[1] The Maos' substantially revised text, first published in 1679 (1680 in the western calendar), was so successful that it drove earlier versions from the market and for nearly three centuries was the only one which most Chinese readers knew.
Mao Lun experienced the Manchu conquest of the lower Yangzi valley in the 1640s and saw friends executed for being loyal to the Ming.
[4] In the 1660s, during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor, Mao Lun and Mao Zonggang edited and significantly altered the text of Ming dynasty editions of the Sanguozhi Tongsu Yanyi novel (三國志通俗演義), organizing it into 120 chapters, and abbreviating the title to Sanguozhi Yanyi (三國志演義).
[5] Mao Lun did not explain these editorial changes to his readers but claimed that the earlier "vulgar edition" (suben 俗本) had corrupted the original text.
Many of these textual changes, West continues, are "insidious in intent, for they quietly realign the reader's interpretation of the central protagonists."
The publication was put on hold because of this, and the first extant Mao edition of the Sanguozhi Yanyi was prefaced 1679, perhaps reflecting the delay that was caused.
In this regard they closely mirror the methodology of their contemporary Jin Shengtan, the commentator of Water Margin and Romance of the Western Chamber.