Warlords of the Three Kingdoms - Cao Cao 

so mao is chinas palpatine? is this is darthvader?

Invicta are you Chinese you sound Chinese

I started the podcast 3 days ago before finding this video and its really really good. Its very hard for me to keep track of all the character names but I really really recommend it. Also check out the 2010 tv series.

I was so surprised to click on an Invicta video and hear the voice of one of my favorite podcasts!!

Please use the original narrator

Thats hilarious 😂

Brilliant ! And we all have had that moment in our lives ! xD

Dang... lol

Apperently when lu bu took over liu bei's territory he returned his wife and son unharmed. Liu bei has a trsck record of leaving his family behind it seems.

And as Dynasty Warriors 5 stated, Zhao Yun, a vassal serving under Liu Bei, risked his life going back to rescue the warlord's family in Changban.

There was a cooling down of climate and thus less food.

Not to mention the collapse of the Parthian Empire as well.

@@user-xb9yv2ci4c Yep. There were lots of reasons they happened, but climate disruption & famine were the root cause of the instability. It's fascinating just how much of human history & warfare is tied to food supply - even many of the war zones going today erupted because of severe drought caused by warming trends.

@@brettd2308 It's interesting to see how corruption becomes worse during these periods as well, leading to the downfall of these empires as well.

Ole Fredrik Skjegstad it was caused by the plague that brought not only the end of the Han also the Parthians empire the one in India and vast depleted the Romans by killing huge numbers of people and killed forty per cent of the Han and Roman army, along with famine

ah, thanks for that correction!

@@InvictaHistory He was an adopted grandson of Eunuch.

It's the same concept.

I wanna share this video. It's a pretty good TV series about Cao Cao when he was younger if you're interested. It has English sub and I'm binge watching. I'm currently on ep 10. I get to see how corrupted the Han emperor really is. I think it's mainly the bad influence of a eunuch. The Emperor never care about the common people. Then the yellow turban rebellion make thing interesting. Give this drama a swirl if you haven't. I love how they reveal Liu Bei darker side. New Chinese Drama | Cao Cao 01 Eng Sub 曹操 | Romance of The Three Kingdoms 1080P ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zznk6i7uvwE.html

thanks! This was narrated by John Zhu who actually runs a show on the period called the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

I can't thank you enough, either. It was very good.

Agree. It's the simple things like that which other promoters overlook.

Ghost Except for the (somewhat) awkward English. Can’t tell if he’s a native speaker or not, but even native speakers can be unduly influenced by their parents’ idiosyncrasies, failing to adopt the general speech of the people around them in a like manner to non-immigrants. I’d certainly prefer it the other way round, i.e. no fidelity to the Chinese for smooth, enjoyable narration in English if necessary, of course there are those who could pull off both if necessary, though I doubt it’s necessary; I’m never going to discuss Chinese history in Chinese and don’t need to know how the Chinese would pronounce the words and names for any of my purposes in watching this kind of video. Therefore, I submit this entire native tribute (?) is poorly contrived and unwise. Plus, the script is apparently by Invicta anyway, notwithstanding the research credits.

It's not correct if you speak Cantonese. Which is the main language of the the Guangdong region in Southern China. No matter how hard China tries to get rid of Cantonese. Cantonese speakers still exist.

All hail Cow Cow

Or a badass lawful neutral/lawful evil protagonist

@Lord Voldemort Twynn doesn't even come close lol. Cao Cao's historic achievements are crazy, especially on the administration side. He revamped the entire civil examination system, had amazing agriculture reforms and allowed peasants to hold high positions at court. His son and grandson also did similar reforms such as allowing females to join the court as actual civil servants etc..

Nobunaga v Cao Cao Two ruthless conquerors Only one will prevail

From other point of view, Cao Mengde is a true pragmatist hero of the Han, protecting the last vestiges of the dying Han from usurpers like Liu Bei, Yuan Shao, and Yuan Shu (and later Sun Quan) despite multiple occasions that he could usurp the han

Considering the Xiongnu can easily amass an army of similar size, yeah, 80k is quite pathetic.

Especially when you look at the histories of Europe and the greatest battles on English soil a thousand years later has troops on both sides combing to 40k

@@rondkrows9100 and China has historical been better at administration than the Romans and Medieval Europe, with much higher population densities. The higher numbers makes sense

Actually it includes the people supporting the army like medical teams, people carrying food or weapons, builders etc. So it may only be 50-60k soldiers.

@@Renaldo015 No it is not. In the Xiongnu campaigns the two 60k Han armies were supported by 300k men. These were front line troops. The support troops were many times their number

He is indeed my favorite and I love all the little stories that exist about him such as the one with the grain officer.

Is no one going to appreciate that Wei pun? Intentional or not

@@InvictaHistory Agreed. He was in essence the Julius Caesar of Ancient Imperial China.

Just one thing with your comment. Warring States period actually refers to the later half of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. So your statement would be wrong because Cao Cao is not of that period which is couple of hundred years before him.

