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Was Cao Cao a hero or a traitor? There have always been different opinions, and there is no consensus on the same.
The author believes that people have two sides, so Cao Cao is both a hero and a traitor.
When he fought for the reunification of the country, he was a hero, and when he gained power for personal interests, he was a traitor.
Before the Battle of Chibi, Cao Cao had more elements of heroes, and after that, he had more elements of traitorous males. In other words, after the Battle of Chibi, Cao Cao changed from a hero to a traitor.
According to the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, the flames of the Battle of Chibi destroyed Cao Cao's dream of unifying the world, and he was never able to set foot on the land south of the Yangtze River again.
Cao Cao also understood in his heart that the great cause of restoring national reunification would be hopeless in a short period of time. As a result, Cao Cao focused on governing the north, while at the same time beginning to pursue his own power, reputation, status, and interests, and his personal ambitions swelled.
In 208 AD, Cao Cao reformed the central bureaucracy, abolished the Three Dukes, and re-established the prime minister. After Liu Xiu established the Eastern Han Dynasty regime, in order to prevent the minister's autocratic power, the prime minister system was abolished, and the Three Princes and Monk Shutai were established.
The three dukes were Situ, Taiwei, and Sikong, who were of high rank but had little power; Shang Shutai assisted the emperor in handling court affairs, and was a decision-making body and executive body, with great power but not high rank. In this way, the power of the imperial court was concentrated in the hands of the emperor.
Such a system in the Eastern Han Dynasty was not conducive to Cao Cao's autocracy, so Cao Cao restored the prime minister system, appointed himself as the prime minister, opened the government to govern affairs, commanded hundreds of officials, and climbed to the peak of power.
In 211 AD, Cao Cao, in the name of Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, appointed his son Cao Pi as the general of the five officials, and as the deputy of the prime minister, and set up subordinate officials.
At that time, Cao Cao was nearly sixty years old, and he began to think about what happened after his death. Cao Cao needed to train his own son in order to continue his power.
In 212 AD, Cao Cao asked Emperor Xian of Han to give him a special honor on the grounds of high merit, allowing him to walk slowly instead of walking quickly when he met the Son of Heaven, allowing him to wear weapons and shoes when he went to court, and in the court, the master of ceremonies only reported his official rank, but did not call him by name, showing respect for him.
In 213 AD, Cao Cao asked Emperor Xian of Han to canonize him as the Duke of Wei, add nine tin, build the Wei State, and set the capital of the country in Yecheng. From then on, the Wei State began to establish its own Sheji Temple, and set up official positions such as Shangshu, Shizhong, and Liuqing, which was very much like a country. Cao Cao's ambitions have been exposed.
In 214 AD, Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty issued an edict announcing that Cao Cao's position was above that of the princes and kings, and changed his official seal to a gold seal, and tied the silk rope with red.
In 216 AD, Cao Cao felt that it was still not enough to call him the Duke of Wei, and asked Emperor Xian of Han to rename him the King of Wei. The sons were also made princes.
In 217 AD, Cao Cao asked Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty to give him the highest treatment, going out to fly the banner of the Son of Heaven, according to the emperor's specifications, taking the emperor's special car, using the emperor's clothing, rituals and ceremonies.
In this way, although Cao Cao does not have the name of the emperor, he has the reality of the emperor.
At this time, almost everyone thought that Cao Cao was going to stand on his own behalf of the Han Dynasty, but Cao Cao never took this step.
There are different opinions in the historical circles on this issue, and many opinions are that Cao Cao wants to be the king of Zhou Wen and hand over the matter of changing the dynasty to his son. Sure enough, in the year of Cao Cao's death, Cao Pi abolished Han Jianwei.
Judging from the historical records, Cao Cao was like two people before and after the Battle of Chibi. Before the Battle of Chibi, Cao Cao was determined to restore the unity of the country, waving the banner of Kuangfu Han Dynasty, with high spirits, fighting in the south and the north, unifying the north, and rarely pursuing personal honorary status.
