The Tianshi school was officially recognized by ruler Cao Cao in 215, legitimizing Cao Cao's rise to power in return.

It began when the ruler of Wei, Cao Cao, was defeated by Liu Bei and Sun Quan at the Battle of Red Cliffs.

By traditional Chinese historiography, no Three Kingdoms era officially existed, since in a legal sense the Mandate of Heaven was passed legitimately from the Han Emperor Xian to Cao Wei, and then on to the Jìn Dynasty.

Cao Cao, directly to Yuan Shao's south, was engaged in a struggle against Yuan Shu and Liu Biao, who occupied respectively the Huai River basin and middle Yangtze regions.

By 196, when he was received by Cao Cao, most of the smaller contenders for power had either been absorbed by larger ones or destroyed.

This was an extremely important move for Cao Cao following the suggestion from his primary advisor, Xun Yu, commenting that by supporting the authentic emperor, Cao Cao would have the formal legal authority to control the other warlords and force them to comply in order to restore the Han Dynasty.

Cao Cao, whose zone of control was the precursor to the state of Cao Wei, had raised an army in the winter of 189.

In 197, Yuan Shu, who was at odds with Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, and Liu Bei, felt assured of victory with his subordinate's conquests, and thus declared himself emperor of the Cheng Dynasty.

Lü Bu's men deserted him, Yuan Shu's forces never arrived as reinforcements, and he was bound by his own subordinates Song Xian and Wei Xu and executed on Cao Cao's order.

Xian was persuaded by Cao Cao ( 155 – 220 CE ), then Governor of Yan Province in modern western Shandong and eastern Henan, to move the capital to Xuchang in 196 CE.

Yuan's power was greatly diminished after Cao defeated him at the Battle of Guandu in 200 CE.

After Cao's defeat at the naval Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 CE, China was divided into three spheres of influence, with Cao Cao dominating the north, Sun Quan ( 182 – 252 CE ) dominating the south, and Liu Bei ( 161 – 223 CE ) dominating the west.

Guan Yu was not very appreciative towards Cao Cao's other gifts, but when Cao gave him the steed, he knelt down and thanked Cao.

When Cao Cao inquired the reason, Guan Yu replied, " Sir, I'm very grateful to you for the steed because with it, I can reach my sworn brother in a shorter period of time if I ever know where he is.

The match was very close in the middle game when Cao Pi's servants brought some prunes, some of them were poisoned.

Neither side could gain an advantage over each other after 50 bouts, by then Cao was very impressed by Xu Huang's skill.

However, according to Weilüe, Cao Hong, Cao Cao's younger cousin, requested the presence of Sima in order to start a friendship with the latter, who did not have a very high opinion of Cao Hong and feigned illness by carrying a cane in order to avoid meeting him.

The match was very close in the middle game when Cao Pi's servants brought some prunes, some that were poisoned.

In this statement, Sun Quan commented that he was very pleased with two things that Lu Su had done for him: drafting a plan for him to emerge as one of three major contending powers in China ; and helping him arrive at his resolution to ally with Liu Bei against Cao Cao just before the Battle of Red Cliffs.

This made Cao Ren very unhappy.

Admired by Yuan, Cao managed to rise very quickly.

As he became a teenager, Emperor Duy Tân came under the influence of the mandarin Trần Cao Vân, who was very much opposed to the colonial administration.

His solution was to fill the ARVN with Catholic political cronies and friends like Cao, Le Quang Tung, and Ton That Dinh, who had little military ability, but were very likely to help stop a coup attempt.

Cao Cao then took the wife of Zhang Xiu's late uncle as a concubine, which made Zhang Xiu very displeased.

Zhuge Liang then wrote Cao Zhen a letter full of insulting remarks, upon reading which the latter was so filled with rage that he died that very night in camp.

Cao Fang was very angry about the deaths of Li Feng and Zhang Ji, and later in 254, his associates submitted a plan to him — that when Sima Shi's brother Sima Zhao would arrive at the palace for an official visit before heading to his defense post at Chang ' an, to kill Sima Zhao and seize his troops, and then use those troops to attack Sima Shi.

Despite Empress Dowager Guo's intentions and Cao Mao's own intelligence, they made very little impact in trying to stem the tide of the Simas ' growing power.

Although his position was not very high, he held an intimate connection with many celebrities of Cao Wei, his best friends were Xiahou Xuan and Deng Yang ( 鄧颺 ), both were well-known associates of Cao Shuang.

Cao Cao was pleased and invited Zhang Xiu and his men to a banquet.

After the entrenchment was completed, Yu finally sought audience with Cao and explained the situation to the latter, who was pleased and lauded the commander for his leadership quality.

Cao Cao was pleased to see his distant nephew, whom he described as the thousand-li horse of his clan.

In 221, Zhang Liao traveled to Luoyang for an audience with Cao Pi, the emperor of the newly-founded state of Wei, who compared the general to Shao Hu ( 召虎 ) ¹.

When Cao Cao heard of the victory, he praised Xu and compared the general to Sun Tzu and Tian Rangju¹.

The following are the traditional classifications of Wu, but one of China's foremost dialectologists Cao Zhiyun () has rearranged some of the divisions based on the greater corpus of data available now compared to when these divisions were made.

When Cao Cao heard of Pang De's unwavering determination, he compared Pang's loyalty to Yu Jin's and was moved to tears.

Despite Zang's arrogance, Cao surprisingly did not punish his vassal, instead, he humbly told Zang, " Your conduct can be compared to the ancient sages, it's my desire you can behave thus.

The Hata can be compared to other families who came from the continent during the Kofun period: the descendants of the Chinese Han Dynasty, by Prince Achi no Omi, ancestor of the Yamato no Aya clan, the Sakanoue clan, the Tamura clan, the Harada and the Akizuki clan ; also, the descendants of the Chinese Cao Wei Dynasty by the Takamuko clan.

In ancient China, large canals for river transport were established as far back as the Warring States ( 481 – 221 BC ), the longest one of that period being the Hong Gou ( Canal of the Wild Geese ), which according to the ancient historian Sima Qian connected the old states of Song, Zhang, Chen, Cai, Cao, and Wei.

Wang Lequan, Wang Zhaoguo, Hui Liangyu, Liu Qi, Liu Yunshan, Li Changchun, Wu Yi, Wu Bangguo, Wu Guanzheng, Zhang Lichang, Zhang Dejiang, Luo Gan, Zhou Yongkang, Hu Jintao, Yu Zhengsheng, He Guoqiang, Jia Qinglin, Guo Boxiong, Cao Gangchuan, Zeng Qinghong, Zeng Peiyan, Wen Jiabao.

* Zhang Miao ( defeated by Cao Cao )

* Cao Zhang, Chinese general, son of Cao Cao ( d. 223 )

* Zhang He, general under Cao Cao ( d. 231 )

In 194, Cao Cao went to war with Tao Qian of Xu Province, because Tao's subordinate Zhang Kai had murdered Cao Cao's father Cao Song.

Liu Bei, together with his followers Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, fled to Cao Cao, who accepted him.

* Zhang He, military leader under Cao Cao ( b. 167 )

* Zhang Xiu, minor warlord who later served Cao Cao

* Cao Zhang, son of Cao Cao and general of Wei ( b. 189 )

Zhang Hong, whom Sun Ce had earlier sent as a liaison to the warlord Cao Cao, also returned from Cao's domain to assist Sun Quan.