Introduction Background Cao Zhi 曹植 (192–232), one of China’s most famous poets, lived during a tumultuous age, when the dissolution of the four-centuries- old Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) was well underway. Within a decade or so of his birth, his father Cao Cao 曹操 (155–220) emerged as the most powerful single leader in a ravaged and divided empire, and in 220, Cao Zhi’s elder brother Cao Pi 曹丕 (187–226) accepted the abdication of the last Han emperor and established himself as the founding emperor of the Wei Dynasty (220–265); he is posthumously known as Emperor Wen of Wei 魏文帝 (r. 220–226). Near the end of his too short life, Cao Zhi famously wrote that he“was born into disorder, grew up among armies.” This was a time of intrepid and astucious figures and of bold and violent acts that captured the Chinese imagination across the centuries. Commonly known as the Three Kingdoms, in all it lasted fewer than a hundred years, but its impact on Chinese history and culture remains far out of proportion to its length. History and popular tradition even- tually came together in a famous fourteenth-century novel, which in turn“has since generated numerous fictional, dramatic, and visual rep- resentations, from opera plays and storytelling performances, to films, television shows, manga, video games, and card games” whose populari- ty has spread beyond China to other parts East Asia and the world beyond.1 The Caos were from Qiao譙 (modern Bo亳 county, Anhui) in the princedom of Pei 沛國. Within four generations, almost precisely a hundred years, the family rose from humble beginnings to place a ruler on the throne of its own dynasty. Although the Wei was short-lived and occupied only a fraction of the territory the Han had controlled, the Caos left an indelible mark on Chinese history and culture. Their origins are, however, lost in time. What remain are various traditions, 1 Xiaofei Tian, The Halberd at Red Cliff: Jian’an and the Three Kingdoms (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Asia Center, 2018), 3. See also J. Michael Farmer, The Talent of Shu: Qiao Zhou and the Intellectual World of Early Medieval Sichuan (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 2007), 1–2. Open Access. © 2021 Robert Joe Cutter, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507038-204 xiv Introduction almost hopelessly confused and largely fictitious, regarding their early ancestors. According to Records of the Three States, Cao Cao was a descendant of Cao Shen 曹參 (d. 190 BCE), a famous minister under Liu Bang 劉邦 (256–195), the founder of the Han Dynasty.2 One account traces Cao Shen’s ancestry and the surname itself back to legendary antiquity to An安, one of the sons of Luzhong 陸終. 3 Legend has it that Luzhong was descended from Zhuanxu 顓頊, who was a descendant of the Yellow Emperor and an ancestor of Yu禹, founder of the Xia dynasty. 4 Later, when Zhou conquered Shang, the Cao family was enfeoffed in Zhu邾, where they remained until scattered by the destruction of Zhu by the state of Chu楚 in the Warring States Period. 5 The epitaph of Cao Cao’s adoptive grandfather Cao Teng 曹騰 also says that the Caos were from Zhu.6 But Cao Cao himself gives a differ- ent genealogy. He reports that he was descended from Caoshu Zhenduo 曹叔振鐸; that is, from a maternal uncle of King Wu of Zhou 周武王 who had been enfeoffed in Cao.7 Cao Zhi apparently subscribed to his 2 Sgz 1.1. The family connection with Cao Shen is surely spurious; see Xu 3. 3 Sgz 1.1, n. 1, Pei Songzhi’s 裴松之 (372–451) commentary quoting Wang Chen’s 王沈 (d. 266) Wei shu 魏書. An’s birth was miraculous. His father is said to have married a Guifang 鬼方 woman. She was pregnant for three years without delivering, so they opened her ribs on the right and left and took out three individuals from each side; see Wang Liqi 王利器, ed., Fengsu tongyi jiaozhu 風俗通義校注 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 1.28 Yuan Ke 袁呵, comp., Zhongguo shenhua chuanshuo cidian 中國神話傳說祠典 (Shanghai: Shanghai ci- shu chubanshe, I980), 218. 4 Wang, Fengsu tongyi jiaozhu, 1.28; Yuan, Zhongguo shenhua chuanshuo cidian, 218; K. C. Chang,“Sandai Archaeology and the Formation of States in Ancient China: Processual Aspects of the Origins of Chinese Civilization,” in The Origins of Chinese Civilization, ed. David N. Keightley, 497 (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1983). 5 Sgz 1.1, n. 1; Zhu’s capital was southeast of modern Qufu 曲阜, Shandong. 