While history book said 3 Kingdom, Wei kingdom accounted for 6 out of 9 provinces of the late Han Empire. Civil war and unrested might have killed many but the population of Wei was > Shu + Wu. The Wei army needed rebuilding but they were in much stronger position particularly when Shu was no longer allied to Wu. Cao Cao's sun Cao Pei should/could have done the re-unification job if not because of dying young.

A question: Is it not Cao Cao? How is it then styled Mengde? His real name? I don't understand..

@@raeaugustus586 In traditional Chinese cluture, a men normally have several names. When a noble men reach 20 years old, a courtesy name will be given. Mengde is Cao Cao's courtesy name, and Cao is his given name. Traditional, call someone with his given name is really rude and disrespectful. But don't worry, those courtesy names no longer exist in modern China in case you have some Chinese friends.

@@raeaugustus586 His another name given by himself. Many Chinese nobles have name like this at that time. His friends like to use this name rather than Cao in respect.

Cao Ah Man

@@Adam0Yahya That's his baby name

Agreed. Despite being treated literally as the devil of Chinese culture there is no doubt he was a very accomplished administrator, poet and general who revived Sun Tzu's The Art of War and made it popular again. As a guy who understood the importance of having enough food to feed your army from the get-go, he instituted beneficial agricultural reforms to make sure his military granaries always had sufficient supply and this ended up ensuring civilians under his rule had enough to eat as well. Plus he also made public education accessible to all levels of society to ensure his government would have the most talented men running it instead of just the most well connected and mostly eliminated the corruption that brought down the Han court.

@@barbiquearea I see him as a practical man. He simply do what he must do like any good general would. I don't know why people see him as villain.

Republic Empire I think in terms of military prowess and political prowess he and Caesar are very similar. But I think Caesar genuinely wanted to save lives where Cao Cao would let his emotions get the better of him and routinely slaughtered innocents even many of his own men and didn't seem to have any remorse. I wonder if Cao Cao knew about Caesar

Christopher Throbbin that’s a excellent good point.

@@christopherthrobbin7951 You should watch Historia Civilis' videos - he does an entire career follow-through about Julius Caesar that's broken up into several videos. You'll learn that, actually, Caesar was quite prone to emotional tantrums as well and it further illustrates the similarities between the two. Also Caesar, like any political figure during the roman republic's period of rapid expansion, really was about attaining more power rather than some virtuous ideal such as "saving people". It was all about his career in the end, and establishing a legacy, just like Cao Cao.

I think he exemplifies the Machiavellan Prince perfectly, the fact that people still discuss his personality and decisions is a testament to his complex character.

I would compare him to Julius Caesar, using pragmatic means in war and ruling.

I think Villain in political is meaning idiot Tyrant who make own state fall and Civilians get trouble

Lol guess Guan Yu's death would be the red wedding. he had the greatest reputation out of the three kingdoms even wu the ones who betrayed him wanted him. Btw the sengoku jidai would be even worse if George RR Martin went with that.

Who knows maybe he has read about the Three Kingdoms and is saving that material for an even bigger book series centered around Yi Ti.

No need, a thousand year later someone already wrote the famous book Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, which influenced the entire nation, including Japan, to date. Just look at the video games 20 years ago and now internet game.

Can GoT fans get any more obnoxious?

I think he might have included inspirations from 3Kingdom to be honest. There are quite some similarities, especially in character setup in season 1.

The "I'd rather betray the world" version is more memorable though. Not to mention best Cao Mengde from the Three Kingdoms 2010 tv show said it.

The whole occurrence in actual history was dubious at best. The first actual instance of this in historical text was from Weishu, and he never said this.

Closest he ever came to losing? He lost big at Red Cliffs

@@arthurfisher1857 I guess that was a Pyrrhic victory in some sense.

​@@arthurfisher1857 I meant losing the entire war. Red Cliffs was a loss for sure, but it just stopped Cao Cao from conquering the other kingdoms right away. His holdings were still fine and he didn't suffer that much for it - most of his forces were from the newly-acquired Jing province and most of his losses were from disease. Modern scholarship asserts that the actual losses from the battle have been vastly overstated as part of a tradition of storytelling that venerates the Shu side of things. Rafe de Crespigny goes so far as to claim it was more of an armed reconnaissance than an invasion, and that Red Cliffs was more of a skirmish than the epic battle of folklore. Cao Cao's expedition to the Wuhuan was much riskier. He encountered a much larger army, but won because he stumbled into them before they were prepared for battle. The harsh environmental conditions killed two of his prominent generals, and nearly killed him while he was stuck beyond China's borders in the winter, in a drought. He admitted afterwards that the entire thing had only worked by chance.

