Alumna. I am also a former GMU Model United Nations president, treasurer and member, as well as a former MASUN Director General. I graduated last May with a B.A. in Government and International politics with a minor in Legal Studies. I am currently an academic intern for the Smithsonian Institution, working for the National Air and Space Museum’s Education Department, and a substitute teacher for Loudoun County Public Schools. If you have any questions about college or post-graduation life I’d be happy to share the bits of advice I’ve learned so far. You can also feel free to ask me about my take on the latests TV hits since I, like many of us, am a Netflix (and other streaming services) enthusiast. The background guide below will help you prepare for the conference, but if at anytime you have questions feel free to contact me. I hope you are excited for this committee, and I will be seeing you all very soon. Thank you for joining the Court of Liu Bei. Kind regards, Isis Mosqueda Chair, JCC: The Romance of Three Kingdoms: Court of Liu Bei [email protected] Greetings, Delegates! 你好! 我叫朱思龙! My name is Matthew Owens, and it is my absolute honor to be ​ ​ ​ serving as your Crisis Director for MASUN XXIX! I am a junior at George Mason University majoring in Mathematics with a concentration in Mathematical Statistics with minors in both Economics and Global Affairs. I have been involved with Model UN since my sophomore year at Langley High School here in Fairfax County, Virginia, and I have been passionate about MUN ever since. Outside of MUN, I am also involved with College Republicans, a policy advocacy group called Roosevelt @ Mason, and a part of GMU Student Government called the Elections and Disputes Commission: an organization similar to the US Supreme Court. Other hobbies include playing chess and even talking about the newest Total War game by Creative Assembly. As both an individual with passions in history, economics, and international relations and as your Crisis Director, I hope that I not only make this committee a fun experience, but also make an experience where you learn a bit of history or what not. I personally found the Romance of the Three Kingdoms YouTube podcast to be exceptionally useful for my research! I also implore you to look at the other background guides and dossiers should you have the time to know your opponents. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or if you just want to talk about Chinese history, please feel free to email me using the link below. Thanks, I wish you all the best of luck and I hope you have a fantastic time in committee! Sincerely, Matthew Owens Crisis Director, JCC: Romance of the Three Kingdoms [email protected] Greetings, Delegates! My name is Charles Miller, and I am so excited to be serving as your Crisis Director for MASUN XXIX! I am currently a sophomore majoring in Economics at George Mason University, and have been involved with Model UN since my freshman year at Midlothian High School in Chesterfield County, Virginia. While MUN is my passion, I’m also involved in GMU Student Government within the Student Senate as well as the GMU Democrats. Otherwise you can usually find me reading about history, playing board or video games, or talking about cars. While the background guides and dossiers and other provided information is very useful, there’s lots of stuff in classical China that can grant you a better understanding of the strengths, weaknesses and situation in the Three Kingdoms Period. I think it’s great if you have the time to explore the time period and the people who shaped it, both for its own sake and for the committees. I hope that I and the rest of the crisis team can bring to everyone a fun and educational experience! There’s so much to learn about the period and the characters and it is a great story, and I have to recommend the Romance of the Three Kingdom’s YouTube podcast that my fellow Crisis Director mentioned as a very useful source for research. If you have any further questions, concerns, queries, or comments feel free to reach out to me using my email shown below! Thanks for coming, and I hope you have an amazing time on committee! Sincerely, Charles Miller Crisis Director, JCC: Romance of the Three Kingdoms [email protected] Introduction to JCC: Romance of the Three Kingdoms: ​ The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a historical novel written by Luo Guanzhong during the 14th century that covers the period of Chinese history from the decline of the Han Dynasty in the 160s CE to the reunification of China- also known as the Middle Kingdom- under the Jin Dynasty in 280 CE (“Romance of the Three Kingdoms”). The novel is a mix between myth, legend, and history that seeks to romanticize the great heroes of the age. As such, the tale of this crisis committee would be accompanied by important figures from the Records of the Three Kingdoms: a Chinese historical text written in the 3rd century about the same period (“Records of the Three Kingdoms”). While the Romance of the Three Kingdoms would be set as the primary source for this committee and the source delegates should be focusing on the most, the Records of the Three Kingdoms also provide historical information that would be valuable for both the delegate and the crisis staffer. As would be seen, this committee focuses on crisis updates regarding both internal affairs- such as rebellions and court intrigue- and external affairs- the three warlords vying for control of the entirety of China. Should any crisis update require a military solution, it is important to note that- like with other non-military crises- such a solution requires descriptiveness and strategy. China is the home to one of the greatest military treatises of all time- the Art of War by Sun Tzu- and if the battles of the Three Kingdoms period shows us anything, it is that numbers alone do not win generals battles. Such insight would be applied for any battles within this simulation, and thus it would be wise to think about descriptive strategies and tactics that could be used against your opponents both on and off the battlefield. However, it need not be the only solution for this band of brilliant strategists, invulnerable champions, cunning governors and administrators, and court officials. There are multiple differences between crisis committees and more traditional committees within Model UN. Crisis committees are faster in their pace, require delegates to be able to quickly think of solutions to both short-term and long-term crisis updates, and allows the delegate to have multiple ways to impact a committee. Since this committee is a Joint Crisis Committee, the delegates would not only have to communicate and deal with crisis updates from the crisis staffers, but from delegates in the other two committees. The multiple ways that a delegate can solve or create a crisis include the following below. Public Directives: Similar to resolutions from a traditional MUN committee, a public ​ directive require at least one sponsor and one-third of the committee to either be sponsors or signatories in order to create a public solution to a crisis update. Sponsors are responsible for both writing the directive and contributing actions that would affect the crisis arc. Signatories on ​ the other hand do not necessarily need to be involved in the execution of the directive or even do not need to be in favor of the directive. Signatories only need to be interested in seeing the directive being discussed and debated. The events of a public directive go as follows: 1. A directive is written by at least one sponsor 2. At least one-third of the committee either become sponsors who contribute to the directive or signatories interested in seeing the directive debated 3. A motion is made to introduce the directive. (Requires a Simple Majority) 4. Debate on the directive ensues. The directive could be amended at this time with either a friendly amendment or unfriendly amendment. A friendly amendment requires unanimous approval by the sponsors of the directive while an unfriendly amendment requires two-thirds approval by the entire committee.