Cao Zhen

Cao Zhen; commands one of the three Wei armies - the first major appearance of the future Wei chief commander.

Routed at Nanjun with Xiahou Shang between Zhuge Jin and Lu Xun — then commissioned Commander-in-Chief of the fifth route against Yangping Pass, where Zhao Yun's sealed gates wait.

Leads the first corps of the dragon-fleet invasion, reports the eerily empty south bank, and sends the small boats that pull his drenched Emperor off the foundering flagship.

The man who saves Sima Yi's life. Summoned to Cao Pi's deathbed as Commander of the Center Army and made Regent Marshal in the new reign. When the forged proclamation has Hua Xin and Wang Lang both calling for Sima Yi's head and Cao Rui is already drafting the order, Cao Zhen alone stands out of the military rank to object: the late Emperor trusted him, nothing is actually known, and striking may make the rebellion — 'This may be but one of the base tricks of Shu or Wu to cause dissension in our midst.' He supplies the alternative too, Liu Bang's pretended trip to Lake Yunmeng, and is left to regulate the state while Cao Rui rides to Anyi.

Named Commander-in-Chief on Wang Lang's recommendation and tries to decline — 'my talents are but poor and unequal to the task' — accepting only on condition he may choose an assistant, and naming Guo Huai. Takes two hundred thousand, the best of both capitals, with his brother Cao Zun as Leader of the Van. Agrees to let Wang Lang try the parley, and is left to coffin him and send the body to Changan. Adopts Guo Huai's anticipatory ambush, which Zhuge Liang has already anticipated in turn; his own troops and Guo Huai's end up fighting Cao Zun's and Zhu Zan's in the dark, and he goes back to camp beaten, asking 'Have you any plan to drive them away?'

Waits on the Qiang alliance Guo Huai arranged, mistakes the Shu withdrawal for its success, and pursues — losing both Van Leaders in minutes, his brother Cao Zun to Wei Yan and Zhu Zan to Zhao Zilong. Surrounded with Guo Huai by Guan Xing and Zhang Bao, beaten back to the River Wei and out of his own camp. 'Greatly chagrined at his defeat and sad at the loss of his generals', he writes to Cao Rui for reinforcements — the report that triggers Sima Yi's recall.

Given Xin Pi and Sun Li with fifty thousand to assist him, and ordered by Sima Yi to hold Meicheng strictly and on no account let the garrison out. Shares Guo Huai's fear that Sima Yi will take all the glory. Pursues once Shu retreats, runs into Ma Dai and Jiang Wei in country that 'seemed to swarm with enemies', loses his Van Leader Chen Zao to Ma Dai and sees his troops break. Takes joint credit with Guo Huai for recovering Nanan, Tianshui and Anding.

His redemption bid and his second humiliation. Volunteers on the strength of his West Valley Land disgrace, produces Wang Shuang out of nowhere as his Van Leader, and is made Commander-in-Chief of a hundred fifty thousand. Still bitter that Sima Yi 'filched from him the credit' last campaign, he detaches Guo Huai and Sun Li east and west and relieves Chencang. Then reads Jiang Wei's forged letter as 'heaven-sent help', overrides Fei Yao's warning that it may be a snare — 'But Jiang Wei is really a man of Wei. He was forced into surrender. Why are you suspicious?' — and lets Fei Yao go in his place, which is the only reason he is alive at the end of it.

Wei commander-in-chief through the whole first half of the chapter. Receives Cao Rui's edict from Han Ji's hand (Sima Yi's advice, deliberately passed off as the Emperor's so the credit falls to Cao Zhen), holds his positions and refuses battle, and adopts Sun Li's decoy-convoy plan: carts loaded with wood and reeds sprinkled with sulfur and saltpeter instead of grain. Zhuge Liang reads it on sight, burns the carts and takes the outer camp; Cao Zhen 'thereafter looked to his defenses and attacked no more' and does not even notice the Shu army has been gone two days. Wang Shuang's death breaks him - he falls ill and withdraws to Luoyang, and when Sima Yi visits he presses the commander's seal on him: 'If you do not take it, I shall have to go to see the Emperor, ill as I am.'

Initiates the entire second half of the chapter. Recovers from the illness he took at Wang Shuang's death and memorialises for the invasion: 'Shu has invaded more than once and threatened Changan. If this state be not destroyed, it will ultimately be our ruin.' Made Minister of War, General Who Conquers the West and Commander-in-Chief of the Western Expedition, with Sima Yi under him and four hundred thousand troops, and marches on Chencang meaning to reach Saber Pass and Hanzhong. Finds Chencang burnt to the ground — 'they could not find a single house' — takes Sima Yi's advice to shelter there rather than push into the mountains, and sits in a deluge for a month before the recall arrives.

Bets Sima Yi the girdle and steed Cao Rui gave him that no Shu army will appear within ten days, takes the Xie Valley station west of Qishan, and lets his soldiers go slack waiting out the wager. On the seventh day he sends Qin Liang to chase off a few stray Shu scouts; Qin Liang is killed and his five thousand are turned into a disguised raiding party that walks into Cao Zhen's own camp. He is drawn out of it by torches in his rear, loses the camp, and is riding for his life eastward when Sima Yi's relief arrives — 'almost too ashamed to show his face'. The fright puts him to bed at River Wei, and Zhuge Liang finishes him by post: a letter calling him 'ignorant and inferior, rising impudently in heaven's vault', with the couplet the historians will write — 'Sima Yi is frightened when he hears of battle fronts, Cao Zhen is alarmed at mere rumors.' 'Cao Zhen's wrath rose as he read. At the end it filled his breast. And he died that evening.' Sima Yi sends the coffin to Luoyang.

Named in passing only, and dead since the previous chapter. Sima Yi opens the campaign by invoking him: 'Now that my friend Cao Zhen is no more, I am willing to do all that one man can to destroy the rebels against Your Majesty's authority.'

Named in passing only, and dead since ch100. He is present here as a debt and as a grievance: Liu Fang and Sun Zu recommend his son because they 'had both received many favors from Cao Zhen', and He Yan pushes Cao Shuang into the breach with Sima Yi by reminding him how his father died — 'your father suffered much from this man's temper, which ultimately brought about his death. Why do you not look into that?'

Named in passing only, and dead since ch100, but the mention is the epitaph on his whole line. Huan Fan, walking out of the tent after Cao Shuang throws down his sword: 'Cao Zhen might boast of his abilities, but his sons are mere cattle.'