It is in this situation that Dong Zhuo and Cao Cao assembled an army in Chenliu County, Yanzhou, and fought against Dong Zhuo. There were successively generals Yuan Shu, Bohai satrap Yuan Shao, Jizhou Muhanfu, Yuzhou secretariat Kong Zhou, Yanzhou secretariat Liu Dai, Hanoi satrap Wang Kuang, Chenliu satrap Zhang Miao, Dong Jun satrap Qiao Huan, and Yangshan satrap Yuan Yi. In fact, there is only 12 road to crusade against Dong Zhuo, not 18 road as mentioned in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Because these people were all local officials at that time, and Dong Zhuo was more powerful, so the 12-route governors joined forces to elect Yuan Shao as the leader and coordinated the military actions of these 12-route governors against Dong Zhuo. It was clearly the first time that Cao Cao put forward the * * * crusade against Dong Zhuo. Why is Yuan Shao the leader?
The first reason why Yuan Shao joined forces with the Kanto Allied Forces was that Cao Cao was not a local official in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Before Cao Cao fled, he was the commander-in-chief of the imperial army among the eight governors of Xiyuan. Although he was also a captain with military power, Cao Cao was nothing when he fled the capital. He had to rely on his family property and the support of his friend Weizi to recruit soldiers. Cao Cao's army was just a peasant army recruited at that time, not a government army or a local army. At that time, Cao Cao's official position was acting as General Fenwu, which was obviously a temporary position. Because Cao Cao had no official position at that time, he temporarily got an acting general Fenwu. Because Cao Cao had no official position, although he was the first person who advocated against Dong, he was not qualified to lead the twelve princes. The second reason is that Cao Cao's position was not high at that time, far less than Yuan Shao's. The talent recommendation system in the Eastern Han Dynasty was a kind of supervision system, which later evolved into recommending talents according to their origins, and most of the recommended talents were from big families. If there are more officials in a family, the greater the official position, the higher the prestige of the family.
When Yuan Shao and Cao Cao were in the Han Dynasty, the highest positions were Sangong, namely Situ and Qiu He. These three positions are second only to the emperor in the imperial court and have a very high status. They are also the most competitive positions. People who can become three fairs are either famous all over the world or have superior ability. At that time, Yuan Shao's family was passed down to Yuan Shao's generation, and four generations of his family had held three positions in the court. Among the twelve princes, no one can match Yuan Shao's family background, including Cao Cao. At that time, people were judged first by birth rather than ability. Even if Cao Cao's ability is better than Yuan Shao's, he can't be recommended as a leader, because Yuan Shao's background is better than his. The third reason is that Cao Cao's adoptive father is eunuch Cao Teng. This is Cao Cao's fatal political defect. The mainstream and middle and upper levels of the Eastern Han Dynasty were gentry, intellectuals and social elites at that time. For the gentry, eunuchs are the people they hate the most, no matter whether they are good or bad. Why do the gentry hate eunuchs?
Because of Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty and Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, Cao Cao imposed a curse on the gentry class, and artificially ended all his political life on the grounds that scholars were the party. As long as he is declared as party member, this scholar will never enter the official career again, unless the partisan struggle is lifted and the eunuch class dominates the partisan struggle. The eunuch took the scholar as his main competitor and won the support of the emperor. How can a scholar not hate eunuchs? Although Cao Teng, Cao Cao's adoptive father, can be called an upright eunuch, his identity label will always be a eunuch and cannot be changed. Therefore, although Cao Cao was the first to recruit volunteers at that time, in fact, those local officials who were born in the gentry looked down on Cao Cao, which was encountered many times in Cao Cao's entrepreneurial history. For example, Bian Jean, Kong Rong and others looked down on Cao Cao's birth and were killed by Cao Cao. Since Cao Cao killed these people, it didn't change people's views. And Cao Cao once killed the eunuch Jian Shuo's uncle when he was a commandant in the north of Luoyang. In fact, he just wanted to get rid of the eunuch politically, but not many people could agree with Cao Cao.
Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu, Yuan Shao's scholar status is more recognized by these governors. At that time, Yuan Shao was like the image of a world scholar leader. Yuan Shao himself is tall and handsome, while Cao Cao is short and pithy, with an average appearance. To know that people at that time judged people by their appearances, Yuan Shao was more popular than Cao Cao. However, although Yuan Shao, as the allied leader of the 12-route warlord, actually did nothing in the crusade against Dong Zhuo, because only Cao Cao and Sun Jian dared to lead the army to crusade against Dong Zhuo, while other warlords remained on hold, only with the momentum of crusade and no actual action. In the end, Dong Zhuo successfully moved the capital to Chang 'an, and took away the emperor, or ministers and the vast majority of the people. Although Cao Cao was weak at that time, with only 5,000 troops, he dared to lead an army to fight Dong Zhuo. Although Dong Zhuo was completely annihilated by Xu Rong, Cao Cao escaped by relying on Cao Hong's horse, but at least he saved his life. If Cao Cao was the leader of the Kanto Coalition against Dong Zhuo, would he destroy Dong Zhuo?
Cao actually can't do anything about it. This is not that Cao Cao is incompetent, but that the so-called 12-route warlord is a loose alliance. What they have in common is that there is only one slogan against Dong Zhuo, and there is no actual action. Even if Cao Cao is the leader, he can't command other governors to really put their troops into attacking Dong Zhuo. At best, they are just posturing. Only Cao Cao's headquarters and Sun Jian's men can strike Dong Zhuo with practical actions, but only Cao Cao and Sun Jian can defeat Dong Zhuo. You should know that Dong Zhuo's talented people are Xu Rong who defeated Cao Cao, Li Jue and Guo Si who later dominated, Zhang Xiu, Zhang Ji's nephew who killed Cao Cao's eldest son, generals such as Lu Bu and Fan Chou, and advisers such as Jia Xu. Besides, Dong Zhuo could escape in the direction of Chang 'an and Xiliang, so the Kanto Allied Forces were actually unable to destroy Dong Zhuo, including Cao Cao.