Cao Rui was the son of The Wei Emperor Cao Pi and Zhen, the eldest grandson of Cao Cao, who had been brilliant since childhood and was deeply loved by Cao Cao, and every time Cao Cao held a banquet, he had to take this grandson with him and let him pay more attention to legal politics so that he could take over in the future. However, after Cao Cao's death, Cao Pi killed Zhen in the second year of the Huang Dynasty, and Cao Rui was also implicated by his mother, and was demoted from the Duke of Qi to the Marquis of Pingyuan, and did not become the crown prince at the first time.
The story of Zhen and Cao Zhi has been widely spread in the folk. But this is only a folk tale, and when it is not true, there is no evidence to prove that there was a male and female affair between Zhen and Cao Zhi. However, Zhen was originally Yuan Shao's daughter-in-law, and I think that Cao Pi snatched Zhen from his father after attacking Jizhou, and at the beginning, Cao Pi was still very good to Zhen. However, the flowers were not red, and the later Cao Pi favored the two daughters of Emperor Xian of Han and Guo Meiren, and the Zhen clan fell out of favor and complained quite a bit, and cao Pi, who was furious, gave Zhen Shi to death, and covered his face with hair when he was buried, with chaff plugging his mouth, very desperate.
After his mother's death, Cao Rui was also estranged from his father, but during a hunting trip with Cao Pi, Cao Rui seized the opportunity. At that time, Cao Pi hunted and killed a doe and ordered Cao Rui to shoot the fawn next to the doe, but Cao Rui did not do so. His reason was: "Your Majesty has killed his mother, and the subject cannot bear to kill his son again", Cao Pi felt that this son had a benevolent heart, so he changed his opinion and decided to let Cao Rui take over for the sake of the Wei state.
Cao Rui inherited the Cao family's Jiangshan, and also inherited the contradictory character of the Cao family. During his reign, he was highly capable, especially in military talent; but he also built a lot of land and pursued pleasure; he had a deep personality, could speak but often did things as he pleased, and even somewhat sensitive and suspicious. He ruled the country with the idea of a legalist, strengthened the centralization of power, stabilized the Cao Wei regime, and could be regarded as a qualified emperor.
Cao Rui's personality is related to the death of his mother. Father and mother are husband and wife, but the father who holds power can make the mother leave himself forever with a single word, which is the magic of power. In order to survive, he had to try his best to please his father, and even served Empress Guo carefully everywhere, lest he be careless and cause great disaster. So his first impression was that he was careful in his words and deeds, and this personality won him the approval of his father.
After becoming emperor, Cao Rui remained deep in the city. Whoever it was, what was said and done in front of him, he kept it in his heart. After he came to power, he reused Chen Qun and others, took charge of the military and politics himself, and was determined to expand the territory and unify the world.
Military talent
Cao Rui's military talent was innate, inherited from his grandfather. In the year he had just succeeded to the throne, Sun Quan saw that Cao Pi was newly bereaved, and bullied Cao Rui at a young age, so he marched into Jiangxia and wanted to give Cao Rui a chance to get off the horse. Many ministers of the Cao Wei regime suggested that the rescue troops be sent quickly, but Cao Rui had his own ideas. He believed that Eastern Wu was only proficient in water warfare, and this time he wanted to take advantage of our lack of preparation to carry out a sneak attack. Now that their plan has been recognized by us, and Jiang Xia Shou has been in the battlefield for a long time, Eastern Wu will certainly not be able to bargain, and there is no need to work hard at this time to mobilize the masses and hurt the national strength in vain. Later, as he expected, Sun Quan saw that Cao Wei was ready, and casually made a show and retreated.
When Cao Rui came to power, it was the time when Zhuge Liang went out several times during the Northern Expedition of Qishan. Especially in the second year of Taihe, after Zhuge Liang took the three counties of Tianshui, Nan'an and Anding, Cao Wei was shaken by the opposition. However, Cao Rui insisted that Zhuge Liang was greedy for small profits, and after taking the three counties, he did not know how to retreat, which was a good opportunity to break Shu, so he asked Sima Yi to lead his troops to resist the enemy, and indeed severely damaged the Shu army at the street pavilion. From then on, the Wei ministers dispelled their concerns about Cao Rui's youth, and Cao Rui became the biggest opponent in Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition, and Zhuge Liang never defeated this opponent in his lifetime.
Grace and grace
The Ming Emperor's Chronicle records that "(Cao Rui) was a minister of honor, open-minded and upright, and although he violated Yan Ji's advice, he did not destroy anything, and his king's strength was so great." After Cao Rui became emperor, he was good at listening to the opinions of all sides, that is, the letters of ordinary people, Cao Rui attached great importance to it, and he had to look at them one by one and never got tired of it.
Regarding the advice of the ministers of the DPRK and China, Cao Rui could accommodate the existence of different opinions, whether it was reasonable or not. However, Cao Rui was a very assertive emperor, and the things he decided were difficult to change, that is to say, the exhortations of the ministers were not necessarily effective. Especially in terms of life, since Zhuge Liang's death, Cao Rui believed that the biggest enemy had disappeared, and since then he has relaxed, indulging in wine all day and building a large number of civil engineering, and the ministers have repeatedly advised and advised, and Cao Rui has ignored them. But what makes him different from the average emperor is that he does not retaliate against the ministers for this, but goes his own way, you say yours, I do mine. This is also the style of his grandfather Cao Cao, and it is difficult to change what he believes no matter what others think.
