A local historian believes that an historical event that inspired a great classical Chinese novel took place at Chaohu Lake of Anhui province.

The story of Zhuge Liang borrowing arrows with straw boats in Romance of the Three Kingdoms was inspired by an annotation in Records of the Three Kingdoms mentioning an incident in the Battle of Ruxukou involving Sun Quan (182-252) and Cao Cao (155-220), emperors of Wu and Wei during the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, Xu Zhaotang, a professional responsible for writing chronicles of the city of Hefei, said in a lecture on Thursday.

He added that the battlefield Ruxukou is actually the outfall of Chaohu Lake, one of China's five largest freshwater lakes in the city.

In the lecture, the historian deemed Chaohu Lake culture a foundation of Hefei's local culture, calling for more efforts to develop the culture, including setting up research facilities as well as landmarks in the shape of the Chinese character for chao from the name Chaohu Lake.

（english.anhuinews.com）