Was Cao Cao truly as brutal as people claimed him to be or was he just hated because he wasn't traditional leader?

Was Cao Cao truly as brutal as people claimed him to be or was he just hated because he wasn't traditional leader?
Was Liu Bei only liked because he was pro-Han?

Other urls found in this thread:

digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/html/1885/42048/index.html
youtube.com/watch?v=BFe3ROKpOlM
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Liu Bei fapping is only prominent in Southern China.

Cao Cao meanwhile is a hero in the North. He is also remembered as a poet. Him and one of his sons, Cao Zhi (who was more famous as a poet.)

>Was Liu Bei only liked because he was pro-Han?
Lord Cao was more pro-Han than Liu Bei could ever hope to be. Lord Cao spent thirty of his life years fighting battle after battle, all for the sake of Han. He literally devoted his life to the cause of restoring Han.

He's hated because his reputation for deceptive maneuvers on the battlefield made it easy to slap his name onto the "evil trickster" stock character archetype in any random made-up story any common storyteller could want to tell, so it kept on happening until the name became synonymous with "evil trickster."

Reminder that Cao Cao did not usurp the Han. Cao Pi did, because Cao Pi was worthless and became a puppet to Sima Yi, just like the Han emperor was a puppet to Cao Cao, and Sima Yi's son usurped Cao-Wei.

Also propaganda. Current ruling dynasties usually try to make the dynasty that ruled before bad, and the dynasty before that or opposition to it good.

No, that is utterly wrong.

Cao Pi ascended as a full adult in his thirties, established a firm government, but had the misfortune of dying at age forty, after reigning only six years, which greatly destabilized Wei.

Cao Pi's son Cao Rui was an adult of twenty, but inherited a government dominated by older senior officials, including (but not limited to) Sima Yi. However, he was very intelligent and capable of decisive action and established some personal authority, only to die suddenly of illness at age thirty-five, leaving an eight year old adopted son as heir.

By coincidence, all the other powerful senior officials had died off except for Sima Yi, who was now the oldest and most senior official remaining, and effective regent for an eight year old boy.

Cao Pi and Cao Rui were no puppets, but men of strong personal character, though admittedly less so than their forefather. However, they had the misfortune of dying too soon. It is perhaps worth mentioning that if Cao Cao had died at thirty-five like his grandson, he would have been a nameless local leader among many with only a private army of five thousand troops. If he had died at forty like his son, he would have been a minor warlord struggling to hold half a province.

Also, it was Sima Yi's grandson Sima Yan that formally usurped the throne, though admittedly it was Sima Yi's son Sima Zhao who did more to usurp power than either his father or his son.

>Cao Cao
>brutal

Cao was a chill bro and nice as fuck dude. He treated his family incredibly well, even people like Xiahou Dun who failed a lot his military campaigns. If you submitted to Cao Cao and was talented, you would be given proper rank and title. If you submitted and was a complete failure, you could at least live a small life of luxury. Even people like Zhang Xiu who killed his son were forgiven and rose in rank.

The only brutal things you can say about him are things like the Xu campaign where lots of innocents died and his armies pillaged villages. Which you know, is war, and a time period where everyone massacred an entire clan of people including women and children if you crossed the wrong person.

>Was Cao Cao truly as brutal as people claimed him to be
Probably by Western standards, by Chinese standards he was pretty normal for his time.

Cao Cao was generous to his followers but could be brutal to those that insulted him or challenged his authority.

Xu You called him by his childhood name and said "you wouldn't have been successful without me" in public assembly (hugely degrading and insulting), and though at the assembly itself Cao Cao laughed and pretended to agree, he was furious and had Xu You executed afterward.

Bian Rang insulted and ridiculed Cao Cao while he was newly established in Yanzhou, so Cao Cao killed him and his family. Of course, after that the alienated local leaders of Yanzhou were quick to join Zhang Miao's rebellion, so for a while he was more tolerant of reputed scholars insulting and ridiculing him: he didn't harm Mi Heng, and it took the maverick Kong Rong nearly ten years of publicly insulting Cao Cao before Cao Cao finally decided that letting Kong Rong live was doing more damage to his authority than killing him would.