The law governs the country
When Cao Cao was alive, he ruled the world in the way of the Fa, and Cao Rui was very interested in the teachings of the Fa. He adopted Wei Kai's suggestion, "Those who criminalize the law are valued by the state, and those who are despised by private discussion; those who are prison officials, where the people are suspended, and those who are chosen are inferior, the shortcomings of the royal government may not be the same.", specially formulated the law of prison punishment, reduced the death penalty, and required officials at all levels to be cautious in dealing with death sentences, "to discuss prison suspension, and to be lenient and simple."
After Cao Rui came to power, Chen Qun and others formulated more than 180 relevant laws and regulations such as the New Law, the State and County Order, and the Shang Shu Official Order, making Cao Wei's law the most perfect among the Three Kingdoms.
When Cao Rui came to power, his father Cao Pi left him four auxiliary ministers, including Cao Zhen, Cao Xiu, Chen Qun, and Sima Yi. By strengthening the authority of Zhongshu Province and giving full trust to his close subjects, Cao Rui gradually appointed four ministers to the leadership of the side, so that he could no longer be constrained by them, thus strengthening the centralized rule of imperial power.
Respect Confucianism and re-learning
Cao Cao set up schools in counties as early as the eighth year of Jian'an to teach Confucianism; Cao Pi also set up Taixue, setting up the Five Classics, and advocating Confucianism. Cao Rui took the Confucian "Ming Noble and Lowly, Respecting Relatives, Li Xianliang, shun shaochang" as the outline of the country, built the Wei Guozong Temple in Luoyang, welcomed the ancestors of the fourth generation into the temple, discussed Cao Cao as Taizu, Cao Pi as Gaozu, and established the Confucian temple system.
In the selection of talents, he inherited Cao Cao's concept of talent of "meritocracy", used the policy of valuing talents and respecting literature to envelop the readers, and established a political system with the legalists as the mainstay and Confucianism as the supplement, so as to govern the country with capital.
For some flashy people, although they have a reputation, but they are not beneficial to the country, Cao Rui can give a resolute blow. There are also some small groups within the Cao Wei Group, who are trendy in their thinking and like to comment on current politics, but they cannot come up with specific strategies to govern it, but seek fame and fortune through deliberation. These people, represented by Xia Houxuan, He Yan, and Bi Rail, touted and flaunted each other, and were deposed by Cao Rui as "flashy and unruly people".
Most of them are second-generation officials or rich second-generation officials, praise each other, vigorously praise the same party, use public opinion to influence and replace policies, are keen on talking and gathering, and judge the government's character, and are bound to suffer an iron fist from Cao Rui, who "denies flashiness and emphasizes substance." Although these people were entangled and difficult to clean up, through their blows, they delayed the time for these so-called "righteous masters" to enter the historical stage, made the originally powerful Cao Wei regime more pragmatic, and laid the foundation for the later unification of the Sima clan.
Emperor Literati
Cao Rui liked to make friends with literati and also paid attention to advocating rewarding literati, so "from the beginning of Taihe to the beginning, literati have emerged". Even those flashy literati, Cao Rui will not harm their lives, even as the leader of the literary world, uncle Cao Zhi, he also changed his father's harsh approach, but gave his uncle a certain degree of creative freedom. Cao Rui changed Cao Zhi from Yongqiu to Dong'a, and often cared about Cao Zhi's life, and Cao Zhi himself was deeply moved, saying that "The Second Emperor Wenwu was so pitiful to his subjects that he no longer had too much of a clear edict." Therefore, Cao Zhi created many articles and poems during the Cao Rui period, and after his death, his articles were also included by Cao Rui, which still played a great historical role in the spread of Jian'an literature.
Cao Rui himself also had a certain literary accomplishment. His "Empress Zhen Lamentations" is a masterpiece of nostalgia for his mother; the eighteen poems he left behind, represented by the "Song of Songs", describe the Wei State Pingwu War, portraying the wei army's majesty and the mighty of the soldiers when they went out on the expedition vividly, full of high morale.
In some works that express personal feelings, Cao Rui is also good at connecting the scenery in his eyes with psychology, and his poems such as "Long Song Line" and "Step Out of the Summer Gate Line" incorporate images such as autumn cicadas, weak water, lonely birds, and falling leaves into poems, in order to express the depression of his father's distrust and exclusion when he was young, as well as his hatred for those who entered in front of his father, with a certain sense of distress and a style of deep sorrow. Therefore, many people include it as a transitional figure in Jian'an literature and Zhengyi literature, which makes some sense.
Looking at Cao Rui's behavior, the advantages and disadvantages are half of each, and its advantages are good military planning, clear observation and prison breakage, and relatively good guest advice. Cao Rui was rare among ancient feudal monarchs in terms of tolerating outspokenness and not killing courtiers, which was his characteristic. Cao Rui's biggest shortcomings were excessive extravagance, as well as certain mistakes in determining the heir and auxiliary chancellor, failing to recognize the wolf ambitions of the Sima family and clearing this time bomb in time, thus leaving a foreshadowing for the later usurpation of Wei by Sima Shi.