Cao Cao

Introduced as Cavalry Commander, marching to support Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun at Yingchuan; intercepts the fleeing Yellow Turbans after the fire attack. The chapter folds in his biographical setup - feigned-fit prank against his uncle, Qiao Xuan and He Yong's prophecies, and Xu Shao's famous verdict 'in peace an able subject; in chaos a crafty hero'.

At He Jin's council he warns that eunuch influence has run for a century and a half, since Emperors Chong and Zhi, and that the plot must stay secret - earning He Jin's contempt as an 'inferior'. When the Emperor dies he urges settling the succession first; the chapter closes with him laughing that the eunuch problem is 'as easy as turning over one's hand'.

Opens the chapter finishing his argument that a gaoler is force enough against the eunuchs and that summoning regional armies will expose the plot - then walks out sneering that the one who will throw the world into chaos is He Jin. Escorts He Jin to the palace gate, storms in when the Regent Marshal's head comes over the wall, and afterwards douses the fires and asks Empress He to direct affairs while the Emperor is sought.

Offers Wang Yun the 'seven-jewelled sword' to assassinate Dong Zhuo; bungles the strike when Dong Zhuo turns in his mirror at the wrong moment and improvises by presenting the sword as a gift. Flees on a borrowed horse, is captured by Chen Gong at Zhongmou, talks his way free, and commits the chapter's defining crime - slaying the Lu Boshe household on suspicion, then killing Lu Boshe himself with 'rather we let down the world than the world let us down'.

Raises the 'Loyalty and Honor' banner at Qiao on Wei Hong's money, gathers the Xiahous, Cao Ren, Cao Hong, Yue Jing, and Li Dian, and issues the manifesto that summons the lords. In the tent he engineers Yuan Shao's election, twice shields the unknown archer Guan Yu from Yuan Shu's contempt, pours the wine that comes back still warm, and sends secret gifts to the Three Brothers that night.

Argues for immediate pursuit of Dong Zhuo's westward column and rides out alone with his own forces. Ambushed by Xu Rong at Xingyang, badly defeated, and saved only by Cao Hong giving up his horse - the line 'the world can spare me but not you' enters the novel.

Pivots fully into Cao Cao's career: takes the Yanzhou governorship after Liu Dai's death, defeats the Qingzhou Yellow Turbans, draws Xun Yu, Xun You, Cheng Yu, Guo Jia, and Yu Jin into his service, and rallies a real army around Yanzhou. Sends for his father Cao Song - the move that triggers the chapter's catastrophe.

Besieging Xuzhou with the vengeance army for his father's murder; persuaded to lift the siege when Lu Bu attacks Yanzhou behind him at Chen Gong's invitation. Turns the army around to recover his base - the rest of the chapter is the start of his war with Lu Bu.

Drives Lu Bu out of Yanzhou via the fire trap at Puyang - pretending to be killed in the blaze to lure Lu Bu's army out of position, then routing it. By chapter's end Yanzhou is again his, and he begins planning the next move.

Rewarded for pacifying the Shandong region with the title General Who Exhibits Firm Virtue and the lordship of Feiting; at court, Yang Biao and Zhu Jun privately name him to the Emperor as the man who could cleanse the government.

Welcomes the emperor when the imperial column reaches Luoyang's ruins, then on Xun Yu's advice escorts the court to his own Xuchang and crowns the policy that defines his career: 'control the emperor and command the lords.' Receives sweeping ministerial appointments by the chapter's end.

Cao Cao; named in passing - emperor secured at Xuchang while events unfold in the south.

Marches against Zhang Xiu at Wancheng - accepts the formal surrender, takes Zhang Xiu's aunt-by-marriage Lady Zou into his tent on the same night, and triggers Zhang Xiu's deadly revolt with Jia Xu's help. Loses his eldest son Cao Ang, his nephew Cao Anmin, and Dian Wei in the disaster.

Assembles the four-way front and takes Shouchun by three days of personal wall-side supervision after buying calm with Wang Hou's borrowed head. On the Zhang Xiu march his wheat-field decree meets his own bolting horse - and he trades his hair for his head, 'I cut off the hair as touching the head.' The two acts frame the man.

