In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Meng De, a thief who seeks Dong, offered a knife. This is a thrilling and colorful story. From Cao Cao's initiative to assassinate Dong Zhuo, to Dong Zhuo's seeing in the mirror when he drew his sword, and then to the "Catch and Release Cao Cao" on the way to escape, they met Chen Gong, a like-minded comrade-in-arms, and they fled together. However, people in the same trench have different personalities. Cao Cao was suspicious, staged a bloody scene in Lv Boshe's home, and even said something like "I'd rather lose the world", which instantly lowered the lower limit of being a man, so Chen Gong broke up halfway. This series is the climax of romance.

Meng De's treacherous face is basically formed in these two chapters, and future plays will follow this path.

However, the assassination of Dong Zhuo is a fiction. Letting Cao Cao do such a thing is an insult to his IQ. Cao Cao is a man with a plan and would never do such a brave thing. Second, it is not feasible. It turns out that Dong Zhuo is a powerful eldest brother, who can pick up Lu Bu's heavy square painting halberd and throw it far away. Now he is definitely an excellent javelin thrower, and Lyu3 bu4 never leaves. What can you do?

In addition, according to the plot of Cao Cao's offering a knife in Romance, Lu Bu and Cao Cao should meet at close range. However, there is an interesting historical fact in the historical data "Di Xian Chun Qiu": After Lu Bu was captured, he said to Cao Cao: Cao, you have lost weight. Cao Cao was surprised and asked, Have we met? "Why do you know loneliness?" Lu Bu said: When I was in Luoyang, Dong Zhongshu met his ministers in Shiwen Garden. I met you. You were plump. Cao Cao said, "That's because I miss you and want to catch you one day earlier." .

This shows that Cao Cao did not have close contact with Lu Bu when he offered a knife to Dong Zhuo, otherwise Lu Bu would not be so surprised when he said he was thin.

Cao Cao did not escape because of assassination. His escape is very simple. Because he didn't like Dong Zhuo, he changed his name and ran away quietly. As a result, when I was in zhongmou county, I was caught by Tingchang and handed over to Zhongmou County Magistrate. This county magistrate is a smart man and loves heroes, but instead of following Cao Cao in the middle of the night, he openly released Meng De's classmates. "Catch and release Cao Cao" does exist, and so does the time and place.

But these two fictional plots are reasonable, and the rationality of literature lies not in the authenticity of its individual cases, but in the universal rationality. It is true that heroes in the Eastern Han Dynasty opposed Dong Zhuo, and Cao Cao was also a hero and one of the governors who opposed Dong Zhuo. In history, Cao Cao didn't assassinate Dong Zhuo, but in the novel, it is only natural to hand this treasure knife over to Cao Cao.

The novel focuses on the concentration of characters and plots. Since the Zhongmou county magistrate who released Cao Cao has no name in history, we might as well put this hat on Chen Gong's head to echo Cao Cao's unwillingness to kill Chen Gong, so that Cao Cao's love for Chen Gong has a convincing beginning and the whole story has a sense of wholeness and echo. In history, Cao Cao did kill Chen Gong with tears in his eyes. "Mao sent it in tears, and the palace didn't care." .

Cao Cao fled quietly, which accords with the truth of history; Cao Cao's thrilling escape is in line with artistic truth.