There are many stories about Cao Cao when he was a teenager.

When Cao Cao was a child, he liked those lackeys and birds, uninhibited, unprofessional, wandering, and acting as a second-generation son of a cheating father. His uncle was very unaccustomed to it, and repeatedly told his father Cao Song about Cao Cao's behavior, and asked this father to discipline him well. Cao Cao was very annoyed with him, so when he saw his uncle once, he pretended to have crooked eyes and slanted his mouth and fell to the ground. When the uncle saw it, he was very anxious and asked him what was wrong, and Cao Cao said, "I had a stroke." His uncle then hurried to find Cao Song, and after Cao Song came, Cao Cao did not pretend to have a stroke and stood as usual. Cao Song asked, "Didn't my uncle say that you had a stroke, what's the matter?" Cao Cao said: "I didn't have a stroke, maybe my uncle annoyed me, so he said bad things about me." After he provoked it, in the future, his uncle told Cao Song Cao Cao bad words, Cao Song didn't listen, and Cao Cao became even more debauched. (Note 1)

There is also a story about Cao Cao and Yuan Shao when they were children. When Cao Cao was young, he and Yuan Shao often liked to be rangers together. Once, when they went to see someone getting married, they took the opportunity to sneak into their master's garden and shout in the middle of the night: "There is a thief! The people in the Qinglu all ran out to investigate, and Cao Cao went in and pulled out his knife to rob the bride. Then he and Yuan Shao quickly ran out, got lost halfway, and fell into the thorn bushes, Yuan Shao accidentally let the bushes hook his clothes and couldn't move. Cao Cao pointed at Yuan Shao again and shouted: "The thief is here!" Yuan Shao was in a hurry, and quickly jumped out by himself, and both of them finally ran away.

Ah Pu was very harmful when he was a child, he had a lot of ghost ideas, was naughty and mischievous, liked to do nonsense, and liked to mix. From this aspect, it can be seen that Cao Cao's education when he was a child was not good, although the Cao family had a considerable political status at that time, and was very wealthy economically, but the Cao family really did not improve in culture and education. As mentioned earlier, the Cao family originated from Cao Teng, and when it came to Cao Song's generation, it was actually the second generation, Cao Song's education as a child raised by eunuchs was not good, but relying on the power of eunuchs, Cao Song's early stage was smooth, so he didn't pay much attention to culture and education, and the education received by Cao Cao, the son of those big families, was naturally not much better.

Soon in the third year of Xiping (174), Cao Cao, who was only 20 years old, was promoted to filial piety (Note 2) and became a lang official. Well, the bad boy Cao Apu has also become filial piety, why? After all, ability was indeed one thing in that era, but having a background was more important, and there were people in the DPRK who were easy to do! Filial piety was a qualification to be an official at that time, Lang Guan was actually a kind of transit officer, generally the emperor's bodyguard, and he could see and hear a lot of major events in the court and China around the emperor, which was a way to cultivate talents in the Han Dynasty, and he could soon take up other official positions after being a Lang official, but it would provide Cao Cao with a higher starting point than others, which can be seen from Dong Zhuo's experience.

Soon after, Cao Cao was recommended by Sima Fang to be the lieutenant of northern Luoyang. Who is Sima Fang? Sima Yi's father, the Sima family and the Cao family have begun to contact at this time, and later after Cao Cao became the king of Wei, he also invited Sima Fang to drink in Yecheng, and also talked about this matter with Sima Fang.

As for the official position of lieutenant in northern Luoyang, it is equivalent to the director of the public security bureau in northern Luoyang, this position can be said to be not easy to do, because Luoyang, as the capital of the Later Han Dynasty, has too many powerful and wealthy dignitaries, and Cao Cao was not able to serve long before being transferred.

When Cao Cao first took office, he wanted to make a career. As soon as he arrived, he overhauled the yamen, made more than a dozen five-colored sticks, hung them on both sides of the county yamen, used as a deterrent, these sticks are not simply used for decoration, in the first few months, as long as there are people who violate the law, whether they are rich or not, they have walked under Cao Cao's sticks.

Although Cao Cao offended many people by doing this, he couldn't stand the power of his family, and there was a father who had been the third prince to support him, and others were helpless, until a brother called Jian Tu broke the law. What did he do? In ancient Chinese cities, there was generally a night ban, that is, you couldn't walk outside casually at night, and Jian Tu ran outside to take a turn and let Cao Cao catch him.

Jian Tu didn't take Cao Cao in his eyes at first, why? Because he is Jian Shuo's uncle. Who is Jian Shuo? As mentioned above, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty entrusted Liu Xie to this old man, Jian Shuo was a great eunuch who once controlled the military power of the whole country and He Jin was opposed, although Jian Shuo was not so strong at that time, but he was already the number one person among the eunuchs.

Maybe others will compromise when they hear Jian Shuo's name, but Cao Cao doesn't eat this, the Son of Heaven is guilty of the same crime as the common people, who are you trying to do, isn't it Jian Shuo's uncle, my grandfather is still Cao Teng! Someone! Hit me hard. As a result, the picture was so tragically hung under the five-color stick.

This time Cao Cao's northern lieutenant of Luoyang couldn't do it, although Jian Shuo had no excuse for this matter, because the eunuch background of the Cao family was too deep, it was not easy to retaliate against Cao Cao openly, but it was no problem to move his hands and feet, so he ran to the emperor and pretended Cao Cao's good words, and let Cao Cao Mingsheng secretly descend to make a Dunqiu order. Later, Cao Cao was implicated in Emperor Ling's abolition of Empress Song, and his brother-in-law Song Qi and his father and brother were killed, and Cao Cao was dismissed.

Cao Cao did not only offend the eunuch this time in history.

In "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", there is a story of Cao Cao's assassination of Dong Zhuo, although this is not in the official history, but this story has a prototype, and one of the prototypes of the story is Cao Cao's assassination of Zhang Rang.

Zhang Rang was an iconic eunuch in the late Han Dynasty and a well-known villain in the entire history of Chinese eunuchs. However, one day, Cao Cao went to Zhang Rang's house to assassinate him. At that time, Cao Cao ran to Zhang Rang's room privately, and it was a pity that Zhang Rang found out, but Cao Cao was not panicked at all, he took a halberd, hit from the bedroom to the hall, and killed from the hall to the courtyard wall, none of the guards dared to approach, and finally, watched him go over the wall.

But Zhang Rang didn't pursue Cao Cao afterwards, this may be because Cao Cao was not very old at this time, and Zhang Rang saw it as a child's nonsense, so he didn't take it to heart, after all, this was not a very clear assassination, and Cao Cao did not succeed in the assassination and did not cause any damage. On the other hand, it may also be that Zhang Rang is looking at Cao Song's face, after all, everyone is in the camp of eunuchs, and Cao Teng's influence is still there, so Zhang Rang doesn't care much.

After Cao Cao was dismissed, he returned to his hometown of Qian County to live idlely. In the third year of Guanghe (180), Cao Cao was recruited by the imperial court again because of his ability to learn ancient things in the Ming Dynasty and was appointed as a councilor.

Note 1: This content is from "Cao Concealment Biography", the author is Wu Ren, and Cao Cao is mostly **, which needs to be treated carefully.

Note 2: It is recorded that Cao Song's friend Lu Bohao gave Cao Cao filial piety when he was an official in Shandong, but I did not find the specific source of the historical documents.