Reads Nanyang's rebuilt southeast wall and feints northwest - but Jia Xu reads him back, and the veterans who slip the breach at second watch walk into an ambush that costs fifty thousand men. He mourns Dian Wei by the River Yu, springs his own pass ambush at Anzhong, races home at word of Yuan Shao's designs - losing his baggage to the paradox pursuit - and turns, on the ten points and the intercepted letter, to the destruction of Lü Bu.

Closes the Lu Bu account: floods Xiapi from the rivers Yi and Si, takes the city when Hou Cheng, Song Xian, and Wei Xu defect from within. Receives the bound Lu Bu, hears him plead for life, and on Liu Bei's reminder of Ding Yuan and Dong Zhuo has him strangled at the White Gate Tower. Takes in Zhang Liao with Guan Yu's intercession.

Holds the great hunt at Xutian in the emperor's presence; takes the imperial bow and shoots the deer, then accepts the soldiers' cries of 'Long live the emperor!' as if for himself. The arrogance that triggers the belt-decree conspiracy.

Plum-garden discussion with Liu Bei - names the great men of the age, dismisses each, then 'You, Imperial Uncle, and I' as the only heroes in the realm. Liu Bei drops his chopsticks; thunder covers the slip. Cao Cao laughs it off; the chapter's defining set piece.

Mobilises against Liu Bei at Xuzhou while Yuan Shao gathers at the Yellow River; sends Liu Dai and Wang Zhong with 50,000 troops as the first probe. They lose and are captured by the brothers.

Cao Cao; humiliated by Mi Heng's naked diatribe; sends him to Liu Biao to be rid of him. Survives Ji Ping's headache-tea poisoning attempt - Ji Ping smashes his own brow against the pillar in defiance after the plot is exposed.

Dissuaded from deposing the Emperor by Cheng Yu, he settles for extermination: the five conspirators' households - seven hundred souls - die at the gates, and he personally has the pregnant Consort Dong strangled before the imperial couple. Then, over Cheng Yu's caution, he takes two hundred thousand men east, reads the broken banner as a night-raid warning, snares Zhang Fei and Liu Bei in an eight-point ambush, and takes Xuzhou - turning last toward Guan Yu in Xiapi, whom he wants alive and willing.

Grants the three conditions - 'as I am a minister of Han, so am I Han' - and lays siege to Guan Yu's heart: shared quarters foiled by the all-night candle, twice-normal provision, brocade over the old robe, the beard bag, banquets every third day. The gift of Red Hare wins the only real bow - because it can carry Guan Yu to Liu Bei in a day - and Cao Cao begins to repent of it.

Springs the supply-train bait at Yenjin - armor off, horses loose, wagons abandoned - then falls on Wen Chou's looters and drowns half the northern army. He ennobles Guan Yu as Lord of Hanshou, but when the farewell visits begin, hangs the no-admission board at his gate day after day - the silent refusal Guan Yu finally rides through.

Refuses Cai Yang's pursuit and Cheng Yu's kill-advice - 'each has his master; do not pursue' - then rides out with an unarmed escort to overtake the fugitive himself: gold refused, a brocade fighting robe lifted off a sword-point in wary thanks. He turns back sad, leaving five passes between his word and his commanders' orders.

Off-stage in this chapter - informed of Guan Yu's reunion with his brothers.

Cao Cao; promotes Sun Quan to General Who Conquers the Caitiffs after Sun Ce's death - formal recognition of the southern regime to keep it neutral during the Guandu showdown.

Outnumbered and nearly out of grain, he holds on Xun Yu's letter until Xu You walks into his camp - greeted barefoot - with Wuchao's location. He rides the night raid himself, gagged troops and muzzled horses under Yuan Shao's own banners, Zhang Liao and Xu Chu in the van, burns the depot, mutilates its drunken commander, and shatters the northern army: Yuan Shao crosses the river with eight hundred horse.

Feasts the hundred-year-old villagers who hail him as Yin Kui's prophesied 'true and honest man', makes killing a villager's fowl a capital crime - then springs Cheng Yu's ten ambushes at Cangting and destroys the Yuan army. Xun Yu's letter turns him south: Runan taken, Liu Bei hunted through the hills ('I, the Prime Minister, am here awaiting you!'), and the pursuit dropped only when the quarry is spent. He waits on Jizhou 'till the autumn when the crops have been gathered in'.