So yeah, he could be chill with you. Just so long as you remember that he's still your boss.

Also, Xiahou Dun was a competent enough commander. His only major failure was getting ambushed and defeated at Bowang, but keep in mind Yu Jin, considered one of Cao Cao's best, was right there getting ambushed and beaten with him. His setbacks in Yanzhou were to be expected considering how outnumbered he was due to the rebellion. He couldn't both occupy and defend Puyang and also join and reinforce Xun Yu at Juancheng. The key point was how loyally he continued to fight despite the overwhelming odds. And he had many merits that warranted his high rank and rewards. He was a talented military administrator and able vice commander to Cao Cao (where he got his start).

How do I learn Chinese history?

Just read or watch nigga

Yeah but any good books or websites to start with? To say it's overwhelming is an understatement.

Youtube

Is there anything i can read about the three kingdoms. like history books?

digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/html/1885/42048/index.html

>it's a Liu Bei acts with benevolence by stealing Sun territories episode

can someone remind me the name of that movie?

>Movie
Its a tv series called Three Kingdoms

It's two TV series called The Three Kingdoms

>even people like Xiahou Dun who failed a lot his military campaigns
>he fell for the DW memes
Yuanrang was a career bureaucrat, not a soldier.
When in a military position he was always staff, usually directing logistics, and very rarely when necessary put in command of a garrison.
When in civil positions however he fucking shined. He completely overhauled entire provinces' economies and infrastructures. He was a fucking organizative genius, that's why Cao Cao liked him so much. Do you really think that someone like Cao Cao, who didn't even practice nepotism with his own kids, would put someone incompetent in charge multiple times?

Because
>implying directing logistics is not one of the most vital parts of warfare
>falling for the valorous warrior general meme
>falling for the master tactician and strategist meme

do you guys know if DW/RoTK version of Chi Bi is true? I find it very hard to believe that Cao Cao fell for "chain your ships together" trick and didn't find Pang Tong's willingness to join him suspicious

It's not covered in the novel, games, films, etc, but Cao Cao was extremely brutal in the beginning.

When his father was killed in Tao Qian's territory, he went in and massacred so many civilians that their bodies clogged up the rivers and stopped them from flowing. He slaughtered everything, from newborns to the elderly.

This caused a lot of his officers and former friends to turn on him. He killed those who criticized him (namely Bian Rang), along with their wives and children.

It is also said he buried tens of thousands of Yuan Shao's men alive, but this is disputed.

Pang Tong had nothing to do with the chained ships. Cao Cao chose to do that because he had mostly untrained troops and wanted to force a "land" battle.
Before you ask, no Zhuge Liang did not pray for wind either.

>didn't find Pang Tong's willingness to join him suspicious
There's no record of Pang Tong having any involvement with the battle of Chi Bi. In fact, he didn't even enter Liu Bei's employ before the whole campaign was over and the benevolent faggot refused to turn over Jing (where PT was an official) over to Sun Quan.
That said, there would have been nothing suspicious whatsoever about an enemy officer switching sides to him. He literally had people like that queueing up outside his tent, and 99% of them were sincere.

What I was led to believe by DW was that Pang Tong advised chaining the ships to deal with Cao's plains dwellers army mass seassickness problem, with hidden purpose of making fire ploy more effective. If, as you say, he didn't got tricked into this idea, it makes idiot ball he held at this time a bit smaller.
Sources out of DW suggest that Zhuge Liang staged all this "pray for wind" as a part of psychological warfare ("dude's a wizard, we can't lose this battle" and "fuck, they have a wizard, we can't win this battle"). Apparently he scouted local fishermem for info about wind patterns in the area and made a show at proper time. Given the era and Zhuge Liang's guaranteed awareness of intelectual level of peons, seems plausible, I wasn't even going to ask about it.

Thanks, good to know. I always thought that DW is more or less correct on "who&when" (well, excluding female paticipants of battles) and tactics an strategies used, and fantasy on "how".

