Talk:Cao Cao

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I'd be interested to see a bit more content on the villainization of Cao Cao. I've read several commentaries by an Australian Scholar, whose name sadly escapes me at the moment, who argues that the historical villainization of Cao Cao stems from Confucists in the court several centuries after the fall of the Han. The Confucist arguement was that Cao Cao was unable to reunite the Han, thus he must have been a wicked individual, and no wicked individual would be able to gain Heaven's blessing. Cao Cao's emphasis on individual merit seems to be somewhere at the root. Then again, I've only read Luo Guanzhong's Three Kingdoms and chapters 58-62 of Sima Guan's History, so I am a bit scant on my first-hand details.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.248.160.82 (talk • contribs) 19:33, 22 August 2006


I am pretty sure that historically Zhuge Liang was not at the battle of Red Cliffs, and that it was Zhou Yu alone who masterminded the affair.

I removed:

Cao Cao was in fact not a villain. He fought for the glory of his kingdom but did it in a way that people saw as underhanded or dubious. One of his sayings were "If I would kill my own son for this country, I would surely kill a peasant.". Things of that nature made him seem like a villain because of course a hero would not do such a thing, but Cao Cao was willing to sacrafice everything for his kingdom. Another thing about Cao Cao is that he was a very intelligent man and only trusted a few people. This lack of trust also gave him a bad name because at times he would accuse you of trying to decieve him and throw you out of his kingdom.

Because it is POV, unencyclopedic and somewhat incoherent. Tuf-Kat 09:05, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

I changed the section titled "Literary criticism" to "Cao Cao in literature" to better describe the content. Also, the translation of "Xiao Xiong" as "Hero of Chaos": where did this come from? It seems to be a rather strange translation, and a dramatic one at that.

That Hero of Chaos line appears to come from a video game.

Contents

[edit] Please check this phrase

"self-appointed Imperial Secretaris"

I don't recall Cao Cao self-appointing himself into any position.

As any man in great power, I wouldn't doubt he had great ambition, it's hard to say if he's appointed himself to better positions. What seems to be undisputed fact is that Cao Cao never declared himself emperor, but Liu and Sun did. -XR Apr 2,2006.

[edit] Revamp

The life story of Cao Cao is all wrong!!! i'm going to re-write it soon. By the way, "hero of chaos" is of course not an appropriate translation. "Xiao xiong" (枭雄), according to Han Yu Da Ci Dian, means a strong-handed and ambitious person. A lot of people (including me previously) misunderstand "枭", thinking that it has a negative implication. But it doesn't.

[edit] About "Xiaoxiong"

The word, 枭, originally means a kind of unfriendly bird that people kill and hang on the tree (the structure of the character is a bird on top of the wood). It later extended to "unfilial bird" and fierce and ambitious people. Here Xiao branches into 2 meanings: sometimes it refers to valour but other times it means ambitious and evil. Actually, the derogatory meaning of Xiao was used as early as during Warring States; Xun Zi used it as a verb that means "disturb" or "cause trouble". Therefore I think it is reasonable to interpret the Xiao in Xiaoxiong as derogatory.

Thanks for the info! Next time remember to sign off using "~ ~ ~ ~" without the spaces. --Plastictv 01:08, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers

The troop numbers in this article are those given in traditional sources that are now thought to be mostly exagerated. Here they are quoted as definite. I have seen, in the past, discussions of these figures - especially the 830,000 supposedly mobilized for the Battle of Red Cliffs, which I have seen revised down to anything from two hundred thousand to six hundred thousand. To state these numbers as absolute facts is misleading. It is no different to saying that the Persian army of Xerxes during his invasion of Greece numbered 2.6 million - that is the figure given by Herodotus, but is certainly grossly exagerated.

"A wandering throng of the rebels from the Qing Province (青州) numbering a million invaded the Yan Province (兖州)." - on this figure I've seen nothing before, so I can't factually dispute it. But it would seem to be ridiculously exagerated. During the Taiping Rebellion in the Nineteenth Century the Taiping army never numbered more than maybe 1.5 million in total. At that time China's population was about ten times what it was in Cao Cao's time. That a "wandering throng" could number a million (a third of the size of the force Hitler used to invade the Soviet Union in the largest war in human history!) is ludicrous in the extreme.

Unfortunately I lack sources that provide concrete figures on any of these or any that at least suggest the most commonly agreed upon approximate figures, but if anyone else has any sources that might clear this up they should edit the article to say something along the lines of "traditional histories claim that x's army number x, but most modern historians agree that a figure of x is more likely." Alternatively if no mdoern sources provide an estimate of the numbers then perhaps it should simply be stated that the traditional figures are almost certainly exagerated.

i do very much agree with you, though i had to copy wholesale from the Sanguo Zhi as i did not have any other reference at hand. i join your appeal for anyone with better understanding in this to step forward. --Plastictv 12:48, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
I assume both of you can read Chinese. here[1] is the Chinese wiki article of the Battle of Red Cliffs, and you may find useful information in it.--Skyfiler 18:41, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fact or history

Oops, i realized that this incident did happen as recorded by the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms (in biography of Liu Bei). So i took it out of the article:

[edit] Discussion of "heroes"

In 199, Lü Bu attacked Xiaopei (小沛), forcing Liu Bei to flee to Xuchang and seek refuge under Cao Cao. Cao Cao treated Liu Bei well, even conferring him the title of Yuzhou Governor (豫州牧) and hence the rightful ownership of Xiaopei. However, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms gave Liu Bei's stay in Xuchang a little twist.

