Cao Cao had many adventurous choices in his life, such as he had ventured to attack Wu Huan and almost destroyed his entire army, and he had also risked a big battle with Yuan Shao, which almost led to the destruction of his own regime. However, he was the final winner, but the reason why Cao Cao did not unify the world was because many of his adventure choices were not all right, for example, after he captured Jingzhou, he ventured south to fight with Sun Liu, resulting in his loss of a good opportunity for reunification, compared with Chibi's choice, Cao Cao's strategy in the Battle of Hanzhong is not understood, in fact, his choice mistake this time is not smaller than Chibi's mistake, so that he lost the only opportunity to seize the world.
Take Hanzhong lightly, and take Hanzhong without bloodshed
Chibi's defeat did not really shake Cao Cao's rule, he only lost the water army he had just obtained from Jingzhou, the military force was still very strong, he chose to march west in the case of no hope of going south, pacifying Ma Chao and other western warlords, and then Cao Cao advanced into Hanzhong, this time Cao Cao's situation was very good, Zhang Lu chose to surrender without much resistance, he was equivalent to taking Hanzhong without effort. At this time, Sun Liu's two families were busy confronting each other in Jingzhou, and because Sun Quan attacked Jingnan, Liu Bei took the main force to confront him, and the relationship between the two families was very tense, and there was a possibility of fighting at any time.
Liu Ye's words were reluctantly rejected by Cao Cao
After taking Hanzhong, Liu Ye, an important strategist under Cao Cao, saw the fighter and immediately advised Cao Cao to march as soon as possible to fight shudi, saying that now was the best opportunity. Unexpectedly, Cao Cao rejected his proposal, he chose to wait and see in Hanzhong, and after Liu Bei killed people and established his power, Cao Cao was somewhat moved, and Liu Ye also saw that the fighter had been lost, and there was no possibility of fighting again, so he turned to persuade Cao Cao to retreat. This time, Cao Cao gave up a good opportunity to capture Xichuan, so cao Cao had no idea about Xichuan? Definitely not, otherwise Cao Cao would not have regretted it and planned to send troops against Xichuan.
Gain and loss, can not stop the nature of suffering from gain and loss
Cao Cao used to be a very decisive person, but in the handling of many things in Hanzhong, Cao Cao's approach was very bad, such as his hesitation on the issue of whether to fight Xichuan, which also led to his later failure in Hanzhong. Cao Cao neither fortified himself here, nor did he formulate a suitable defensive strategy, Liu Bei immediately led his troops to attack Hanzhong in the rear, Cao Cao's army had lost its previous vigor after such a delay, and everyone was reluctant to continue fighting, which also led to the defeat of Cao Cao's army, why did Cao Cao have such a change? Such hesitation is really very rare.
Cao Cao will have such a change, in the end it is still too old, Cao Cao's military operations in the later period are less and less, more or to deal with internal affairs, purge a lot of people who threaten his power, this matter can be seen that Cao Cao has lost his previous ambitions. He laid the whole north, but he was still worried about whether he could stabilize the regime, the regime in the chaotic world was very fragile, Cao Cao had not yet considered the problem of heir, he naturally did not dare to take any more risks, the average life expectancy of people at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty itself was not high, at about 25, his age at that time was that he could die at any time, and the pressure of death made him have to make changes. The defeat of Chibi, the situation of the three kingdoms have been initially formed, and the confrontational posture has been formed with each other, and the Sun-Liu alliance is still quite stable, all of which are factors to be considered.
In old age, people often become very conservative, after all, energy and judgment will decline, and it is impossible to maintain the level of youth. If he had changed cao cao when he was young, Xichuan would have definitely taken the risk of fighting, of course, Cao Cao did not have enough confidence, because his large army was stationed in Hanzhong, but Guanzhong could not assume the responsibility of providing for the army, coupled with the pain of the Battle of Chibi, it was not completely recovered, and the losses caused by a war really needed to be carefully weighed.
Cao Jun's supply line was too long, if he continued to fight xichuan, because there were too many mountains, it was more difficult to supply supplies, and he had just taken Hanzhong, he had not yet stabilized, and rushing to attack Xichuan might lead to the rout of the whole army. People are actually like this, when there is nothing, because of their own desires, they have the courage to fight, but when you have everything, you will start to think about how to have all this all the time. Although Cao Cao was also a military genius, but the misfortune of the day and night also needs to be taken into account, not that, how to think about it, Liu Bei is different from him, he has a solid north as a large base, Liu Bei only has a piece of territory Jingzhou, which is also borrowed from Eastern Wu. It is indeed not worth it to fight with desperate people. So here is right and wrong, we can't take the perspective of modern people, if you stand in cao Cao's point of view to think, maybe you don't have the courage to practice attacking, this is just the prejudice of the editor, what do you think?