6 Sgz 14.455, n. 2. Pei’s quote from the epitaph comes from Jiang Ji’s 蔣濟 (d. 249) “Li jiao yi” 立郊議. On Jiang’s“opinion,” see Howard Goodman, Ts’ao P’i Tran- scendent: The Political Culture of Dynasty-Founding at the End of the Han (Seattle: Scripta Serica, 1998), 184. Cao Teng served in the Han court as a palace official for over thirty years. See HHs 78.2519. 7 Sgz 14.455, n. 2 (Pei’s commentary quoting Cao Cao’s“Jia zhuan” 家傳); Carl Leban,“Ts’ao Ts’ao and the Rise of Wei: The Early Years” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia Univ., 1971), 45. Introduction xv father’s opinion on the origins of the family, for in the dirge he wrote for him,“Dirge for Emperor Wu” 武帝誄, he writes:“How august our King! / Descended from [Lord] Millet, succeeding Zhou.”8 Cao Pi’s son and successor Cao Rui 曹叡 (206–239) had yet another understanding of the family’s lineage. He accepted the assertion of Gaotang Long 高堂隆 that the Caos were descendants of the legendary sage ruler Shun.9 There was nothing abnormal in the Caos’ various attempts to provide themselves with heroic ancestors from the ancient past. This was a normal endeavor on the part of the Chinese upper and ruling classes and served a legitimating function. Especially in times of conflict, at- tacks on rivals could include aspersions about someone’s relatives. In Jian’an 5 (200), Chen Lin 陳琳 (d. 217), then in the employ of Cao Cao’s rival Yuan Shao 袁紹 (154–202), famously wrote a scathing criti- cism of Cao entitled“Wei Yuan Shao xi Yuzhou” 為袁紹檄豫州. In it, he not only vilifies Cao Cao but also refers insultingly to his father and grandfather.10 Reliable information on the Caos’ background really goes back only as far as Cao Cao’s grandfather Cao Teng 曹騰. Cao Teng’s own father may have been a farmer.11 Cao Teng was castrated while still a child so that he might become a palace eunuch.12 The strategy worked. Through- out the Later Han, the number and the power of the eunuchs was on 8 Cutter,“Saying Goodbye: The Transformation of the Dirge in Early Medieval China,” EMC 10–11.1 (2004): 98; Zhao 198. 9 Sgz 14.455–56, n. 2. See also Leban,“Ts’ao Ts’ao and the Rise of Wei,” 46. Gaotang Long’s assertion was disputed by Jiang Ji. Pei’s commentary also men- tions“Shan Jin wen” 禪晉文, which says Youyu 有虞, a reference to Shun舜, was the ancestor of the Caos; Sgz 14.456, n. 2. 10 See Sgz 6.197, n. 1 (quoting Sun Sheng’s 孫盛 [fl. ca. 350] Wei shi chunqiu 魏氏春秋); HHs 64A.2393; and Wx 44.1968. See also Leban,“Ts’ao Ts’ao and the Rise of Wei,” 50–51, and Rafe de Crespigny, Imperial Warlord: A Biography of Cao Cao 155–220 AD (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 129, 240. 11 See Sgz 1.1, n. 2 (quoting Sima Biao’s 司馬彪 [243–306] Xu Han shu 續漢書). See also Leban,“Ts’ao Ts’ao and the Rise of Wei,” 46, n. 10, and de Crespigny, Imperial Warlord, 17. 12 Sgz 1.1, n. 2 (quoting Xu Han shu); Leban,“Ts’ao Ts’ao and the Rise of Wei,” 47; and de Crespigny, Imperial Warlord, 17. See also Paul W. Kroll,“Portraits of Ts’ao Ts’ao: Literary Studies on the Man and the Myth” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Michigan, 1976), 2. xvi Introduction the rise.13 While serving in a minor eunuch office, Cao Teng was select- ed to be a companion to the heir-designate. From then on, he advanced in office, serving four emperors during a period of over thirty years.14 Cao Teng’s adopted son was Cao Song 曹嵩. There were good reasons for a eunuch like Cao Teng to adopt a son. For one thing, the son could carry out sacrifices to the family ancestors and to the father after his death. For another, he could beget his own sons to ensure that these sacrifices continued. After 135, the adopted son of a eunuch was al- lowed to inherit from his father, thereby allowing for the preservation of the family position.15 Cao Song’s origins were already something of an enigma at the time of the compiling of Records of the Three States.16 Two works often quot- ed in its commentary– the anonymous Cao Man zhuan 曹瞞傳 and Guo Ban’s 郭頒 Wei Jin shi yu 魏晉世語– maintain that Cao Song was a member of the Xiahou 夏侯 clan of Qiao.17 If that were true, then Cao Cao later broke a taboo by marrying women from his family into the Xiahou clan. Some scholars argued in the past that it is extremely unlikely that Cao Song was originally a Xiahou.18 Chen Shou writes, “No one has been able to discover from what stock Song was born,”19 and Records of the Three States nowhere says outright that Cao Song was a Xiahou.