To prevent Cao Cao from seeing through his ambitions, Liu Bei devoted himself to growing vegetables in his backyard. One day, Cao Cao summoned Liu Bei to his residence for a drink. While drinking, cumulous clouds began to gather on the horizon. Cao Cao pointed to a piece that resembled a dragon and compared dragons to heroes. Liu Bei was then asked who the heroes living among them were.

After making some vain guesses, Liu Bei gave up the attempt. Cao Cao, pointing at his guest and then himself, said, "The only heroes in this world are you and I." Hearing this, Liu Bei gasped, dropping his spoon and chopsticks. Just at that moment there came a tremendous peal of thunder. Liu Bei quickly attributed his shock to the thunder, and thus successfully hid his ambitions and curbed Cao Cao's suspicion for a while.

Regards, Plastictv 10:32, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Contribution to Sun Tzu's The Art of War

May I suggest including a paragraph on Cao Cao's involvement with Sun Tzu's The Art of War? Given its popularity in the West, this is probably the most important direct legacy of Cao Cao for English Wikipedia readers, maybe even surpassing his archvillain role in the Romance and its derivatives. Here is my first draft; please edit as necessary.

Cao Cao's other key contribution to Chinese literature was the editing and commentaries on Sun Tzu's The Art of War. By comparing the various editions in circulation at the time, he eliminated chapters falsely attributed to Sun Tzu and produced a definitive edition of thirteen chapters. In addition, he supplemented Sun Tzu's writing with running commentaries, clarifying Sun Tzu's intention (Sun Tzu's text was already many centuries old by Cao Cao's time), and adding original insights drawn from his own battlefield experience and study of military history. Together, they form the basis of all The Art of War texts in use today. (Fragments of the book excavated at Yinqueshan in 1972 predates Cao Cao by two to four centuries, and show some significant discrepancies. However, as of 2005, few, if any, modern translations reflect the Yinqueshan version.)

That is a very good addition, definitely worthy to be included! Could you provide a source for your draft? --Plastictv 08:02, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
Ok i've found a mention of Cao Cao's annotation of The Art of War in the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms. And i'll include it in the next grand revision of the article to come. :) Please provide more sources in the meantime! --Plastictv 01:06, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I remember some versions of the Samuel B. Griffith translation of Sun Tzu's Art of War included information on Cao Cao's role as a commentator on Sun Tzu's work. When I lay my hands on another copy I may come back and update that section. Naturally, Griffith will be given full credit for his work as translator and for his work in describing Cao Cao's role.

[edit] ==Cao Cao the demon==

An anonymous editor added this:

Due to his sinful acts in Xuzhou, locals there still portray Cao Cao as a demon who eats children for breakfast.

Is this true? Could anyone verify please? It would be good if he/she who wrote this could come forward and provide a source. --Plastictv 12:54, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

POV disputed, cannot verify.--Tdxiang 陈 鼎 翔 (Talk)ContributionsContributions Chat with Tdxiang on IRC! 09:33, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Meaning of the Name

What does Cao Cao mean? I have seen variations such as Tsao Tsao and assume its pronounced as Sao Sao and not Kao Kao. I have also gleaned that the word "cao" in Pinyin means something akin to "have sex," but in a more vulgar way. 67.33.201.53 17:59, 31 August 2005 (UTC)--Joe

Firstly, "Cao Cao" is just a name. The first "Cao" is his family name (which has no meaning by itself) and the second "Cao" is his given name (which roughly translates to "virtuous conduct"). Yes, his given name could also mean "f*ck", but must be said with a different accent. Chinese is complicated eh? :)
Secondly, different variations of his name are due to different transliteration systems people have been using. "Cao Cao" is pinyin and "Tsao Tsao" is Wade-Giles. It is not pronounced as "Kao Kao". A "c" in pinyin is pronounced as "ts", which is close to a "ch" in English but with a straight tongue. Hope that answered your question. :) --Plastictv 00:14, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
The meaning "to have sex" is a vulgar one, and it is very obvious that the meaning of the character did not exist back in the time of Cao Cao; it is a phrase from the Northern dialect. -- 59.121.214.134 15:57, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I thought it came from a southern dialect. But in any case, the "to have sex" is not considered a real definition of the character "cao", i.e. you won't find it in any dictionary (though one could argue that it should be, since the vulgar meaning is now widely understood). Since the meaning came from a dialect, that meaning is only applied to "cao" out of convenience, since characters pronounced "cao" in the fourth tone is rather rare, and this "cao" is the most commonly used among them. Of course all this may be meaningless to someone without at least basic knowledge in Chinese. As a rule, since Chinese characters are all monosyllabic, since there are relatively few sounds, and that words are often distinguished tonally, simillarly transliterated words, especially when the tones are neglected, are more often then not different in actuality. The transliteration "cao" without the tone noted, for example, can be any one of at least 30 possible character in Chinese.

