Cao Cao
Also known as Cao Cao 曹操 · Mengde 孟德 · posthumous Emperor Wu of Wei 魏武帝
- Dates
- 155–220
- Era
- End of the Eastern Han; founder of Wei's power, never emperor himself
- Role
- Late Han warlord, poet, and the earliest surviving commentator on Sun Tzu
Cao Cao held the emperor, won the north, commented on Sun Tzu, and lost at Red Cliffs, while the sneering villain belongs to a later novel.
Who was Cao Cao?
Cao Cao was the warlord who held Emperor Xian, defeated his northern rivals, and left his son a state. Born in 155, he took the emperor into his protection in 196 and ruled in the Han name from Xu. He beat Yuan Shao at Guandu in 200, finished the north, and was made King of Wei in 216. He died in 220, before his son Cao Pi forced the abdication and founded Wei. Cao Cao was never emperor in his own lifetime. He was a major poet, and he wrote the earliest Art of War commentary that still survives.
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a fourteenth-century novel, turns this career into the villain's part, complete with the line that he would rather betray the world than let the world betray him. Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms, from the late third century, are the history: a ruthless, able ruler who restored order in the north and failed to cross the Yangtze. Red Cliffs in 208 is that failure. Borrowed arrows, an east wind summoned by Zhuge Liang, Jiang Gan's stolen letter, and Pang Tong's chained ships are the novel. His commentary on Sun Tzu shows how he read a campaign when no novelist was writing the dialogue.
Key works
Commentary on the Sunzi 曹操注孙子
The earliest surviving commentary on The Art of War. It is Cao Cao the commander reading Sun Wu chapter by chapter, and later editions of the classic often print him first among the commentators.
Poems, including Short Song 短歌行
Cao Cao's Yuefu poems sit in the Jian'an corpus. Short Song, on wine, guests, and the shortness of life, is his best-known piece, and they are poems of a ruler, not a strategy manual.
Key ideas
挟天子
Hold the emperor, order the lords
From 196 he kept Emperor Xian at his capital and issued commands in the Han name. The slogan 挟天子以令诸侯 describes the arrangement, and it gave him legitimacy his rivals had to argue with, until the fiction wore thin.
屯田
Agricultural colonies for a long war
Wei military farming, 屯田, put soldiers and civilians on land to feed a permanent army. Guandu was won as much on Yuan Shao's supplies as on a single charge, and grain was a strategy.
Comment on the classic you actually use
His Sunzi notes are short and practical. They show which lines a third-century commander thought could be executed, and that is a better guide to him than a speech invented in the novel.
Famous episodes
Guandu
History200
Yuan Shao brought the larger army south. Cao Cao, short of food, held him and then struck the supply base at Wuchao, burning the grain. Yuan's coalition came apart. The Records treat Guandu as the battle that decided the north, and it is history, and it matches a habit of his: attack the logistical joint rather than the strongest face.
The Yuan brothers' heads, without a march
History207
After beating the Wuhuan in 207, Cao Cao was urged to invade Liaodong, where Yuan Shang and Yuan Xi had taken refuge with Gongsun Kang. He refused, saying pressure would unite Kang with the Yuans and withdrawal would let Kang kill them, then turned back. Kang sent the heads. The Records tell this, and stratagem 9, watch the fire from the far bank, uses it as the example.
Red Cliffs
History208
In 208 Cao Cao came south with a large fleet, and the allied forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei stopped him at the Yangtze. The Records report a Wu fire attack, a defeated withdrawal, and disease in the northern camp as part of the historical discussion. The novel adds Jiang Gan's stolen letter, Pang Tong's chained ships, straw boats that borrow arrows, and Zhuge Liang calling the east wind. Those scenes are fiction, and stratagems 33 and 35 take their famous Three Kingdoms colour from them.
Myths vs facts
The historical Cao Cao is the villain of the Romance, laughing as he betrays everyone.
The novel, written a thousand years later, chose a Shu-Han loyalist frame and made Cao Cao the antagonist. Chen Shou's Records present a harsh and capable founder of Wei's power. Judge the politics from the Records, and enjoy the novel as a novel.
His motto, in the history books, is: I would rather betray the world than let the world betray me.
Chen Shou's main text does not give him this creed. A grimmer private remark after the killing of Lü Boshe's household appears in anecdotal material that Pei Songzhi collected, and the novel promotes it into a philosophy. It is not a line of his state policy.
Zhou Yu tricked him, through Jiang Gan, into executing his own admirals Cai Mao and Zhang Yun.
That comedy of a stolen letter is the novel's version of stratagem 33, turning the enemy's spy. It is not in the Records. Red Cliffs happened, and Jiang Gan's letter is fiction.
Takeaways
- Read the Records and the novel as two different books.
- Strike the supply line when the army itself is too large.
- When rivals fear each other, do not rush to unite them.
Related stratagems
Rivals and connections
Sources
- Chen Shou, Records of the Three Kingdoms 三国志, Wei shu, Annals of Emperor Wu
- Cao Cao, commentary on the Sunzi 曹操注孙子
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三国演义 (novel, 14th c.)