Cao Cao

• 1. Introduction

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  Cao Cao, born around 155 AD in Qiao County, Pei State, died in Luoyang on the 15th of March 220 AD, having spent his final years as the most powerful man in China without ever formally claiming the throne. He carried two reputations that could not be reconciled: a celebrated poet and a statesman whose brilliance his own dynasty's historians could not stop praising, and a cunning, ruthless figure whose cruelty became legend even before his death. The character evaluator Xu Shao, one of the most respected judges of talent in his era, assessed the young Cao Cao with words that would follow him through history: "a treacherous villain in times of peace, and a hero in times of chaos." Another version of the same assessment put it differently: "a capable minister in times of peace, and a jianxiong in times of chaos." Either way, the verdict was a riddle. What kind of man is defined by the severity of the times around him? The rest of Cao Cao's life would answer that question in full.

• 2. The Young Official

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  Cao Cao was nominated as a xiaolian, a civil service candidate, around the age of 19, beginning a career that would quickly reveal both his ambitions and his limits under a collapsing dynasty. His first posting put him in charge of security in the Commandant of the North District of the imperial capital Luoyang. In his youth he had been known as perceptive and manipulative, fond of hunting and idle roaming rather than the studious habits his peers favored. The famous commentator Qiao Xuan and the official He Yong both recognized talent in him despite these habits. His career was interrupted early when Emperor Ling deposed Empress Song after a political scandal. Because Cao Cao's cousin had married a relative of the empress, Cao Cao was implicated and dismissed from office. He was pardoned and recalled to serve as a Consultant under the Minister of the Household, a posting that came with frustrations all its own. He wrote memorials to Emperor Ling defending the general Dou Wu and the senior minister Chen Fan, pointing out the corruption filling every level of the court. Emperor Ling ignored him. Cao Cao then accused the Three Ducal Ministers of protecting corrupt officials and siding with nobles against the poor. The emperor was briefly stirred by this and even admonished the ministers, but corruption worsened regardless. Cao Cao stopped speaking up when he concluded the efforts were futile. When an offer came to serve as Administrator of Dong Commandery, he declined on the grounds of poor health and went home, building a house outside the city where he spent his time reading in spring and summer and hunting in autumn and winter.

• 3. Warlord in the Making

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  In 184, when the Yellow Turban Rebellion shook the Han empire, Cao Cao was commissioned as a Cavalry Commandant and sent to attack the rebels in Yingchuan Commandery, in the area around present-day Xuchang, Henan. He was later appointed Chancellor of Jinan State, a principality in Qing Province with over ten counties under its jurisdiction. Many senior officials there had connections with nobles and engaged in corrupt practices, and Cao Cao proposed dismissing roughly eighty percent of them. When news of his arrival reached these officials, they fled to nearby commanderies rather than face him. In Jinan State alone, Cao Cao found over 600 temples built in honor of Liu Zhang, the Prince of Chengyang State, following a tradition from the early Western Han. Wealthy merchants had been borrowing the personal carriages and servants of officials for leisure, widening the gap between rich and poor. Cao Cao destroyed the temples and banned these practices. When Dong Zhuo seized control of the central government in 189 following the collapse of the regent He Jin's conspiracy and the slaughter of the eunuchs, he tried to recruit Cao Cao as an adviser. Cao Cao instead adopted a false identity, escaped from Luoyang, returned to his home in Chenliu Commandery, and spent his family fortune raising an army to oppose Dong Zhuo. In the winter of 189, he assembled his forces in Jiwu County and declared war. In early 190, a coalition of regional warlords numbering in the tens of thousands launched a campaign against Dong Zhuo. Cao Cao served as acting General of Uplifting Martial Might. He suffered his first military defeat pursuing Dong Zhuo's retreating forces, nearly dying at the Battle of Xingyang before his cousin Cao Hong helped him escape.

• 4. Control of the Emperor

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  Emperor Xian had been held hostage in Chang'an by Li Jue, Guo Si, and other followers of Dong Zhuo after Dong Zhuo forcibly relocated the capital there in 190, burning Luoyang behind him. Around 195, internal conflict between Li Jue and Guo Si allowed Emperor Xian to escape and return to the ruins of Luoyang. The scholars and officials who sheltered him there have been described in the sources as "ragtag gangsters." Emperor Xian sought protection from the powerful northern warlord Yuan Shao and was rebuffed. Acting on the counsel of Xun Yu and Cheng Yu, Cao Cao moved to receive the emperor in August or September of 196. Sometime between October and early November 196, Cao Cao escorted Emperor Xian to Xuchang, which became the new imperial capital. He had himself appointed General-in-Chief and elevated from a village marquis to a county marquis under the title Marquis of Wuping. The arrangement was one of tightly managed allegiance: Cao Cao nominally served the emperor but exercised direct control over the central government. When Emperor Xian's confidante Zhao Yan was found to be secretly keeping the emperor informed about major affairs of state, Cao Cao had him killed. Yuan Shao, Cao Cao's most powerful rival, was offered the position of Grand Commandant in the emperor's name but refused it because the rank fell below Cao Cao's own. Cao Cao resolved this by ceding his own position as General-in-Chief to Yuan Shao and accepting reappointment as Minister of Works. One lasting consequence of this period was the tuntian agricultural system, which Cao Cao implemented following the suggestion of Zao Zhi and Han Hao. By establishing agricultural colonies, Cao Cao resettled displaced refugees, reclaimed abandoned farmland, shortened supply lines, and built a sustainable grain base that gave him a lasting advantage over his rivals.

