The late Han was an age where natural disasters and man-made calamities arrived together.
From the Yellow Turban Rebellion onward, there were the Ten Eunuchs running amok, Dong Zhuo entering the capital, the coalition against Dong Zhuo, and Yuan Shu proclaiming himself emperor.
More than twenty years of nonstop warfare gave birth to heroes and brilliant ministers—but it crushed far more ordinary people, grinding their lives into the mud.
Selling sons and daughters. Eating bark and grass to survive. Locust plagues, floods, famine… even cannibalism.
These were things the people of Jing Province had all seen or at least heard of over the years.
But what Cheng Yu had done…
"Cheng Zhongde could really be this ruthless?" Liu Bei said in shock.
"No wonder people in Xuchang said his temperament was harsh and that he clashed with everyone," Guan Yu shook his head in open disdain. "Turns out he truly was a despicable man."
"To be blindly loyal to Cao Mengde to this extent…" Zhuge Liang sighed softly.
Even if Cao Cao seized the world, what would Cheng Yu gain?
Even if he rose to the rank of the Three Excellencies, his hometown would forever remember him as the butcher who turned the flesh of his own elders into military rations.
Four hundred years earlier, Xiang Yu had refused to cross the river and chose death instead—because he was ashamed to face the people of Jiangdong.
"And yet the future smears my big brother?" Zhang Fei fumed.
Liu Bei, however, remained calm.
"Falsehoods cannot become truth, and truth cannot be erased. Even separated from us by seventeen hundred years, later generations will still know this was nothing more than a rumor."
Such magnanimity made Huang Zhong's heart stir.
As expected of Liu of Jing Province, he thought.
Only Zhang Fei remained furious, already plotting to find a couple of storytellers later and make them spin some special tales about Cao Mengde.
Didn't Cao Cao like widows?
Fine—give him five. No—eight. Ten!
The light screen continued:
"Selective blindness toward Cao Cao in Romance of the Three Kingdoms isn't limited to the Cheng Yu incident. You can find examples just by flipping a few pages.
Records of the Three Kingdoms states that in October, Cao Cao campaigned against Lü Bu, massacred Pengcheng, and captured its chancellor Hou Xie. The novel simply skips this entirely.
The records also say Zhang Miao and Zhang Chao rebelled. Cao Cao besieged Yongqiu for months, slaughtered the city after its fall, and executed Zhang Chao along with his entire family. The novel removes the massacre and changes Zhang Chao's death to suicide by fire.
Book of the Later Han records that after Guandu, Cao Cao buried alive eighty thousand surrendered troops of Yuan Shao. The novel changes this to 'killed in battle.'
The same book clearly records Cao Cao's massacre of Ye City and his seizure of Yuan clan women. The novel rewrites this into strict discipline after the city's fall—an obvious attempt to protect Cao Cao's image.
After all, this was when Yuan Shao's daughter-in-law Zhen Mi was taken. She later became the wife of the Wei emperor and the mother of Emperor Ming of Wei.
Records of the Three Kingdoms repeatedly mentions Cao Cao's standing order: 'Those who surrender after being surrounded shall not be spared.' The novel omits this entirely.
It also repeatedly records the crushing corvée labor under Cao Cao's rule—so severe that peasants rebelled outright. The novel again erases this.
All these embellishments leave readers thinking Cao Cao's crimes weren't that serious. Some even praise it as 'true temperament,' then turn around and call Liu Bei's compassion hypocrisy. Truly laughable."
"Big Brother… cries?" Zhang Fei's ears immediately perked up.
"That must be another later rumor," Guan Yu laughed loudly. "The last time Big Brother cried was when Tian Guorang took his leave—he wept and said he regretted not being able to accomplish great deeds together. That was the only time. Hardly someone who cries all the time."
"Good thing Tian Guorang ran fast," Zhang Fei muttered darkly. "After that we lost Xiaopei, ran into Lü Bu, then Cao Cao, and fled all over the place. If Tian Guorang had stayed, his old bones probably wouldn't have survived it."
