Cao Cao: Warlord of the Three Kingdoms

Today, we’ll introduce a brand new museum that was an instant hit when it opened in central China’s Henan Province that boasts over 400 cultural relics and offers a glimpse into the life of one of the most complicated and dubious characters in Chinese history.

On April 29, the Cao Cao Mausoleum Museum was open to the public for the first time in Anyang of central China’s Henan Province. According to statistics, during the May Day holiday, the museum received over 60,000 visitors from all over the country, at one point ranking first among the most popular museums in China.

The museum displays over 400 cultural relics unearthed from the mausoleum of Cao Cao, famous warlord, politician, and poet in the Eastern Han Dynasty about 2,000 years ago. The highlights of the museum include three stone plaques used by Cao Cao to strike and kill tigers, a stone pillow used to relieve the pains of his head and neck, as well as a crystal bead the size of a peanut with pure and transparent texture, to name just a few.

A historical figure with an incredibly dubious reputation, Cao Cao has often been perceived as a merciless dictator on the one hand, while being praised as a visionary military strategist on the other.

Cao Cao was born in the year 155 in the present-day Bozhou of central China’s Anhui Province. His father used to be a high-ranking official of the Eastern Han Dynasty, serving as Minister of Finance and Grand Commandant under Emperor Ling, who reigned from year 168 to 189.

At the age of 20, Cao was appointed as Commandant and Police Chief of the Han empire’s capital Luoyang in Henan Province. He soon proved to be a strict enforcer of the law and was not afraid to challenge powerful people. Once, he had the relative of a high-ranking official flogged to death for breaking the curfew, while previously such a well-connected person would most likely go without punishment.

Cao rose to wider prominence after he successfully put down the Yellow Turban Rebellion, a peasant uprising closely associated with Daoism that broke out in 184. The rebellion quickly gained a following because of its promotion of aid to the poor and criticism of the discrimination against women and the lower classes. 

Cao managed to form a military coalition of the private armies of several local warlords and quashed the rebellion within a year. But the unfortunate consequences of the rebellion lasted. One of them was that the private armies of local warlords began to clash with one another, resulting in a sustained period of civil war, during which Dong Zhuo, a warlord based in northwest China, intercepted the young Emperor Shao and took the imperial seal in 189. Then, Dong deposed the emperor and put the emperor’s 9-year-old younger brother on the throne as Emperor Xian, who turned out to be the last emperor of the Han empire.

The other warlords, including Cao Cao, formed an alliance and surrounded Luoyang to overthrow Dong. But Dong escaped, setting the capital on fire and abducting the emperor to Chang’an, the present-day Xi’an of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, until he was finally killed by his confidante and adopted son Lü Bu in 192.

After Dong’s death, the coalition broke apart and turned on one another again. Through short-term and regional-scale battles, Cao Cao continued to expand his territory. In 196, he abducted Emperor Xian to his base in Xuchang of Henan Province. Now with the emperor and the imperial seal in his hands, Cao became General-in-Chief and held the key to legitimate rule. While some viewed the emperor as a puppet under Cao’s control, Cao stuck to his personal rule that he would not usurp the throne.

In the year 200, Yuan Shao, the most powerful warlord at the time, amassed more than 100,000 troops and marched towards Xuchang in the name of rescuing the emperor. With a mere 20,000 men, Cao Cao deployed tactics that ultimately won an impossible victory at the decisive Battle of Guandu.

This battle marked the beginning of Cao’s gradual reunification of northern China. From 201 to 207, he expanded his control north of the Great Wall into present-day Korea. Now all he needed to do was march south of the Yangtze River to unify the entire country under his rule.

However, this attempt was not successful. In 208, his forces were defeated by a coalition of his arch-rivals Liu Bei and Sun Quan at the Battle of Red Cliffs. Unfamiliarity with the southern geography and military techniques as well as an outbreak of disease may have combined to frustrate Cao’s ambitions, as he was forced to retreat with heavy losses.

The Battle of Red Cliffs is considered by many to be the turning point in the balance of power for various warlords. Previously, Cao Cao had dominated and commanded the largest number of troops. Afterwards, the country became divided into three powers, with Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan consolidating their powers in their respective regions. They fought sporadic battles over the years, but the balance of power did not tip significantly in anyone’s favor.

