Cao Cao entered Beijing as a general in his early years, but later sent Cao Cao to take office because Luoyang was difficult to govern. After Cao Cao took office, he immediately issued a ban, tightened management discipline, and created ten large sticks to be placed on both sides of the yamen, and if anyone committed a crime, he would directly beat and kill them with sticks. Later, Because his brother-in-law was killed by eunuchs and he himself was deposed, Cao Cao returned home with nothing to do. Later, the Yellow Turban Rebellion, Cao Cao was made a knight lieutenant to break the Yellow Turban Army, and then he went to Jinan to vigorously rectify and clean up all corrupt officials, and later resigned because he was not happy with the powerful people in the DPRK.
Later, Dong Zhuo deposed the emperor and the world was in chaos, and the 18 princes rose up to attack him, and Cao Cao was also among them, and after defeating Dong Zhuo, he united with the princes to cause civil unrest, so the 18 princes were disbanded and left. Cao Cao led his soldiers and horses to rescue Liu Xie, the Emperor of Han, and then his power gradually grew, capturing and annexing various princes, and finally went to Xuchang Dingdu and became the chancellor. Later, there was the Battle of Guandu with Yuan Shao, which won more with less, and after defeating Yuan Shao, Cao Cao's indisputable strength had become the most powerful presence in the crowd at that time, so 800,000 troops went south to unify the world. So why did Cao Cao dominate the side in such a short period of time in a chaotic world?
There are three reasons for this, the first is that Cao Cao has an advantage in the military camp, that is, he is extremely low-key when doing the right thing, and he is very high-profile on the surface. For example, when Cao Cao attacked Yuan Shao, he actually did not have enough grain and grass to fight with Yuan Shao, and the soldiers only ate thin porridge without many grains of rice every day, and they quarreled when they were dissatisfied. Of course, Cao Cao in the barracks account knew that there was no grain, but there was no way, so he ordered the soldiers to pull the military kitchen in front of all the soldiers and said, "The lack of food in the army is all due to the military kitchen" and then let people cut off the chef's head, and the soldiers at this time had no complaints. So the military cook became a scapegoat, and at this time, Cao Cao immediately summoned the military division to quickly discuss countermeasures, which was Cao Cao's ostensible and actual approach.
The second point is that Cao Cao will not leave room for people to do things, and is good at showing affection, just like Cao Cao's father passed through jingzhou when he returned to Xuchang, but on the way he was robbed by mountain thieves and killed him. But he really didn't have much sadness, he cried for a day just to show the world how sad he was because of his father's death, so he had an excuse to attack the treasure land of Jingzhou. And leaving no room for doing things is that "I would rather bear the people of the world than the people of the world bear me".
The last reason was that he liked the generals who dared to question his strategy, and those who would only listen to him liked it, but if there was a better strategy he would be more trusting. For example, during the conquest, Zhang Liao once disagreed with Cao Cao's views, and Cao Cao directly denied him, but then Cao Cao was punched in the face, so he completely let Zhang Liao do it, and later Zhang Liao won a big victory. Cao Cao was very confident in his strategy, and if his own generals could give a better direction, then in fact, he was very impressed and happy in his heart.
Later generations of Cao Cao's evaluation of Cao Cao has been praised and deprecated, some people say that Cao Cao did what everyone wanted to do and did not dare to do, in that kind of environment at that time, why can't they let go of that ability, in fact, Sun Quan Liu Bei they all want to call themselves emperor, but not as direct as Cao Cao. Some people also say that Cao Cao is a Cao thief, and to save the Son of Heaven, he must be blackmailed against him, he is just a traitor, so what is your opinion?