Breaks the four Yuan armies at Liyang, then takes Guo Jia's patience counsel and feints at Jingzhou until Xin Pi's embassy calls him back north. Yin Kai and Ju Gu swept aside, he besieges Yejun: tunnels foiled, helmet-crest shot away at the drawbridge, he doubles the diggers by night and drowns the city with the River Zhang. He honors the defiant Shen Pei with a north-side burial, spares Chen Lin for his genius, promises Yuan Tan a daughter - and, pocketing the betrayed secret seals, 'thenceforward planned Yuan Tan's doom'.

Finishes off the Yuan brothers - Yuan Tan killed; Yuan Shang and Yuan Xi flee to Liaodong. Cao Cao then marches north against the Wuhuan tribes with Guo Jia's plan to finish the Yuan line at Liucheng - wins the climactic Battle of White Wolf Mountain. Loses Guo Jia to illness on the return.

Cao Cao; returns to Xuchang from the Wuhuan campaign; orders the construction of the Bronze Bird Tower on the river Zhang as monument to his northern triumph. Will spend the next year planning the southern campaign.

Cao Cao; dispatches Cao Ren against Liu Bei at Xinye - the engagement that will be the first showcase of Shan Fu's strategy in chapter 36.

Forges the letter that lures Shan Fu away from Liu Bei - Cheng Yu's scheme. Loses Cao Ren's army at Xinye but gains Xu Shu's nominal allegiance, even if Xu Shu vows never to draw up a single plan for him.

Receives the trapped Xu Shu with honeyed courtesies, sends mourning gifts and personally sacrifices for the mother his own forgery drove to the noose - then, deferring the southern war to spring, diverts the River Zhang into the Aquamarine Lake to drill his soldiers for war on water.

Present twice at one remove: the remembered hostage demand of AD 202 whose refusal seeded his grudge against the South Land, and the naval drills on Aquamarine Lake that Zhuge Liang reads - correctly - as the coming invasion of the south.

Suppresses the three highest offices of state and takes their functions into the Prime Minister's hands, appointing Mao Jie and Cui Yan general secretaries and the young Sima Yi literary secretary - then lets Xiahou Dun march on Xinye with one hundred thousand troops over Xun Yu's and Xu Shu's warnings.

Frees the bound Xiahou Dun, rewards the two who warned him, and raises five hundred thousand troops in five paired divisions to sweep the south. He answers Kong Rong's remonstrance with a gag order and then a family execution; accepts Jingzhou by letter with a promise of 'perpetual tenure' - and marches his van into Zhuge Liang's burning, flooding Xinye.

Sends Xu Shu to demand surrender knowing shame will bring him back, buys Cai Mao and Zhang Yun with admiralties he privately calls disposable, ennobles the Kuai faction, exiles Liu Zong to Qingzhou and has Yu Jin murder him and his mother on the road - then flings five thousand picked horsemen after the crawling exodus. Watching the lone white rider from Prospect Mountain: 'a very tiger of a leader! I must get him alive' - the no-arrows order that saves Zhao Zilong and Liu Shan both.

Recalls Guan Yu's old warning about Zhang Fei and flees the bellow so fast he loses his headdress, hair streaming, until Zhang Liao and Xu Chu catch his bridle. Recovering, he reads the broken bridge as fear, throws three floating bridges over by night, and hunts 'the fish in the kettle' - until Guan Yu's ambush smells like Zhuge Liang again and he swerves off to take Jiangling and Jingzhou City instead, marshalling eight hundred thirty thousand troops (called a million) and baiting Sun Quan with a joint 'hunting party' at Jiangxia.

Cao Cao; at the Han River with 830,000 troops (claimed); sends his demand for Sun Quan's submission - the letter that triggers the council debate.

At the Han River; awaits Sun Quan's response.

Loses the first river battle to marines who cannot fight on water, watches Cai Mao and Zhang Yun build the twenty-four Water Gates that finally worry Zhou Yu - and then throws it all away: one stolen forgery and both admirals are headless before he thinks. Too proud to admit the trick, he calls it remissness and hands the fleet to Mao Jie and Yu Jin, who know nothing of naval war.

