At different stages of history, there will always be different stories happening, although these stories are confusing and dazzling, but there seems to be some intricate relationship between them, throughout the history of thousands of years of ancient times, there are always some people and stories that are impressive.
Cao Cao was originally a famous and prestigious family, the starting point was higher than Zhu Yuanzhang, and Cao Cao was a very powerful person in military, political and strategic aspects, but Cao Cao spent his life and did not realize the unification of the Three Kingdoms, and Zhu Yuanzhang was born poor, and even fell to begging for a living, but it only took 15 years to establish the Ming Dynasty, why is this?
Why cao Cao was unable to achieve the unification of the three kingdoms in his lifetime
In fact, if we want to understand this problem, we must analyze it from two aspects, the first aspect is that Cao Cao faced the opponent, in the Three Kingdoms period, at the very beginning, Cao Cao faced Yuan Shao, Sun Quan, Liu Biao and others, and later faced Sun Quan and Liu Bei and others.
In the previous stage, cao cao faced opponents, it can be said that it is not particularly strong, for example, cao cao's strongest opponent at that time was Yuan Shao, yuan shao fourth and third duke, in the Eastern Han Dynasty was already one of the most famous and prestigious families, its family influence and the status of the society at that time, are cao cao can not reach, according to the theory, Cao Cao wants to overthrow Yuan Shao, it is too difficult.
However, at this time, Cao Cao did not have the slightest slight enemy or slackness in the face of the powerful opponent Yuan Shao, coupled with the fact that there was infighting within Yuan Shao himself, infighting between Yuan Shao and his brother Yuan Shu, resulting in instability in the military, plus Yuan Shao himself had a very serious character defect, so in the end after the Battle of Guandu, he completely lost to Cao Cao.
After Cao Cao purged Yuan Shao's forces, he planned to take care of Liu Biao and Sun Quan, but Liu Biao died of illness at that time and handed over the family property to his younger son Liu Chun to inherit, Liu Chun quickly surrendered to Cao Cao under the advice of Cai Mao and others, and Cao Cao could be said to have won without a fight and picked up a bargain.
At this time, Cao Cao had completely unified the north, and the south had only Sun Quan, the opponent, who was relatively powerful, and then only needed to destroy Sun Quan to realize his ideal ambition of unifying the world, but at this time, Sun Quan and Liu Bei began to form an alliance and unite against Cao Cao.
Of course, at this time, As Liu Bei's subordinate, after Liu Biao's death, he could only hug Liu Qi, Liu Biao's eldest son, for warmth, otherwise Liu Bei would not even have a place to go, and Cao Cao might not have taken Liu Bei in his eyes at this time, and it could even be said that without Cao Cao's threat to Eastern Wu, Sun Quan would definitely not be able to look at Liu Bei squarely.
In the face of a strong enemy, Sun Quan profoundly understood that if he did not unite with Liu Bei to resist Cao, perhaps his fate would have no suspense but surrender, if he united with Liu Bei to resist Cao, at that time, Liu Bei and Liu Qi's strength was still relatively considerable, in short, it was better to warm up in a group than to fight alone.
In this way, Sun Quan kept a clear head in the midst of danger, and liu bei and liu bei joined forces against Cao Cao, a battle of Chibi, with fewer victories and more, Cao Cao suffered serious losses, and Cao Cao, who was originally invincible, no longer had the strength to quickly unify the three kingdoms.
It was after the Battle of Chibi that Cao Cao lost the best opportunity to unify the three kingdoms, and in the time that followed, it could only be a good thing, and Cao Cao wanted to seize the opportunity to clean up Sun Quan and Liu Bei countless times, but the two always kept a clear head, and even fought against Cao Cao horizontally and vertically, so that Cao Cao could not do anything about them.
Coupled with the fact that Liu Bei and Sun Quan were usually very good to their subordinates and the people, and the people's hearts and minds were beyond cao cao's reach, that is, under the comprehensive influence of these historical reasons, in the end, Eastern Wu, Shu Han, and Cao Wei formed a three-legged situation, and Cao Cao wanted to achieve reunification, unless Liu Bei or Sun Quan did something stupid, otherwise it would be very difficult.
We will find a problem, in the later period, Sun Quan was indeed more confused, not as wise as in the early period, so he killed Guan Yu, resulting in the complete collapse of the alliance between Eastern Wu and Shu Han, the two sides fought, Cao Wei watched the fire from across the shore, and finally after Cao Cao's death, he sat on the benefit of the fisherman, Sima Zhao took care of Shu Han, Sima Yan got Rid of Eastern Wu, and Cao Cao's descendants finally achieved great unification, but Cao Wei, who was not in the right position, was eventually usurped by the Sima family.
