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Cao Cao ... (155-220), the Emperor Wu of Wei during the Three Kingdoms period, is one of the most controversial yet fascinating figures in Chinese history. Over the two centuries after his death, the shaping and reshaping of his image has been incessant. Centering on the episode of Cao Cao's slaughter of the Lü Boshe family, this paper examines diverse accounts of this event, ranging from Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms to Pei Songzhi's annotations, extending to the Song and Yuan periods' historical records, Excerpts of the Seventeen Histories and the Continuation of the History of the Later Han, and finally to the Ming and Qing dynasties' historical novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It reveals the narrative choices authors faced and the nuanced, complex approaches they employed in the compilation process. It argues that the driving force of the evolution of Cao Cao's image is not merely political stance but also the author's unintentional absorption of imprints of former texts and their intentional creative endeavors. Instead of pitting "fiction" against "history" to determine which account is more factual, it explores the specific role of craftiness in the construction of historical figures and events
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As a remarkable military strategist, politician and poet, Cao Cao ... (155-220), the Emperor Wu of Wei ... during the Three Kingdoms period, is one of the most controversial yet fascinating figures in Chinese history. As Kroll puts it, Cao Cao's character "impels either total esteem or total enmity."2 In the over two millennia since Cao Cao's death, the continuous shaping and reshaping of his image-from historical records, biographies, historical novels and dramas to contemporary television shows, films, video games, and board games-have never ceased, inspiring vigorous research on Cao Cao.3
Unlike his contemporaries from the Three Kingdoms era, such as Liu Bei ... (161- 223), Zhuge Liang ... (181-234) and Guan Yu ... (160-220) from the Shu Kingdom ..., who underwent various degrees of mythologization and romanticization, ultimately becoming embodiments of loyalty, righteousness, benevolence, wisdom, and courage,4 Cao Cao experienced a process of degradation. Nowadays when we think about the historical figure of Cao Cao, the terms "treacherous hero" (jianxiong ...) and "white face"(bailian ...), the villain character type in Beijing...