Cao Cao

Cao Cao the Chinese statesman, general and poet of the late Han dynasty and Three Kingdoms period (155-220 AD), who rose from a minor official to become the dominant power in northern China and the founder in fact, though not in name, of the state of Wei. He was a brilliant strategist, a stern administrator and an accomplished man of letters.

Early Life and Rise to Power

Cao Cao was born in 155 AD in Qiao in the region of present-day Anhui, the son of an adopted grandson of a powerful eunuch, a connection that gave his family wealth and position but also a taint of scandal. As a young man he was known for his intelligence, his energy and his willingness to act decisively, and he held a series of posts in which he showed a determination to enforce the law without favour.

The collapse of the Han order in the last decades of the second century gave ambitious men the chance to rise. Cao Cao joined the coalition that formed against the tyrant Dong Zhuo, and after the coalition dissolved into quarrels among its members he set out to build his own power in the north. He recruited able advisers and trained a disciplined army, and he proved himself a master of mobile warfare.

In 196 AD he took control of the young Emperor Xian and moved the court to his own base at Xuchang. By protecting and controlling the emperor he gained the immense advantage of speaking in the name of the legitimate dynasty, a position from which he could appoint and dismiss officials, issue orders and denounce his rivals as rebels. This strategy of holding the emperor to command the lords defined his later career.

The Unification of the North

Cao Cao fought a long series of campaigns to bring the north under his control. He defeated the powerful warlord Yuan Shao at the battle of Guandu in 200 AD, a victory won against a numerically superior enemy by superior strategy, the careful use of terrain and the exploitation of the enemy's divided command. This was one of the decisive battles of the period and made him the strongest power in China.

He went on to destroy the remnants of Yuan Shao's family and to subdue the peoples of the northern frontier, including the Wuhuan. By the end of his campaigns the whole of the north China plain was under his authority, and he had secured the passes and the river crossings that defended it. His government was centralised and severe, and he restored a measure of order to a region devastated by years of war.

His advance into the south met with a check. In 208 AD he led a great army southwards, aiming to unify the empire, but the allied forces of Liu Bei and Sun Quan defeated him at the battle of Red Cliffs on the Yangzi. The defeat ended his hope of immediate conquest of the south and fixed the division of China into three great powers for the following decades.

Government and Administration

As the effective ruler of the north, Cao Cao carried out reforms that restored the strength of the region. His most important measure was the establishment of military agricultural colonies, by which soldiers and settlers were given land to cultivate and were supported by the produce of the fields. This system fed the army and repopulated districts that the wars had left empty.

He reformed the administration on a basis of merit and effectiveness. He issued repeated calls for able men to come forward regardless of their family background, breaking with the old preference for aristocratic connection, and he gathered around him a remarkable group of advisers and generals. He was strict in discipline, and he punished corruption and incompetence among his officials.

He was also a vigorous lawgiver and a patron of learning. He restored the study of the classics and supported scholars and writers, and he maintained the rituals of the state. Though he wielded absolute power, he preserved the forms of the Han government and never formally took the imperial title, leaving that step to his son Cao Pi, who founded the state of Wei in 220 AD after the last Han emperor abdicated.

Poetry and Literary Culture

Cao Cao was a distinguished poet, and with his sons Cao Pi and Cao Zhi he stands at the head of a brilliant literary circle. His poems are marked by a directness and a melancholy that reflect the violence and uncertainty of his times. He wrote of the hardships of war, the passage of time and the shortness of human life, and his verse is both personal and political.

His poetry often expresses a concern for the welfare of the people and dismay at the ruin that war had brought. The lines in which he describes bones bleaching in the fields and the cocks crowing in emptiness give a vivid picture of a broken society, and they show the compassion beneath his stern public role. The literary tradition that he and his sons fostered became one of the glories of the age.

His encouragement of letters helped to make the Wei court a centre of poetry and scholarship, and the Jian'an style of poetry, named after the reign period, is associated with him and his circle. That a military commander of such ferocity should also be one of the finest poets of his age is one of the striking paradoxes of his career.

Death, Reputation and Legacy

Cao Cao died in 220 AD at Luoyang, at the age of about sixty-five. He was given the posthumous title of King Wu, and his son Cao Pi, who succeeded him, soon accepted the abdication of the last Han emperor and proclaimed the state of Wei. Cao Cao was honoured by his successors as founding emperor of the dynasty, and his achievements were recognised in the official histories.

His reputation, however, became deeply contested. The historical record portrays a capable and often cruel ruler, a man who could be ruthless toward his enemies and generous to his followers, and who wrote with real feeling about the suffering of the age. Later tradition, and especially the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, cast him as the villain of the age, the cunning and faithless minister against whom the loyal heroes of Shu are measured.

Modern scholarship has done much to restore a more balanced view. He is now widely regarded as one of the outstanding statesmen and strategists of Chinese history, a man who brought order to a shattered region and who possessed an intellect of uncommon range. Whatever the moral verdict, his mark on the politics, the poetry and the memory of China is profound.

See also

• Three Kingdoms
• Cao Pi
• Battle of Red Cliffs
• Wei