Cao Cao, Misunderstood hero or sympathetic villain?

>>1922652
Based Mengde was the best leader of the three kingdoms period.

>>1922652
why the fuck is his name anglicized with a 'C' instead of with 'Ts' or something

for the longest time I thought it was pronounced like cow

>>1922711
Pinyin

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Historically? He was a hero. He is the man of the entire era.

https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/html/1885/42048/morrison51.html

He came from low birth, being the descendant of a Eunuch (although he did have connections to the Xiahou family) and rapidly conquered the central plains (whoever takes the central plains has historically always won Chinese civil wars).

It's because he was very ahead of his time with how he structured his government and military. In an age where the Han was declining due to debt (and therefor giving away positions of power solely for money and prestige) Cao Cao structured himself so that positions of power were given based on merit and talent. This is what made him so strong, once he had control of the central plains it was essentially over, because the central plains are where you would go to find talented officials.

Unfortunately, after his death Cao Wei began to fall into the same traps the Han did. Pi was a good leader but died young, Rui was good for most of his life but died relatively young. From then on power was distributed to those with prestige and those with talent were neglected. Leading to the Sima clans uprising.

The only reason Cao Cao didn't conquer Wu was because the Yangtze was impenetrable, Wu needed to destroy itself from within. The only reason he didn't destroy Shu was because it was also almost as impenetrable thanks to the mountainous terrain and their usual alliance with Wu. Neither Wu or Shu EVER stood a chance of successfully dismantling Wei, it's just that they were in positions where they couldn't be fucked with themselves.

>>1922711
Wade-Giles is shit and doesnt reflect Chinese pronunciation.

>>1922836
It looks cooler though, and modern spelling fucks up homonyms

>>1922652
Best hegemon. Would pledge my life and offer my services.

Do not believe Zhuge Liang (aka. "I am a genius. t. Zuhge")

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His cuck sons ruined everything, thus continuing the long and venerated Chinese tradition of shitting the bed at the last possible moment and ruining all of everyone's hard work.

>>1922730
>descendant of a Eunuch
How does that... how does that work? Did his father impregnate a woman and then get his balls chopped off?

>>1925671

Adopted

>>1922711
Because Pinyin is an international system influenced by languages other than English, and there are actually a lot of languages use C that way.

Heck, even English uses C that way sometimes. See for example the word 'prinCe.'

>>1925595
The only thing his sons did wrong was dying suddenly of illness, leaving a power vacuum.

>>1925671
His grandfather Cao Teng adopted Cao Song as a legal son and heir. Most likely Cao Song was a nephew of some sort (the usual source of adopted children were nephews), but some accounts claim he was adopted from the Xiahou family (the Cao and Xiahou were known to intermarry).

Guys can we at least all agree that Shu sucked major dick and that anyone who actually likes them is in fact Liu Bei? Shu LITERALLY (figuratively) did nothing right and their """god""" of war got BTFO'd by some barely literate sick old man.

>>1925941
You just don't know about the cool people they had:
http://xuesanguo.tumblr.com/post/152713947385/

something something with a wicked sense of humour

>>1922865
>It looks cooler though, and modern spelling fucks up homonyms
>Implying "cooler" is a good enough reason to keep using a shit romanization method

It looks like shit and you're a retard

>>1922865
>It looks cooler though
Having to distinguish between p and p', t and t', ts and ts', ch and ch' all the time makes it look cool?

>>1922652
He was China's Julius Caesar. A man of ambition who simply took advatage of the situation at the time.

>>1922652
He was a hero.
Southern dynasties used smear campaign against him, so with time his image was distorted.

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>>1922652

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>>1926770
The most based Elder God of all time.

>>1926770
I love this commentary.

>The greatest traitor has always resembled an honest man,
Liu Bei
>and the greatest falsehood come across as truth.
le evil Cao Cao meme

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>>1926807
>>1926770

>>1926405
This, it looks disgusting and even the English pronounciations of it sound worse than English pronounciations of pinyin.

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>Wei da bad guys
>Shu da good guys

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>>1928126
>tfw everyone fell for your bait and take Romance as a historical piece of truth

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>sympathizing with the filthy spawn of a eunuch

>>1928426
Adopted.

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>>1925941
>>1925982
reminder that liu bei and zhao yun pegged constantly

>>1928426

Nobody worth sympathizing with came from high birth to be honest.