A generation of heroes Cao Cao, a man in the Three Kingdoms, why the image of the official hat of the Song Dynasty is always shown in the opera

As a hero of the Three Kingdoms period, although Cao Cao often showed the image of a villain, this did not affect his love for future generations. However, if you are very concerned about Cao Cao, then you will find something interesting. That is, in many operas, Cao Cao showed the image of Song Dynasty official hat and painted face on his head. Cao Cao was clearly a figure in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, so why did he wear an official hat of the Song Dynasty in Peking Opera?

The real reason for wearing the official hat of the Song Dynasty

We all know that in Luo Guanzhong's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Cao Cao is described as a treacherous, cunning, suspicious, and domineering, negative image of such a character. But can a novel really "smear" Cao Cao? The answer is of course no. Cao Cao was "blackened", in fact, he went through three stages in history.

1. The first time Cao Cao was "blackened" was in the Northern Wei Dynasty

Emperor Xiaowen was from the Xianbei tribe. In order to declare his orthodox status to the world, he respected Cao Cao and made a series of sinicization measures. Including moving the capital to Luoyang, reforming the official system, banning Hu Fu Hu, changing Xianbei's surname to Han, etc., his Northern Wei and Cao Wei are also imaginative.

is precisely this series of reform measures that made Emperor Xiaowen offend many people in the process. Therefore, many people regarded Cao Cao as a "comrade" of Emperor Xiaowen, and therefore began the road of "blackening" Cao Cao.

2. The second time Cao Cao was "blackened" was in the Song Dynasty

The second time Cao Cao was "blackened" began in the Song Dynasty's Cheng Zhu Lixue ( Cheng Zhu Lixue, also known as "Cheng Zhu Daoxue", is the Song Dynasty One of the main schools of Ming Confucianism, and one of the schools of Confucianism that has the greatest influence on future generations (). As one of the schools that have the greatest influence on later generations, Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism has its orthodox thinking that only Liu Bei is authentic, while Cao Cao and Sun Quan are both "Han thieves." Therefore, another road to "blackening" Cao Cao began.

In addition to the Song Dynasty, there were frequent foreign invasions. The Liao and Jin forces in the north were once equal to the strength of the Song Dynasty. This situation, from a historical point of view, is very similar to the situation when the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu were in power during the Three Kingdoms period. During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao used to hold the emperor to order the princes, doing a transgression in the name of the emperor to direct others to do things according to his own will.

So people once again put Cao Cao on the "critical stage". Later, he added the image of a harlequin with a painted face in the opera, and he wore an official hat of the Song Dynasty, which was criticized by the Song Dynasty.

3. The third time that Cao Cao was "blackened" was in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"

novel "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" about Cao Cao's "blackening", presumably everyone knows very well. Later in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty, Cao Cao was transformed into a pure white face in Peking opera. People think that Cao Cao is a well-known traitor after all, and shouldn't be said to be just like that, so he has evolved into a clean horn. Despite this, in many dramas at that time, the image of a harlequin as the official hat of Cao Cao in the Song Dynasty was still followed. Z1z

summarizes:

Cao Cao was so arrogantly disguised as a drama that he was crowned and worn by future generations, so over time, people believed in the image of Cao Cao as a traitor. However, anyone who knows a little about official history knows that the real Cao Cao in the history of is a "superior master" and "a minister of the world."