Liu Bei said nothing—only shot Zhang Fei a sharp look.
Do you really not want to think about how Lü Bu managed to seize Xiaopei in the first place?
Zhuge Liang and Zhao Yun continued copying notes. Yet as he wrote, Zhuge Liang's eyes shone.
"From the sound of it," he said quietly, "there were later generations who deliberately compiled histories for us."
To be recorded in history was no small honor.
He couldn't help but wonder—what place would he himself occupy in those books? How would later generations judge them?
Only Huang Zhong looked utterly lost.
As a warrior, he had not entered Liu Biao's service as a Zhonglang General until his forties, drifting on the fringes of power. After twenty unremarkable years, he had finally decided to offer his aging body to the new Liu of Jing Province.
He had arrived only two days ago—and now he was witnessing all this.
Still, he understood the events listed one by one on the light screen.
And hearing that these were words spoken by people more than a thousand years in the future…
An unrealistic wish quietly rose in his heart.
"So… Cao A-Man eventually became Emperor Wen of Wei?" Zhang Fei blurted out. "Shameless!"
"Perhaps Emperor Wen was Cao Cao's son," Guan Yu offered.
"Everyone knows Cao Cao liked married women!" Zhang Fei declared confidently. "Didn't his eldest son die because of that? City falls, women get taken—this was Yuan Shao's daughter-in-law! Isn't that exactly Cao the Traitor's type?"
Guan Yu fell silent, then reminded him, "Cao Cao and Yuan Shao were of the same generation. Taking a man's daughter-in-law would be a grave breach of propriety."
"When has Cao the Traitor ever cared about propriety?" Zhang Fei laughed. "But fine, if Emperor Wen was his son, that's not surprising either. Father and son both like married women—is that a Cao family tradition?"
The hall fell quiet.
Crude as it was, Zhang Fei's words… seemed disturbingly accurate.
"Cao Cao truly deserves the title of Butcher," Zhao Yun said as he wrote.
That title had originally belonged to Bai Qi, who buried alive four hundred thousand surrendered soldiers in a single campaign.
Cao Cao didn't quite match that number—but he massacred cities often enough that no one objected to the comparison.
The light screen continued:
"Now that we've talked about Cao Cao's true historical image, let's move on to today's main topic: When did the Cao clan actually lose the realm?
In the novel, because everything is presented on the surface—and because Sima Yi becomes a semi-protagonist—people feel as though the Cao emperors were ruling just fine, eating hotpot and singing songs, when suddenly the Sima clan jumped out and stole everything.
In one sentence: Cao Wei fell outwardly to the Sima clan, but inwardly to internal strife.
If Eastern Wu failed to unify the realm due to a weak ruler and powerful ministers, then Cao Wei's problem was two tigers fighting each other.
The most obvious expression of this internal power struggle can be seen in Cao Zhi's Seven-Step Poem—which gave rise to the famous line: Born of the same root, why press each other so hard?"
"Why press each other so hard…" Liu Bei murmured.
He found the sentiment painfully familiar. Back when Cao Cao was still merely a Han minister, he had already tried countless times to kill Liu Bei.
Who would have thought Cao Cao's own sons would fight even more brutally?
Liu Bei picked up his tea and drained it in one gulp.
Refreshing.
"Within Cao Wei, there were two traditional power blocs.
One was the Runan–Yingchuan scholar faction, represented by strategists like Guo Jia and the Xun clan.
The other was the Qiao–Pei military faction, centered around the Cao and Xiahou families.
Early on, when Cao Cao was still a warlord constantly campaigning, military power naturally rested in the hands of the Qiao–Pei faction.
But after Red Cliffs, as Cao Wei's territory stabilized, campaigns decreased, and Cao Cao aged—forcing the succession question into the open—the friction between the two groups intensified.
The moment when both sides truly began fighting in earnest came in 219 CE, when a man named Wei Feng launched a rebellion.
His slogan?
'I've defected to Han!'"
Liu Bei: "???"