Who had the most strategy during the Three Kingdoms period?

Cao Cao, during the Three Kingdoms period, was the first in achievement, talent and contribution to the country and the nation. Cao Cao's success is first attributed to his strategic thinking. Cao Cao is a strategist himself, and he also has a talent group who is good at strategic operation. Therefore, Cao Cao himself is a little inexperienced, and he can control the materials used by him. No wonder Zhuge Liang praised "Cao Cao's wisdom is unique to others, and he used his troops like Sun Wu."

The strategic issue, after it is done, looks very simple. In fact, from the perspective of the parties, the appearance and essence of things are often opposite, and all kinds of remarks are mixed with each other, making it difficult for people to make correct judgments and choices. Later generations often see the outstanding performance of Guo Jia, Yu Xun, Xun You, Jia Xu and other think tanks. In fact, there were different views at that time. The hardest thing is that Cao Cao can find the right strategy from the complicated remarks almost every time. There is only one answer. Cao Cao himself has superb strategic planning ability, and his strategic thoughts can be imitated by future generations. In fact, Yuan Shao's men were also full of talents at that time. Yuan Shao basically refused the correct strategy every time, so the river went from bad to worse.

One of the strategic thoughts: take Yanzhou as the root, break the yellow turban insurrectionary and strengthen our strength. After Cao Cao's crusade against Dong Zhuo failed, he led the army into Shandong, defeated the Yellow Scarf Army, selected its elite, reorganized it and became the main force of Cao Cao. When Cao Cao saw that the heroes were busy with the war in the Central Plains, he avoided it, but adopted Yu Xun's strategy: "If you want to take root in the world, you must first decide the land of Yanzhou." After hard work, Cao Cao defeated Tao Qian, Liu Bei and Lu Bu successively, and occupied Yanzhou, Shandong Province, where he first established himself and then expanded.

The second strategic idea: prosper and cultivate the land, and have enough food and soldiers. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, after Dong Zhuo's rebellion, there was chaos in the Central Plains and famine everywhere. In Cao Cao's poem, there was a saying that "white bones are exposed in the wild, and there is no cock crow in a thousand miles", which was the real scene at that time. It is an important reason why Cao Cao finally wiped out the heroes and unified the Central Plains. In the battle between Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, the two armies were at loggerheads in Guandu. Hebei, under the jurisdiction of Yuan Shao, is itself a "mulberry eater", and it is difficult to raise rations. In addition, Cao Cao had a strange plan to burn nest grain, and Yuan Jun was defeated. Later, Cao Cao entered Guanzhong and left Hexi, where Ma Chao, wherever he went, settled the fields, had enough food and grass, and had enough soldiers. Reclamation policy has reduced the people's food burden and won the people's support politically.

The third strategic thought: relying on the emperor to command the princes and win the political battle. The law of war is that politics determines military affairs, and military affairs depends on economy. At this point, it seems that future generations think that Cao Cao won the battle easily and cheaply, but this is not the case in history. In fact, at that time, many people were not optimistic about Emperor Xian of Han Dynasty, and even regarded him as a political burden. After Dong Zhuo's rebellion, Li Jue and other Kansai generals saw the famine in Guanzhong, and the limited salary was simply not enough. They also came to raise emperors and officials, treating Emperor Xian of Han as garbage and bullying him in every way. Yuan Shao's advisers first proposed to see the emperor and control his ministers. Yuan Shao thought that there were not many benefits and many troubles, so he didn't adopt them. Cao Cao, on the other hand, listened to Yu Xun's strategy: "Serving the master, obeying the people's will, obeying the people's will and grasping the public to serve the hero, roughly;" Fu is handsome and virtuous. If it is determined from time to time, the four parties will have a heart, and then it will be vulgar. " So, he personally led the army to Luoyang to welcome Emperor Han Xian to Xuchang. Since then, the eyes of the Quartet have focused on Xuchang.

The fourth strategic thought: disintegration and mutual destruction. One of the essential characteristics of strategy is confrontation. During the Three Kingdoms period, the heroes were separated, as Zhuge Liang said, "Since Dong Zhuo, the heroes have risen together, and there are countless people in the counties of the whole state." Cao Cao can rise from the melee, often facing several opponents at the same time. Strategists of all ages should avoid fighting on both sides and being attacked on all sides. In order to avoid being attacked from many sides, Cao Cao made good use of the strategy of swaying vertically and horizontally to divide and disintegrate, alienate the enemy alliance, expand the contradictions of the enemy, profit from it and defeat them one by one. For example, when we just occupied Shandong, we had to deal with three enemies, Yuan Shu, Lu Bu and Liu Bei. Because of the enemy's design, Cao Cao first made Yuan Lu attack, Liu Yuan attack and Liu Lu attack, which achieved the effect that the enemy used it for us and I collected the embers. For another example, Guan Yu relieved the siege of Xiangfan, and also induced Sun Quan to go west and go down the river, fighting with Sun Liu first. After Wu Jun captured Jingzhou, the elite Guan Yu army collapsed without fighting.

As for marching with troops and winning by surprise, Cao Cao has also reached the realm of "like Sun Wu" in this respect, but this belongs to the category of campaign command militarily, so I won't discuss it in detail here.