In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao was rich in money and grain, had a large population, and countless literary and martial talents, and had the most strength to unify the three kingdoms. Helplessly, almost to the twists and turns, the southern conquest of Sun Quan Liu Bei, the result is not only mostly fruitless, but also the loss of troops, until after the Battle of Chibi, the losses are even more heavy, had to retreat to the north, the great cause of unifying the three kingdoms to the descendants to complete. At this time, Cao Cao's heart could not help but leave regrets for eternity.
In fact, Cao Cao had many opportunities to promote the early unification of the three kingdoms, but because of his own personality, he missed many opportunities. Cao Cao has an arrogant personality, although there is an excellent think tank team around him to give him many good ideas and suggestions, but Cao Cao did not give them at many critical moments, but made his own opinions, and if something happened afterwards, he was accustomed to shirking responsibility.
The most obvious is that Cao Cao zhongzhou Yu mistakenly killed Cai Mao Zhang Yun after the divisive plan, and soon regretted it. When asked why Cao Cao killed them, Cao Cao only used their excuse of neglecting military law to shirk responsibility and resolutely refused to admit his mistake. Even after the defeat of Cao Cao's Chibi army, he borrowed the dead Guo Jia to excuse himself, shouting: "If Feng Xiao is here, I can have such a fiasco." In fact, the defeat at the Battle of Chibi was entirely caused by Cao Cao's personal decision-making mistakes, and had nothing to do with Guo Jiazai's absence.
The fiasco of the Battle of Chibi, in fact, Cao Cao could have avoided it completely, only because he did not listen to this person's advice and was self-conscious. This person is Cheng Yu.
We know that at the Time of Chibi, Cao Cao's opponent was the "Sun Liu Alliance". Sun Quan Liu Bei's side had undergone many plans and preparations. Eastern Wu first used a divisive strategy to kill Cao Cao's water governor Cai Mao Zhang Yun, and then conspired to make Huang Gai surrender. On Liu Bei's side, zhuge liangcao first borrowed arrows from the grass boat, and then borrowed the east wind by pretending to be a ghost. Of course, the most important thing is the implementation of the Pang Tong serial plan.
When the serial plan was dedicated to Cao Cao, Cheng Yu once advised Cao Cao that the chains were connected to large ships, which were not easy to evacuate, when the fire attacked. Unexpectedly, Cao Cao ridiculed Cheng Yu instead, the fire attack must use the strong wind, you say that this big winter, where is the wind. Who knew that Cao Cao was arrogant and arrogant, and did not pay enough attention to Cheng Yu's suggestions, knowing that Zhuge Liang knew astronomy and geography, and had already expected the wind to burst out in Chibi that day.
Finally, this made Cao Cao lose on the fire attack plan. If Cao Cao could listen to Cheng Yu's words, he would not suffer such a fiasco. If Cao Cao is undefeated, not only will the Battle of Chibi be won, but the hegemony of unifying the three kingdoms will also be realized as soon as possible.
However, if Cheng Yu had not previously deceived Xu Shu into Cao Ying, perhaps Xu Shu would have exposed Pang Tong's serial plan earlier, and Cao Cao would not have suffered such a big defeat. However, according to Cao Cao's personality, he may still not listen. After all, when Cheng Yu persuaded Cao Cao to pay attention to preventing fire attacks, there were other strategists who agreed with Cheng Yu's views, but Cao Cao still did not adopt them.
Obviously, this is enough to see that Cao Cao's failure has a lot to do with his arrogant character. He could not listen to the advice of Cheng Yu and others, and he was self-righteous, which led to Cao Cao's inability to unify the Three Kingdoms, but instead buried most of his strength in Chibi.
There is also the fact that as early as when Cao Cao was cooking wine and talking about heroes, Cheng Yu had previously advocated killing Liu Bei, but Cao Cao did not accept it, but instead let the tiger return to the mountain. If Cao Cao killed Liu Bei at this time, the final opponent would be Left with Eastern Wu, and Eastern Wu would be isolated and helpless, and would not be able to defeat Cao Cao, and Cao Cao might not be able to unify the three kingdoms.