Cao Cao is the masterpiece of China's excellent novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In this work, the author created many typical artistic figures. Compared with other classical masterpieces, in the author's works, these characters are all real people in history. Today we are going to discuss a controversial figure in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao. The complexity of Cao Cao's character, comprehensive ability and the mixture of good and evil show his richness and complexity, which is the most difficult to discuss. We try to reinterpret Cao Cao from the perspective of history and art. The evaluation of Cao Cao in history books is: Cao Cao, that is, Wei Wudi. Cao Cao, namely Wei Wudi. The word Meng De. Pei Guoqiao (now Hao County, Anhui Province) was born. Cao Cao, a famous politician and strategist in the Three Kingdoms period, gradually expanded his military strength in suppressing the Yellow turban insurrectionary uprising. After the battle of Guandu defeated Yuan Shao, the northern part of China was gradually unified. In the 13th year of Jian 'an (2008), he became prime minister, led more than 200,000 troops south, and launched the famous Battle of Red Cliffs in history, which was defeated by Sun Quan and Liu Bei. In the 21st year of Jian 'an (2 16), he was awarded to Wang Wei. Before his death, Cao Cao built water conservancy projects in the northern fields, which solved the problem of lack of military grain and played a certain role in the recovery of agricultural production. Employ people on their merits, break the secular concept of men and women, attract the middle and lower classes of the landlord class, restrain the strongmen and strengthen centralization. In the ruling area, the social economy has been restored and developed. He is a good soldier and has written books such as Sun Tzu's Art of War and Sun Tzu's Art of War. Cao Cao not only showed outstanding talents in politics, economy and military affairs, but also made great achievements in literature.
From the above brief introduction to the historical materials of Cao Cao's life, we can see that the real Cao Cao existed as a positive figure in history, but now what is presented here is only an objective introduction. When the author was writing the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao's face changed in history. This change has the artistic tendency of the author's personal writing, but at the same time, the author inadvertently complicates Cao Cao's character. In Cao Cao, we can see the reflection of the turbulent special historical environment of the Three Kingdoms on Cao Cao. We don't focus on this issue, but mainly look at the personality characteristics of the characters after artistic processing and make a simple analysis.
On Cao Cao's Character
1 Superman's leadership ability
Let's take a look at the first part of Romance of the Three Kingdoms:
Xu Shao in Ru 'nan has the name of knowing people. Cao Cao went to see it and asked, "What do I look like?" Shao did not answer. Then he asked Shao, "Zi can rule the world, and treacherous officials come out in troubled times." Fuck, I'm overjoyed.
Here, Xu Shao summed up one of Cao Cao's greatest characteristics, that is, Cao Cao's leadership ability, which laid the foundation for Cao Cao to become a real emperor in the future and affirmed his personality. Cao Cao's leadership temperament is mainly reflected in three aspects: decisive, open-minded and confident, knowing people and being good at their duties. Cao Cao's decisive decision-making ability is directly determined by his personality, which is an essential quality for a leader. When Cao Cao first entered the official career, he did not have the pleasure habit of a dude at all, and devoted himself to eliminating evil politics and enforcing the rule of law. At that time, the eunuch was playing politics and the government was in chaos, but he was not afraid of powerful people and showed the strength of a great politician. From the early days when Cao Cao and Yuan Shao and others elected volunteers to crusade against Dong Zhuo, we can understand that Cao Cao was a leader with strong ambition and mission, trying to restore the extremely chaotic social situation at that time, restore stability and order, and solve the urgent needs of the people.
They are virtuous.
Knowing people and being good at their duties is a remarkable feature of Cao Cao. Talent is greater than virtue in Cao Cao's employment policy. When discussing this issue, we don't intercept the chapters in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms to illustrate the problem, but look at the employment policy promulgated by Cao Cao, which can explain his thirst for talents to the greatest extent. Cao Cao's most shocking move was that he issued three orders for seeking talents as prime minister. This is a cultural anti-flag that may subvert the traditional Confucian beliefs in China. Cao Cao not only solemnly put forward the idea of "meritocracy", but also strode to implement this idea to an unconditional degree, thus making "meritocracy" the first choice principle above all other principles. The ambition and courage to be abrupt with sages and despise etiquette are exposed in a large number of examples cited by Cao Cao. Cao Cao told the world clearly: No matter whether you are insulted or ashamed of Yu Xiao, or even if you have committed such heinous acts as "killing your wife to win trust" and "never returning to your mother after death", as long as you are really capable, you will still be valued by me. (See Zhou Zexiong in "Cooking Wine in Childhood") This was a great pressure for Cao Cao under the historical conditions at that time. Mr. Chen wrote: "Meng De San Ling ... clearly declared that the golden rule followed by the scholar-officials since they took office was completely bankrupt. As a result, the scholar-officials in the Eastern Han Dynasty were unanimous in their use of Confucianism, and Kong Zhou's moral fortress could not be adhered to, and those who settled down lost all basis. Therefore, Meng De's three orders are not just a temporary thirst for talents, but actually show policies, but great changes in political, social and moral thoughts ... (For details, see Chen Yinque's article "The Last Four Books are Written by Talking about Newspeak Literature"). When we understand this practice of Cao Cao, we may only analyze it from Cao Cao's personality characteristics.
The artistic images of Cao Cao's characters are various.
Cao Cao in Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a typical image of a treacherous man shaped by art typification. Not only did his words and deeds deviate from the historical facts, but so did his aesthetic feelings. Secondly, Cao Cao in Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a very complicated and multifaceted typical image, a treacherous, selfish, cruel and suspicious figure, and also a visionary and resourceful person. The degradation of Cao Cao's personality is actually manifested together with his advantages, which is called mud and sand. Cao Cao is used to turning from anger to laughter and from laughter to crying. After Battle of Red Cliffs, he fled from Huarong Road, and when he was resting in Nanjun, he cried in front of all the counselors. When the counselor asked him why he was crying, Cao Cao said, "I am crying for Guo Fengxiao! If I were filial, I would never have such a big loss! " On the one hand, this is Cao Cao's love for talents; On the other hand, this is another trick of Cao Cao, because the result of his crying is to "shame all the counselors", which is the real purpose of his crying.
The image of Cao Cao has both a treacherous side and a glorious side. However, these two aspects are not a mechanical addition, but an organic integration. Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether this is his heroic nature or his treacherous character. But in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, he takes the adulterer as the dominant character. In Cao Cao's body, almost all the characteristics of feudal rulers are concentrated: winning over people's hearts, being jealous of talents, being headstrong and resourceful; Mean and tyrannical, generous and smart, smart and stupid; There is always hypocrisy in honesty and a little meanness in generosity. But it is precisely because of these that Cao Cao's image has an extremely distinctive and irreplaceable artistic independence, forming his vivid and complex character combination tone: treacherous and capable, difficult to distinguish between true and false, broad and fierce! The two sides of personality penetrate each other and have their own characteristics, so we can't help but be attracted by Cao Cao's complex and vague human characteristics.