Chapter 46 2. Liu Bei loses at the starting line

In terms of the speed of success alone, Cao Cao ranked third in the Three Kingdoms era, second only to Gongsun Du in Liaodong and Liu Biao in Jingzhou. This speed starts from the original life of the person concerned and ends with his dominance career. The speed is obtained by subtracting the starting point from the end point and dividing by the time of struggle.Of course, no one can compare to General He Jin in terms of speed of success. This guy is still slaughtering pigs in the slaughterhouse at noon, and washes his feet and goes to the fields in the afternoon to manage state affairs. General He Jin's career did not come from his own efforts, it all depended on nepotism.The cost of success was too low, so neither social resources nor intellectual resources were enough to support it, so it collapsed soon, and it was also implicated in the history of the Eastern Han Empire.

In terms of individual strugglers alone, the one who succeeded the fastest was Gongsun Du of Liaodong. This guy was still a small official in the morning.The second place is Liu Biao of Jingzhou. Like Gongsun Du, Liu Biao took advantage of Dong Zhuo's insufficiency to let his life enter the fast lane of his career.However, because the situation in Jingzhou was more complicated than that in Liaodong, Liu Biao took a lot of trouble, so he fell behind Gongsundu. The third place on the quick success list is a must for all heroes. In the end, Cao Cao seized the opportunity and quickly completed his leap in life and career.

Cao Cao failed to grab the top spot because of age, not intelligence. In terms of age, Cao Cao is the next generation of predecessors such as Dong Zhuo, Gongsun Du, and Liu Biao. The previous generation is sophisticated and has accumulated enough resources to easily seize opportunities.Although Cao Cao was compared by the old guys, he was the best in his own generation. Cao Cao's rapid success is due to three factors: age, intellectual superiority and assets left by his parents. The first one is age. Cao Cao's age advantage is that he is 6 years older than Liu Bei. This 6-year-old difference is doomed to Liu Bei and Liu Xuande's hard fate, and also made Cao Cao's brilliant career.

If Liu Bei's intelligence was more mature and the world more chaotic in his early years, then Liu Xuande would not have to expend so much effort.But the critical time is 6 years away, the world is in chaos, and there are many opportunities, but Liu Bei's mind is still immature, and his influence and popularity are greatly reduced. In the end, Cao Cao took the lead and made a lot of money. He wanted to come in the dead of night , Liu Bei was very depressed when he thought about this matter. There is no way out of depression, Cao Cao not only fills this vacancy just because of his age, the most terrible thing is that Cao Cao's intelligence is extraordinary.He should have carefully studied the secret of success in life, and he discovered such a secret: success in life is actually not directly related to your efforts, but only related to your position.

For example, the great general He Jin could only butcher pigs in his hometown, but when he came to the imperial court, he managed the country in a down-to-earth manner.Another example is Dong Zhuo. At the border, he is at most a hard-working knight, and he may not be able to make a name for himself after exhausting himself and bleeding.But as soon as this person entered the capital, no one could control him, and he immediately became an important leader of the country. Same wisdom, depending on where you fiddle with it.Playing around in the pig slaughterhouse, you are at most a butcher; playing at the border, you are at best a willful knight; but if you are brought to the court, then you are the leader of the country loved by the people.

Cao Cao's crystallization of wisdom is known in history as "holding the emperor to order the princes". It is simple to say that it is easy to use the emperor to command the princes, but people at that time seldom had this understanding. Cao Cao's wisdom was one step ahead of others, which determined his success. In addition, Cao Cao's rapid success is related to the family background his father built for him. Cao Cao's father, Cao Song, bravely lay at the feet of the eunuch Cao Teng and called him his father. This made Cao Cao quickly become a celebrity in the eunuch party from a crowd who didn't know the truth, and he was even able to sit on an equal footing with Yuan Shaoping.If you don't have this family background, like Liu Bei from zero to nothing, this struggle will be hard.

Speaking of the struggle in life, the hardest and most difficult thing is the first pot of gold, nothing is better than starting from scratch, from zero to one.Liu Bei was miserable because no one could solve this problem for him, and when Cao Cao was born, the problem had already been solved.So simply comparing Cao Cao and Liu Bei, then Liu Bei lost at the starting line and had no choice. Age advantage, intelligence advantage, plus one step ahead at the starting line, for Cao Cao, his mission in life is how to quickly complete the leap from quantitative change to qualitative change.