@@brettd2308 I could only guess, the lack of mention on the Wuhuan expedition is probably one of the way to make Cao Cao more of a villain in the novel. The battle of White wolf mountain was indeed one of the remarkable achievement he did

Brett Devall got any RdC pdf? Would like to check this out for myself

He only murdered over 100,000 civilians when he invaded Xu province after all, as retribution for the death of his father.

@@someguy43210 is that true? Or another Luo Guanzhong's propaganda?

Max Johnson I admired him as he was an effective war lord. I’d still also say others were potentially more villainous. However you make a great point

The thing is Cao Cao chose the path of conquest. He could've just stayed quiet and strengthened the defenses in his territory after he gained enough and took control of the Emperor, then waited if the other regional lords would act against him. It makes perfect sense that he's considered a villain considering that he did do a lot of unsavory things throughout his path of conquest. Sure, he tried to re-stabilize the government, but his inability to persuade other regional lords to work together to rebuild the land and him choosing to just attack and try to conquer them didn't do good for the land in the long run. Even his descendants' reign eventually only last for few generations.

Valeriyan that’s a fair evaluation

I see what you did there, mate.

Dad, get off the internet.

best candy ever

Cow Cow

They are the absolute best

Agreed. That series was exceptional.

what about the 1994 version?

@@minuteman3317 book worms think that it is a little bit more accurate, but the characters in 1994 one, their costumes, video quality and making is not good. the characters in 2010 one, make up etc are top notched

No, the acting from the 2010 version by some of the main characters are trash compared to to the 1994 version. CaoCao in 1994 version is more badass and much more interesting. The guy in 2010 version have goofy fake laughs.

Nobunaga burned mount Hiei temple and everyone on it to the ground hence he was called evil - although at the time the monks were dangerously armed warriors who opposed Nobunaga and fought him for years and continued to do so after -

I've heard that that's the Chinese equivalent to "Speak of the Devil"

@@InvictaHistory Kind of, yes.

Do you support Cao Cao? he reminds me of Napoleon.

remind me of jedi knight who won't achieve it lol.

His biggest mistake was not bringing a weather man with him to Red Cliffs.

No one concern about weather with such manpower

@@barbiquearea Pfft even Khong Ming get his tactics BTFO by a simple RAIN!

@@barbiquearea i always wonder had Guo Jia not die to his illness, would red cliff ended differently?

CA did their best to buy some coverage of its shoddy game on literally all history channels. I don't mind it though, that period of Chinese history is awesome.

It was a truly remarkable period in Chinese history.

Tywin meets Littlefinger.

And a bit of Stannis because promoted people based on merit and took upholding the law very seriously.

This is incorrect. Yuan Shao was more like it. A better family name, 3 generations of prime ministers. Cao Cao was more like Little Finger (bad family name) or Jon Snow (raised an army from scratch)

@@cyrilchui2811 but in terms of cunning and politicking they are similar

Cyril Chui Comparing a political and military genius to an idiot like Jon snow is short sighted.

@CXVII 117 R The physician did planned to kill him or so they say.

@CXVII 117 R Cao Cao always had this splitting headache, so the physician recommended to cut open his skull. In 3rd century China. Not to mention the physician, Hua Tuo, was previously known to helped Guan Yu, one of his enemies.

Anti Villain.

@@alexanderchristopher6237 Having part of your skull opened was a fairly normal treatment for that type of sickness back in the day - trepanning. It could kill you but it could be performed safely - there are many skulls of people from history who had trepanned skulls, with the skull showing growth after the hole was bored, meaning the people in question did survive

All the youtubers I've seen, have tried their best to pronounce Chinese names correctly, but they can't because they are not a Chinese native. It's just like how this narrator isn't pronouncing most of his English words correctly, because he wasn't born in an English speaking country. Nothing's ever good enough for enthocentrists.

@@SBN89 Its not like that, those RU-vidrs are just so far off its not even remotely in the range of "good enough", imagine someone pronounce "Dave" as "Bill", or "Alex" as "Ellen", its very similar to that effect, its just a lazy excuse for not doing a 5 seconds google pronunciation search.

@@TheRealIronMan I've heard Chinese immigrants pronounce English names/words waaaaay off, to the point where it sounded like another name/word. This is how accents work. Damn you East Asians for not doing a 5 second google pronunciation search!

I think it means to represent Shanyue (山越), here is a wiki link for it en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanyue for it. Basically, they are a bunch of outlaws mixed up with local indigenous tribes, who would refuse the rule of central authority and commit brigandry along the way.

@@yimingliu7906 you sure it's not the Minyue 闽越?

Yes He’d even lose respect in Guan Yu if he ditched his sworn brothers, just as how he dropped his relations with Yu Jin for him slaying his rebellious brother-in-arm

? ??

yup, thats John Zhu!

Mao's economic plans were garbage compared to Cao.

There's not much to know about Xiahou Dun, since he's a trusted general of Cao Cao, and the author of the book "Romance of the three Kingdoms" had a bias against Cao Cao and the entire Wei kingdom, Xiahou Dun's history wasn't as well-known as his deeds in history