• 5. Guandu and the North

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  Yuan Shao had consolidated control over four northern provinces, Ji, Bing, Qing, and You, after defeating his rival Gongsun Zan at the Battle of Yijing in 199. The collision between him and Cao Cao became the defining military event of the age. In the winter of 200, following intelligence from the defector Xu You, Cao Cao left Cao Hong to defend his main camp at Guandu and personally led 5,000 riders to raid Yuan Shao's supply depot at Wuchao, guarded by Chunyu Qiong. The raid succeeded in destroying Yuan Shao's supplies. When Yuan Shao dispatched Zhang He and Gao Lan to attack Cao Cao's main camp in response, both generals, already frustrated with Yuan Shao's leadership, destroyed their own camps and defected to Cao Cao's side instead. Yuan Shao's army collapsed in morale and was utterly defeated. In his flight across the Yellow River, Yuan Shao abandoned much of his supplies and many of his soldiers. Cao Cao obtained letters during the aftermath that had been written by spies within his own ranks who had been corresponding with Yuan Shao. He refused to investigate and ordered all the letters burned. Yuan Shao died of illness in the early summer of 202 and was succeeded by his third son, Yuan Shang. The resulting conflict between Yuan Shao's sons gave Cao Cao room to dismantle them one by one. After capturing Ye, the Yuan family's main stronghold in present-day Handan, Hebei, in 204, Cao Cao visited Yuan Shao's tomb and wept for his childhood friend turned rival. He exempted the people of Hebei from taxes for the year, clamped down on powerful landlords, and reestablished schools in counties with five hundred or more households. By 207, the Yuan family's last members had fled to the Wuhuan tribes, who sheltered them until Cao Cao defeated the Wuhuan at the Battle of White Wolf Mountain and the warlord Gongsun Kang, sensing a threat to his own position, arrested and executed the Yuan brothers and sent their heads to Cao Cao.

• 6. Red Cliffs and Its Aftermath

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  In July 208, Cao Cao was formally appointed Imperial Chancellor by Emperor Xian, the highest administrative office in the Han state. That same year he had the scholar Kong Rong put to death for insouciance. In August, he launched a southern campaign against Liu Biao, the governor of Jing Province. Liu Biao died of illness the following month, and his younger son Liu Cong surrendered to Cao Cao in late September or October 208. Cao Cao sent 5,000 riders in pursuit of Liu Bei and his followers, covering 150 km in twenty-four hours to defeat Liu Bei at the Battle of Changban. Liu Bei escaped with few followers but forged an alliance with the warlord Sun Quan. The allied forces of Liu Bei and Sun Quan then defeated Cao Cao at the Battle of Red Cliffs. An epidemic disease had broken out within Cao Cao's army around this time and many had died before the battle even ended. Retreating through the muddy, wind-lashed Huarong Trail, Cao Cao ordered his weaker soldiers to carry straw and hay to build a path for his horsemen; many of those soldiers were trampled to death in the process. When his generals asked why he expressed joy upon surviving this ordeal, Cao Cao remarked: "Liu Bei, my friend, doesn't think fast enough. If he had set fire earlier, we wouldn't have been able to get out alive." He was right, as Liu Bei did attempt to set fire but arrived too late. Subsequent attempts to push south of the Yangtze River never succeeded. In 213, he fought an inconclusive battle against Sun Quan at Ruxu, and in 215, his general Zhang Liao inflicted a devastating defeat on Sun Quan at the Battle of Xiaoyao Ford near Hefei. A second battle at Ruxu in 217 also ended without significant gains for either side.

• 7. Titles, Poetry, and Legacy

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  In 213, Emperor Xian created Cao Cao the Duke of Wei and granted him a fief covering parts of present-day Hebei and Henan. In 216, he was elevated further to vassal King of Wei and awarded ceremonial privileges that had previously been reserved for emperors. Cao Cao died in Luoyang in March 220 and was succeeded by his son Cao Pi, who accepted Emperor Xian's abdication in November 220 and established the state of Cao Wei, replacing the Eastern Han dynasty. Cao Pi granted his father the posthumous title Emperor Wu, meaning Martial Emperor, and the temple name Taizu, meaning Grand Ancestor. Alongside his military and political record, Cao Cao is celebrated in Chinese cultural history as a poet. Opinions of him split almost immediately after his death. The official history of the Wei dynasty, the Book of Wei, composed in large part during the Wei dynasty itself by Wang Chen, Xun Yi, and Ruan Ji, is understandably favorable to the founding figure of the state it chronicles. Against this, the Cao Man zhuan, an anonymous collection of anecdotes said to have been compiled by a person from Eastern Wu, a rival kingdom to Cao Cao's own, presents a consistently hostile portrait. It has been characterized as hostile propaganda, with certain contents described as slanderous. By the Jin dynasty, which immediately followed the Three Kingdoms period, opinions had already fractured. In traditional Chinese culture, Cao Cao became stereotypically portrayed as a sly, treacherous tyrant, placed in direct contraposition to Liu Bei, who was depicted as a hero fighting to revive the Han dynasty. The authoritative scholarly account of his life is his biography in the Records of the Three Kingdoms, written by Chen Shou in the third century. In the fifth century, the scholar Pei Songzhi annotated Chen Shou's work with material from dozens of other sources, preserving a range of perspectives that the official record alone could never contain.