In addition to the factors of Cao Cao's opponents at that time, of course, Cao Cao himself also had some problems, first of all, Cao Cao's concept of "I would rather bear the people of the world than let the people of the world bear me", which led to the exposure of Cao Cao's nature, in the eyes of many people who supported the Han Room, Cao Cao was not only a thief, but also a treacherous villain, so in terms of people's aspirations, Cao Cao naturally did not have the royal blood and royal identity of Liu Bei.
In addition, after Cao Cao won the Battle of Guandu and won Yuan Shao's unification of the north, the whole person was a bit drifting, and it was precisely because of Cao Cao's conceit at the critical moment that it led to the defeat of the Battle of Chibi, that is, the defeat of the Battle of Chibi, prompting Cao Cao to have no way to quickly unify the Three Kingdoms, and also gave Liu Bei the opportunity to develop and grow, if Cao Cao had not forgotten himself at that time, remained rational and vigilant, of course there would have been no Sun Quan and Liu Bei.
Zhu Yuanzhang spent 15 years establishing the Ming Dynasty
Compared with Cao Cao, Zhu Yuanzhang was overstretched in terms of capital at birth and the initial stage, zhu Yuanzhang was a self-made man in the true sense, with no background and no strong capital support, and could only rely on his own hands to continue to work hard.
The reason why Zhu Yuanzhang was able to achieve reunification and establish the Ming Dynasty in 15 years, I think one of the most important factors is that Zhu Yuanzhang's own military, political and strategic talents are not inferior to Cao Cao's, and on this basis, Zhu Yuanzhang has always been able to maintain his sober and rational, no matter how brilliant the achievements, Zhu Yuanzhang has never been discouraged before achieving the final victory.
This was something that Cao Cao could not reach, and it was also the key to Zhu Yuanzhang's victory, but this was not the only reason for Zhu Yuanzhang's victory, because Zhu Yuanzhang was able to succeed smoothly at that time and had a lot to do with his opponents.
The opponents faced by Zhu Yuanzhang during the period were either the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty in the Northern Yuan, who were themselves foreign to the Han people in the Central Plains, so in terms of the people's hearts, Zhu Yuanzhang naturally had an advantage over Cao Cao.
In addition, most of the other opponents zhu Yuanzhang faced belonged to peasant uprisings or some generally strong teams, and these people and the opponents such as Sun Quan and Liu Bei faced by Cao Cao during the Three Kingdoms period were not at all at the same level, and in terms of military ability, they were inferior to Sun Quan and Liu Bei, let alone political vision and strategy.
Under such circumstances, Zhu Yuanzhang recruited talents and carefully accepted the suggestions of his advisers, and under the correct strategy of Liu Bowen, Li Shanchang, and others, and with the loyal support of Xu Da, Tang He, and others, Zhu Yuanzhang practiced the military theory of "accumulating grain in a wide range of areas and slowly becoming king.", and gradually destroyed his opponent by joining hands with the strong and taking advantage of the opportunity to strengthen himself.
On this point, I need to elaborate on this point: When Zhu Yuanzhang used the army of the Northern Yuan, attacked his opponents to the north left and right, consumed others, and strengthened himself, and later he united with the Red Turban Army, united with Zhang Shicheng, and united with Chen Youyu, gradually consuming and destroying his opponents, strengthening himself, and finally only his opponent Chen Youyu remained, Zhu Yuanzhang's ambitions were finally exposed, and by destroying Chen Youyu, he could achieve reunification.
Studying Zhu Yuanzhang's strategy is similar to that of Liu Bei and Sun Quan in jointly resisting Cao Cao, and Liu Bei also gradually became stronger in the process of jointly consuming Cao Cao with Sun Quan, Zhu Yuanzhang applied this tactic to the extreme, and the political vision and strategy of his opponents were not as good as those of Sun Quan and Cao Cao, so Zhu Yuanzhang was naturally able to quickly realize his ideal ambitions.
But then again, being able to persist for 15 years is actually not a simple thing, can go from a beggar with nothing, to the end to become the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, if there is no help of some luck, presumably it is also a fantasy, so it can be said that Zhu Yuanzhang won the final victory, there are also elements of luck at work, Cao Cao's failure, probably luck is not enough.
epilogue
Cao Cao's starting point is higher than Zhu Yuanzhang's, and his ability is not inferior to Zhu Yuanzhang's, but he has never been able to achieve unification, in addition to the opponent is too strong, his own conceit and bad luck are also very critical factors, and Zhu Yuanzhang is relatively lucky, in the case of always staying sober, the opponent is still capable, victory will naturally belong to Zhu Yuanzhang, but this success is not replicable!
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