Reads the drums in the fog as ambush and answers with ten thousand archers shooting blind - handing over a hundred thousand arrows and hearing the mocking thanks float back downstream. Smarting, he takes Xun You's counter-plan and sends the Cai brothers as false deserters - hostage-safe, he thinks, because their families are in his Jingzhou.

Reads the surrender letter twice, springs his no-date trap - and is argued into a bow by a laughing prisoner. Half-convinced by the Cai brothers' corroborating letter, he sends Jiang Gan back for certainty and receives instead the Young Phoenix, whose chain-the-ships prescription he adopts on the spot, blacksmiths forging night and day. Every safeguard he takes delivers him deeper into the fire plan.

The Short Song chapter: fifty-four, master of everything but the south, he pours a libation from the spear that broke the Yellow Scarves, dreams aloud of the two Qiaos in his Bronze Bird Tower - and spears Liu Fu dead for calling the raven verse ill-omened. Sober, he weeps and buries his victim with honors; then he laughs off Cheng Yu's fire warning with meteorology: in winter 'you will get neither east nor south winds.'

Laughs at the solstice wind, reads Huang Gai's final letter with joy, and watches the whole south come up under sail - 'Heaven is on my side today.' Cheng Yu's draught-line warning arrives a mile too late: the chained fleet becomes one flame, and the master of a million men is rowed ashore in a small boat, howling, saved by Zhang Liao's arm and arrow.

The three laughs: at the Black Forest ('if they had only set an ambush there') - Zhao Zilong; at the Hulu Valley cooking fires - Zhang Fei; on the Huarong bye-road, chosen because the smoke columns must be Zhuge Liang's bluff - Guan Yu. He begs passage on Cheng Yu's advice, invoking old kindness and the archer's parable, and crosses the valley with twenty-seven riders. Safe at Jiangling he weeps not for the army but for Guo Jia - 'had he been alive, he would not have let me suffer this loss' - shaming every living adviser, and leaves Cao Ren a sealed plan against the coming siege.

Present through his guide-letter: the sealed plan left with Cao Ren scripts the emptied city and crossbow trap that wounds Zhou Yu - Chen Jiao applauds his god-like perspicacity from the tower - though even it cannot foresee Zhuge Liang harvesting all three cities.

Cao Cao; named in passing - consolidating the north after Red Cliffs.

Present only through his Hefei garrison - Zhang Liao, Li Dian, and Yue Jin, posted there after Red Cliffs, carry his war this chapter.

Cao Cao; named in passing - far in the north.

The phantom of the second silken bag: his invented five-hundred-thousand-man revenge march on Jingzhou is the lie that pries Liu Bei out of the gilded cage.

Inaugurates the finished Bronze Bird Tower in jeweled headdress and pearl shoes, laughs the robe-brawl into gifts for everyone, and answers the scholars' odes with the great apologia: the cottage near Qiao, the tomb inscription he once wanted, the roll of the destroyed - 'were it not for poor me, I know not how many would be styling themselves emperors' - and the confession that he dare not lay down his armies. Hua Xin's news of Liu Bei's Jingzhou appointment knocks the pen from his hand: 'the dragon, once captive, has escaped to the mighty deep.' Cheng Yu's poisoned governorships restore his calm.

Baits Ma Teng with an imperial title, learns of the review-day assassination plot through a concubine's pillow talk, and springs four armies on the western column - Ma Teng, Ma Xiu, and Huang Kui executed, and the informer Miao Ze beheaded with the woman he betrayed everyone for: 'what advantage would there be in preserving such a miscreant?' The news of Liu Bei's western preparations then stops his southern march cold.

Drops the southern expedition when Changan falls, and nearly drops everything else: railed at by a son avenging his father, he tears off the telltale red robe, saws off his own beard, and wraps a flag-corner round his jaw to flee. Saved three times - Cao Hong's fifty bouts, Xu Chu's back and saddle-shield on the river, Ding Fei's cattle - he then digs in and smiles at every report of Qiang reinforcements: 'wait till I have defeated them, and I will explain.'

Cao Cao; the famous letter trick that breaks the Ma Chao / Han Sui alliance. Sends Han Sui a letter with the key parts deliberately smudged so Ma Chao will think they were redacted to hide treachery. The alliance fractures; Ma Chao tries to kill Han Sui (cuts off his arm), then is routed in the field by Xu Chu.