The Cao you refer to is the same character as Cao's last name, but it's a modern slang meaning f*ck, the actually character does not mean f*ck though. And note Cao Cao's name is made up of two different character that pronouced similiar, but bares different meanings. -XR Apr 02, 2006.

[edit] Cousins

It's mentioned that Cao Cao's father, Cao Song, was originally a Xiahou, and as such Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan were Cao Cao's cousins? Would this be first cousins, or more distant? If Cao Ren was also a first cousin, this would mean that Cao Cao and Ren, and Xiahou Dun and Yuan were all related paternally, ie. their fathers were brothers. Is this the case? And does anybody know if Cao Ren was related by blood to Cao Cao? 03:12, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

It's impossible to tell how Cao Song, if truly a Xiahou, was related to fathers of Xiahou Dun, Xiahou Yuan and Cao Ren. If Cao Song was truly adopted into the Cao clan, it'd mean that Cao Cao was related to Cao Ren (and the other Caos) only by name. Anyway in practice, both the Xiahou and Cao clans were considered nei qin, literally "one's own relatives", and the pillars of Cao Cao's power.
"夏侯、曹氏，世為婚姻，故惇、淵、仁、洪、休、尚、真等並以親舊肺腑，貴重于時，左右勳業，咸有效勞。" — 三國志卷九·諸夏侯曹傳
--Plastictv 07:05, 19 September 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Alternate links

There is a song about him, so I placed them (there's an album, too, but at this time, has not be created (as in the article).--Tdxiang 陈 鼎 翔 (Talk)ContributionsContributions Chat with Tdxiang on IRC! 09:31, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Family templates

I plan to use templates to reduce duplicating the family trees from one page to another

The Cao and Xiahou Family
Cao Cao Cao Ren Cao Chun Cao Hong Cao Xiu Cao Zhen Cao Anmin
Xiahou Yuan Xiahou Dun Xiahou En Xiahou Lian Xiahou Shang Xiahou Ru Xiahou Feng

but I found that it is difficult to

  • display a tree using a table
  • display relationships between tree nodes

Any comments?--Skyfiler 05:08, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

This template is sort of raw. See de:Vorlage:Navigationsleiste Cao-Familie, which I created yesterday. --Sarazyn • TALK • DE 08:58, 2 May 2006 (UTC) This solved part of the questions, but it is still hard understand the relationships from the table. Maybe we need to use nested lists —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skyfiler (talk • contribs) Signature added by Sarazyn

[edit] Fact/Fiction

I think in an encyclopedia we need to separate facts from fictions. Several events or incidents in the main article are heavily influenced by the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms and are either presented incorrectly, have important facts omitted, or have fictions presented as facts. We need to go by the actual official historical records here.

I will be attempting to revise the whole article after I finish the Three Kingdoms Main article and a few Samurai articles. Allan Lee 17:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

There's also an increasingly popular caricature of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. We'll probably be receiving a lot of nonsense in this article, along with the traditional Romance of the Three Kingdoms fabrications. Take care. Aran|heru|nar 13:37, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Konami

Trimming of the 'modern reference section to tone down the Konami propaganda. The presence of the long winded part on the video game character here is misleading, besides it already has its own page.88.162.116.24 08:45, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

That page will probably wind up being deleted before too long. Not to mention that the modern references are in regard to cultural interpretations of historical Chinese figures of which these articles represent. Not only this, the information you've deleted is in regards to possibly the single most largely influential Three Kingdoms-based media ever, possibly even surpassing the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel itself in present day popular culture outside of Asia. Regardless of your personal dislike or apathy towards the gaming medium, this is still a significant addition, to say the least. Gamer Junkie 12:29, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image of Cao Cao

The image does not have any information as to its source. Even if the original artist isn't known, the image had to have come from "somewhere." The metadata shows it was created or edited in PhotoshopCS. If the image can be traced to a specific source (even if it was edited), it should state that source. Without the source, it shouldn't be included here as it could likely be original artwork. ++Arx Fortis 18:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The original uploader would know about this more than any of us here. Try contacting him. _dk 00:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately the uploader is not linked to the image (unless there's a way to track him/her down that isn't apparent on the image's page). There is no page for Jonathan Groß. In the interim, I have contact the person who added it to this article (who may or may not be the original uploader). ++Arx Fortis 06:15, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I think Jonathan Groß goes under the name User:Sarazyn on English Wikipedia. _dk 06:24, 26 September 2007 (UTC)