After the Battle of Chibi, Cao Cao frantically grabbed his own interests and political capital, and almost every year he had new tricks, and got everything he wanted step by step.
Cao Cao's ambitions and actions naturally aroused opposition from some people. Cao Cao's camp is not quite the same as the Sun and Liu families, and the situation is more complicated.
Cao Cao is "the son of heaven to order not to obey", and he is under the banner of the imperial court. Among the hundred officials of the imperial court, some were loyal to the Cao family, some were loyal to the Han family, and even in Cao Cao's own team, there were also those who took the restoration of the Han family as their own responsibility, such as Xun Yu, Mao Jue and others.
When Cao Cao honored the Son of Heaven, crusaded against the uncourtiers, and supported the Han family, they had the same ambition and could work together, but when Cao Cao's ambitions were exposed and endangered the Han family, they turned away from morality, and Xun Yu openly opposed Cao Cao's claim to be the Duke of Wei.
In order to consolidate his rule, Cao Cao took tough measures and successively killed Kong Rong, Cui Yan and other celebrities, Mao Yu was exempted from prison and Xun Yu died of depression, and Cao Cao was also infamous as a traitor.
The ministers are still like this, and Emperor Han Xian, who is the Son of Heaven, must be even more dissatisfied in his heart. Emperor Han Xian was nearly thirty years old at the time, he was very smart, not a mediocre and incompetent person, but the imperial court building had collapsed, and he couldn't do anything.
As early as 200 AD, Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty's father-in-law, Dong Cheng, a general of the chariot cavalry, claimed to accept the secret edict of the Son of Heaven, and conspired with Liu Bei, Chongji, Wu Zilan, Wang Zifu and others to kill Cao Cao, but the result was unsuccessful, except for Liu Bei, everyone else was killed by Cao Cao.
In 216 AD, the year when Cao Cao was called the king of Wei, another major case occurred in the palace. Empress Fu, the empress of Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, was dissatisfied with Cao Cao's autocratic power, and wrote a letter to her father Fu Wan a few years ago, asking her father to kill Cao Cao.
At that time, he was the captain of the Tun cavalry, but he did not dare to act because he was afraid of Cao Cao. After Fu fell ill and died, the letter was exposed, and Cao Cao was furious and killed Queen Fu and her brothers. This became Cao Cao's crime of rebellion, which further confirmed his reputation as a traitor.
While Cao Cao grabbed his personal interests, he also carefully governed the north. Politically, he broke with the concept of being a family and a family, practiced "meritocracy," issued three "orders to seek merit," and selected and appointed a large number of talented people; economically, he implemented the system of tuntian, reclaimed wasteland, and built water conservancy, so that the economy of the north could be restored and developed; in social governance, he respected the law with courtesy, punished the powerful and powerful, reformed the household registration, lightened the people's burden, and advocated honesty; culturally, he attached importance to the country's cultural construction, strengthened the protection and collection of books, established the state collection of books in the Wei state, and strengthened the management of religion and minority nationalities.
While Cao Cao governed the north, he did not forget the great cause of unifying the world, and led his army to fight whenever he had the opportunity. In 211 AD, Cao Cao went west and spent two years to eliminate Ma Chao, Han Sui and other separatist forces, and pacified Liangzhou.
In 215 AD, Cao Cao forced Zhang Lu to get Hanzhong, but was later taken by Liu Bei. From 213 AD to 219 AD, Cao Cao crusaded against Sun Quan several times, but he gave up halfway and failed to achieve his goal.
At that time, the three-legged triumph had been formed, and the Sun and Liu families often joined forces against Cao Cao, and Cao Cao was no longer capable of restoring the unity of the country.
Looking at Cao Cao's life, whether he was a hero or a traitor, in general, Cao Cao was an outstanding politician, strategist, military strategist, as well as a writer and calligrapher, who made important contributions to the unification and stability of northern China.