Cao Cao; insults Zhang Song over his appearance and turns him away - the chapter's single most-cited Cao Cao miscalculation, sending Yi Province directly into Liu Bei's lap.

Cao Cao; in this chapter attacks Sun Quan at Ruxu - the first Ruxu campaign. Repulsed by the southern fleet.

Cao Cao; off-stage in the north.

Cao Cao; off-stage.

Cao Cao; off-stage.

Cao Cao; off-stage.

Cao Cao; finally elevated to Duke of Wei in this chapter; the act that ends the polite fiction of Han loyalty. Then exposes Empress Fu's secret letter to her father Fu Wan plotting his death; raids the palace and strangles her with a silken cord, killing two princes by poison alongside. The grim climax of the chapter.

Cao Cao; the Hanzhong campaign - defeats Zhang Lu's brother Zhang Wei at Yangping Pass; then accepts Zhang Lu's surrender. Hanzhong now Wei territory. Liu Ye and Sima Yi urge an immediate push south into Yi Province but Cao Cao demurs.

Cao Cao; at Ruxu again; suffers Gan Ning's raid; receives the Daoist Zuo Ci who performs uncanny tricks at his court banquet (the pomegranate-turns-to-water, the wine-from-the-air, the head-still-talking decapitation). Cao Cao orders his execution; Zuo Ci vanishes through a wall.

Cao Cao; ill through the chapter; murders the five loyalist conspirators when their plot is exposed; sends Cao Hong and Cao Xiu against Liu Bei's frontier raids.

Cao Cao; receives the news of Hanzhong losses; orders Xiahou Yuan to hold Dingjun Mountain at all costs. Will march in person to relieve.

Cao Cao; learns of Xiahou Yuan's death at Dingjun; vows revenge; advances with the main Wei army into Hanzhong to face Liu Bei directly.

Cao Cao; the chapter's Wei centerpiece. Stuck in the 'chicken-ribs' (jīle) standoff on the Han River - neither swallow nor spit. Yang Xiu reads the watchword and tells the men to pack for retreat; Cao Cao executes him on a treason pretext, but soon does retreat. Loses Hanzhong; loses face.

Cao Cao; furious at Liu Bei's kingship - vows to lead an army to crush him; Sima Yi suggests instead inciting Sun Quan to break the Wu-Shu alliance and attack Jingzhou. The plot that will kill Guan Yu begins here.

Cao Cao; learns of the disaster at Fan - the loss of the Seven Armies under Yu Jin and Pang De's execution. Considers fleeing the capital; Sima Yi talks him down and proposes the Sun Quan back-channel that produces the Lu Meng raid.

Cao Cao; commits to the Wu alliance against Liu Bei; sends Xu Huang to relieve Fan.

Cao Cao; watches the trap close - coordinates with Sun Quan; sends Xu Huang to relieve Fan.

Cao Cao; Sun Quan ships him Guan Yu's head in a box, hoping to shift Shu's vengeance onto Wei. Cao Cao buries the head with full noble honours - a sandalwood body for the head; a marquis's funeral. The famous gesture; also: Cao Cao falls ill thereafter and never recovers.

Cao Cao dies. Haunted by Guan Yu's ghost in dreams (and: voices in the Jianshi Hall, ghostly figures of his murdered victims - Empress Fu, Consort Dong, Dong Cheng, Ma Teng). Has the cypress tree from Yuelu cut down and bleeds; the head-pain redoubles. After killing Hua Tuo, lingering, gives his deathbed instructions to Cao Pi and the court - 72 decoy tombs to be built; the famous 'concubines distribute my fragrant possessions.' Dies at 66.

Cao Cao; named in passing in the recap of his death.

Cao Cao; named in passing - posthumously elevated to Emperor Wu of Wei by Cao Pi after the accession.

Cao Cao; named in passing in the recap of his death.

Cao Cao; named in passing - already dead.

Cao Cao; named in passing - already dead.

Cao Cao; named in passing.

Cao Cao; named in passing in the recap.

Cao Cao; named in passing in the recap.

Cao Cao; named in passing.

Cao Cao; named in passing.

Cao Cao; named in passing.

Cao Cao; named in passing.

Cao Cao; named in passing in the elegy.

Cao Cao; named in passing in the closing elegies.