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Cao Wenzhao
Datong general whose victories over the late Ming rebels made him feared in their camps until he was surrounded at Qiutou in 1635 and cut his own throat
At dusk on a hilltop, a large tent stands open with a table holding a map marked with small stones inside, a saddled horse tethered outside, and fire stands burning; campfires dot the river plain below, and one tiny sentry stands on the slope.
- Roles
- Commanders
Cao Wenzhao came from Datong and began his career in Liaodong; for helping recover Yongping and three other towns in 1630 he was raised to assistant chief commander and sent as deputy commander to eastern Yansui. In 1631 he retook Hequ from the rebel Wang Jiayin and became regional commander of Lintao, and in the following years he fought through Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan, so that a popular rhyme said the western bandits trembled to hear of Cao in the army. A quarrel with the censor Liu Lingyu got him transferred to Datong, and after the Qing incursion of 1634 he was sentenced to exile, but was soon allowed to redeem himself as a commander against the rebels. In the sixth month of 1635, pursuing rebels at Qiutou in Zhenning, he was ambushed and encircled by tens of thousands of horsemen, and when he could fight no longer he cut his own throat. The Ming History (Mingshi) calls him the best general of the late Ming.
Life and times
Dates Birth unknown–1635 CE