In 220, Cao Cao died in Luoyang at the age of 66. His eldest surviving son Cao Pi succeeded him. In the same year, Cao Pi forced Emperor Xian to abdicate and declared himself as Emperor Wen of Wei. Cao Cao was then given the posthumous title of Grand Ancestor Emperor Wu of Wei. This marked the official beginning of the Three Kingdoms Period, one of the most turbulent periods in Chinese history, which survived for only 60 years until the country was reunified by the Western Jin Dynasty in 280.

Cao Cao’s dubious reputation is derived from mixed evaluations propagated from different sources. In Records of the Three Kingdoms, the official and authoritative historical record for the period, he was portrayed as a meritorious politician who introduced favorable administrative changes including land reform and the nine-level officials ranking system that was maintained throughout several later dynasties.

On top of being a warlord and politician, Cao Cao was also a poet who based his poetry in part on Han folk songs and often set his poems to music. He influenced much of the poetry written during the Tang Dynasty with his delicate meters and unpretentious linguistic style.

But it was his perceived manipulation of the emperor and association with political intrigue that gave rise to the rather dark portrayal of him as a Machiavellian villain in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the Four Great Classic Novels of Chinese literature. The 14th-century classic was based on the Records of the Three Kingdoms but also incorporated inspiration from oral folklore, Tang poetry, and Yuan opera.

Cao Cao is also represented as a cunning and deceitful man in Peking Opera, where his character wears the white facial makeup that traditionally represents a treacherous personality. His name lives on in the Chinese expression “speak of Cao Cao and he appears”, which in English is generally equivalent to “speak of the devil”.

Over the centuries, the location of Cao Cao’s tomb has been a mystery. In his will, he demanded an austere funeral, forbidding the use of luxurious burial offerings prevalent in the Han Dynasty, such as the exquisite jade burial suits of Zhongshan King Liu Sheng and Southern Yue King Zhao Mo that we’ve talked about in previous episodes. Instead, he instructed to reserve the treasures for funding the armies, so that they could continue to fight for his failed ambition to unify the empire.

According to Records of the Three Kingdoms, he was interred in Gaoling about one month after his death. But a legend originating during the Song Dynasty and popularized by the works of Luo Guanzhong and Pu Songling in the Ming and Qing dynasties says that Cao had arranged 72 decoy tombs to protect himself from tomb raiders.

In 2002, workers from a kiln in Xigaoxue Village of Anyang began to dig mud to make bricks from what was later identified to be the site of Cao’s tomb. By 2005, they had dug a huge crater of five meters deep and abandoned it. Then, nearby villagers made use of it by planting crops. When watering the land, one villager found a big hole at the bottom of the crater, suggesting the possible existence of an ancient tomb below.

Though the villager was not sharp enough to report this finding, tomb raiders were more savvy and cast their greedy eyes on the site. The local police caught several tomb raiders over a few months. In 2008, two tomb raiders were caught with a stone pillow carrying an inscription that read “King Wu of Wei”, which was Cao Cao’s posthumous title, finally leading to the discovery of his mysterious tomb. By the end of the year, its official excavation was underway.

Covering an area of about 750 square meters, the tomb is 15 meters deep under the ground and consists of two main chambers connected by an arched doorway. Over the following year, archaeologists recovered more than 400 artifacts from the tomb, including stone tablets and pillows, as well as weapons and paintings.

In all, eight stone tablets were found bearing the inscription “King Wu of Wei”, providing more evidence to confirm the identity of the tomb owner. Archaeologists also discovered the bones of three people, which were identified to be those of a man in his 60s, a woman in her 50s and another woman in her 20s. The man was believed to be Cao Cao, and the two women his concubines.

In December 2009, the Henan Provincial Cultural Heritage Bureau announced the discovery of Cao Cao’s tomb. The announcement, however, triggered skepticism from quite a number of scholars and collectors who questioned the authenticity of the evidence as the tomb had been raided long before the excavation. The skepticism lasted even after the State Administration of Cultural Heritage officially endorsed the tomb’s authenticity in 2010.

Since then, follow-up archaeological surveys, explorations, and excavations have continued to be conducted around the tomb of Cao Cao, leading to the discovery of important relics such as the burial complex and the likely tomb-guarding facilities built in the early Northern Song Dynasty. The people who lived in these facilities might have been the last ones that knew Cao Cao’s exact burial place and witnessed the last glory of his mausoleum.

Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Lü Weitao, translator Yang Guang, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.