>Sources out of DW suggest that Zhuge Liang staged all this "pray for wind" as a part of psychological warfare ("dude's a wizard, we can't lose this battle" and "fuck, they have a wizard, we can't win this battle"). Apparently he scouted local fishermem for info about wind patterns in the area and made a show at proper time. Given the era and Zhuge Liang's guaranteed awareness of intelectual level of peons, seems plausible, I wasn't even going to ask about it.
Zhuge Liang was in no way related to the battle of Chi Bi, he was just an ambassador with no military power. Do you really think that Wu's navy officers would have needed fucking foreign landlubber Kongming's suggestions to know about how the wind blows in their most patrolled area of action?
Also
>psychological warfare
Yes because how would he have propagated his actions to both armies? Real life is not like a DW game, the soldiers wouldn't have seen a cinematic scene of ZL praying for wind while Wei warriors try to beat up his guards. Thw whole idea is completely ridiculous.

>I always thought that DW is more or less correct on "who&when"
DW is based on the novel and popular mythos surrounding the period. The novel is famously considered to be 30% historical at best, and the popular mythos is more like 3%.

>Sangokushi/RotK lied to me
That's what I get for trusting lying nips and chinks.

>this thread
>I read it in a book it must be true

>this thread
I think you mean "this whole field of research".

You really think someone would do that? Just write books and tell lies?

Propagation? If he made his intent of "prayer" loud enough early enough, gossips would make it on Shu&Wu side, moles would spread it among Wei. Another logical loophole arises though, as this could endanger the whole fire ploy (probably someone will post in a moment that Huang Gai was never there and they used sweat soaked socks stink propagated through wind instead of fire which will make me regret asking anything in the first place).
I always skipped cinematics of the prayer, so that picture didn't even cross my mind. And I have never said that he suggested anything to Wu on that matter, why would he? They knew their shit on water, and he wanted to stage the show for his own ends.
But, if as you say, historically he didn't even set foot on actual battle area, that's enough for me. It makes whole discussion on "prayer show" moot. Kou Shibusawa apparently followed the novel and folk tales, not historical sources. Fair enough.

What's the best place to read about he three kingdoms?

This is pretty much all of history. And some religions.

>When his father was killed in Tao Qian's territory, he went in and massacred so many civilians that their bodies clogged up the rivers and stopped them from flowing. He slaughtered everything, from newborns to the elderly.
Given that some accounts also report a battle, most likely this was civilian collateral damage when Tao Qian's army was caught against the Si river. Slaughter of civilian targets in Xiapi was a separate incident, and is perhaps not surprising given that Cao Cao had recently recruited former bandits into the Qingzhou Troops division, and that said civilian targets had been the former power base of a rebel who had usurped the Imperial title.

Also, it seems likely that Cao Song's death actually occurred between the devastation of Xiapi and the invasion of Langye. As Cao Song was murdered (by Tao Qian's order) in Langye, it is likely on the second campaign was motivated by revenge.

>It is also said he buried tens of thousands of Yuan Shao's men alive, but this is disputed.
Modern scholars agree that 坑 does not mean buried alive. It only means "destroy." In any case, Cao Cao could not have had the resources to bury tens of thousands of people alive at once.

Qin Shihuang did not bury anyone alive either.

There is no record of Zhuge Liang ever performing any prayer for rain.

Why do you insist on trying to find historical justification for something you found in a fantastical fictional story instead of just considering the tale fictional?

This illogical way of thinking is why these nonsense explanations of "oh, it was just psychological warfare" of something that never even happened even exist.

Entire battles are fictional.

The term was "three-tenths lies seven-tenths facts," and it was never meant to be an actual estimation of historicity (how would one even quantify that?). It was only a line that became famously quoted out of context in an essay of criticism where the historian Zhang Xuecheng complained of how the novel was a muddled mess causing people to take famous fictional incidents as historical fact.

The fact that this line became commonly quoted out of context as a praise for the novel certainly has the poor guy spinning in his grave.

Is the ROTK series the only game that covers the three kingdoms period accurately?

>accurately

Wat?

It's the only three kingdoms game that isn't over the top anime shit like dynasty warriors.

true amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics.

ROTK started getting anime a long time ago. Probably around part 7 or 8.

youtube.com/watch?v=BFe3ROKpOlM

>historical accuracy
When armor starts looking like this.

...

You can replace the anime portraits with real life people.

The hero mode in 13 looks in-depth as fuck too.