Secondly, Cao Cao is an excellent strategist. People often say that Zhuge Liang has a clever plan. In fact, Cao Cao is also full of tricks. He was one of the best generals of that era in the battle to conquer the Yellow Scarf and Guandu.
However, most people's understanding of Cao Cao is limited to the literary image of "a minister with the ability to manage the world, a treacherous man in troubled times" in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and his facial makeup is very severe.
But in fact, Cao Cao's literary image has also undergone great changes.
Before Sui and Tang Dynasties, Cao Cao was revered as Wei Gaozu. During the Three Kingdoms, Chen Shou spoke highly of Cao Cao's achievements. Later, Pei Songzhi made notes on the reflection, and also thought that Cao Cao "contributed to China".
Su Yang, a poet in the Sui Dynasty, also wrote a poem "Out of the Great Wall", which said that "the flying fox goes out of the northern part of the Great Wall, and Jieshi refers to Liaodong", which is a tribute to Cao Cao's expedition to Gongsun Kang in Liaodong and his attack on Wuhuan.
However, in the Tang Dynasty, Cao Cao's reputation began to divide. Li Bai wrote a poem "Wei Wuying's Eight Extremes, an ant sees a meter scale", which means that Cao Cao's camp has eight directions and greatly appreciates his achievements.
But Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, said that he looked down on Cao Cao. He thinks Cao Cao has something to recommend him, but his character is poor.
After the Song Dynasty, the negative image of Cao Cao gradually gained the upper hand.
Su Shi and Su Xun affirmed Cao Cao's military talents and thought that Cao Cao was a peeping Tom and a good soldier, but they also regarded Cao Cao as a hero of quotations and thought that he had great defects in his character.
However, the reason why Cao Cao's negative image is so deeply rooted in people's hearts is mainly due to the rise of folk literature such as scripts and operas. According to Dongpo Zhi Lin, whenever someone tells the story of the Three Kingdoms in the streets, people come to watch it, and when they hear the news of Liu Bei's failure, the onlookers frown and even cry; Hearing Cao Cao's failure, the onlookers cheered.
Especially in the Southern Song Dynasty, Yue Fei called Cao Cao a traitor who stole the country. Zhu also thinks that the history books are wrong, and Cao Cao can't be emperor, which is actually decided by the environment of the Southern Song Dynasty.
After all, in the face of powerful foreign invasion, they were dissatisfied with Cao Cao's practice of holding the emperor to make the princes. As a result, Cao Cao's images of "adulterer" and "villain" were gradually fixed.
We often say that Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms beautified Liu Bei and vilified Cao Cao, which was largely caused by the social environment at that time.
After all, The Three Kingdoms are popular novels, and many scripts and Juping collected by Luo Guanzhong are created according to the tastes of the public. Of course, only in this way can this novel be so popular and successful.
However, if we want to restore Cao Cao, we still can't ignore his strategic ability. After all, this is the key for him to win the world. Those complicated life experiences, mysterious personality and changeable emotions can only be Cao Cao's comments.
Cao Cao studied the art of war from an early age, and his strategy well practiced the "five things" put forward in it, namely, Tao, Heaven, Earth, General and Law. Let's explain it alone.
"Tao" means morality. From the beginning of the war, he always wanted to maintain the orthodoxy of the Han Dynasty. Even though the allies had different intentions, he persisted in attacking and was not discouraged by defeat.
Later, Cao Cao relied on the emperor to be a vassal, which just showed his profound understanding of morality. In ancient times, we paid attention to "making famous teachers", and the war must be just. With the son of heaven in Cao Cao's hands, we can always maintain the legitimacy of our war.
"Heaven" refers to the advantages of war. Among the three countries, Zhuge Liang is the best at using various conditions. When Liu Bei was about to perish, he grasped Sun Quan's real thoughts, promoted the alliance between Sun and Liu, and combined Zhou Yu to use the weather conditions to win Battle of Red Cliffs, turning decadence into magic.
But in fact, Cao Cao is also a strategist who is good at creating favorable conditions. For example, in the battle of Guandu, he seized Yuan Shao's weakness of being proud and underestimating his enemy, winning more with less; Later, he used the contradiction between Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang to completely defeat Yuan.
The so-called "land" refers to territory, topography, landforms and so on. This can be seen from Cao Cao's "three-step" strategy when he started his army.
By suppressing Yanzhou and Qingzhou occupied by the Yellow Scarf Army, he was vulnerable to attack, so he made good use of this feature and unified the northern region step by step.
"General" refers to the ability to lead the team and manage the team. Cao Cao has always cherished talents, and most of his civil servants and military commanders have been promoted and reused.
Many people envy Liu's feelings, but Cao Cao also has many military commanders who swear allegiance to the death, such as Xia brothers who accompany him all the year round, Dian Wei who sacrificed for Cao Cao, and punting to block arrows.
Cao Cao has also repeatedly issued a recruitment campaign to recruit talents. Of course, Cao Cao is not a broad-minded person. A lot of his tolerance is fake. In his later years, he was more bitter towards those who opposed him.
But as a political and military leader, he does have excellent leadership skills to command such a large group of civil servants and military commanders.
"Law" refers to system, thought and method. As a politician, Cao Cao did have many effective strategies for governing the country. For example, he vigorously developed the farming system and helped the society to resume production soon.
At the same time, he attaches great importance to "clear rewards and punishments" and rarely makes decisions because of his isolation. For example, in the battle of Guandu, the counselor Xu You left Yuan Shao to find Cao Cao and pointed out that Yuan Shao's granary was unguarded. After Cao Cao laid the battle of Guandu, he was greatly praised.
However, Xu You later flew high in the imperial court with his own achievements, pointing to the city gate and saying, "If it weren't for me, the Cao family wouldn't have entered this gate, which made Cao Cao's army feel high." When Cao Cao learned about it, he immediately ordered Xu You to be killed, no matter what contribution he made.
Yu Xun, who followed Cao Cao for many years, was killed as soon as he opposed Cao Cao's claim to be the emperor and touched Cao Cao's bottom line.
You can't say that Cao Cao has no feelings for Xun. But Cao Cao is like this, and most of the time he will not be influenced by personal emotions.
"The Art of War" gives a conclusion on the "five things": "These five things must be unknown, and those who know will win, and those who don't know will be invincible."
Translated, the "five things" of war are the top priority of a country, which is related to the life and death of soldiers and civilians and the survival of the country. We must observe, analyze and study them carefully.
Those who can do "five things" often win, and those who stay away from "five things" will inevitably fail.
Cao Cao knew the essence of the art of war as early as when he took notes for Sun Tzu's Art of War as a teenager.
In life, many people are influenced by The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and some cultural works, and like to regard Cao Cao as a traitor and a villain.
However, if you turn to history, you will find it difficult for us to simply evaluate the quality of Cao Cao.
Cao Cao established the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and his strategic and tactical thoughts spread with the Art of War. Even his poems and quotations have high literary value.
The strategies such as deviation, transfer and diversion mentioned in the course are not outdated even in modern society.
But Cao Cao's moral character and personality have great defects. In the process of pacifying the world, he resorted to unscrupulous means, which caused great controversy. It seems hard to say that he is a "hero".
As we said at the beginning, it is difficult to see Cao Cao's true colors.
But aside from his personal character, we can still learn some experiences and lessons from his strategy and decision-making, which is also the most essential part of his life and thoughts.