Cao Cao was good at poetry, understood the art of war and established An Wen style. There are many poems. Another note, The Art of War, has been handed down from generation to generation. Modern people have compiled his poetry and prose works into the printed edition of Cao Cao Ji. At the same time, he was also good at calligraphy, and was rated as a "wonderful work" by Zhang Huaiguan in the Tang Dynasty.
Cao Cao's literary achievements are mainly reflected in today's poems and essays. There are more than twenty poems by Cao Cao, all of which are Yuefu poems. The content can be roughly divided into three categories. One is related to current affairs, the other is mainly to express ideals, and the other is poetry about immortals.
In artistic style, Cao Cao's poems are unpretentious and unpretentious. They won with deep affection and charm. Poetically, it is characterized by generosity and sadness. Generosity and sadness, originally the keynote of Jian 'an literature, are the most typical and prominent in Cao Cao's poems. In terms of poetic genre, Cao Cao's Yuefu poems did not copy the rules of Han Yuefu, but developed. For example, Lu Luxing and Good Li Xing are both elegies in Han Yuefu, but he uses old topics to express new contents. Cao Cao initiated the tradition of writing current affairs with Yuefu, which had far-reaching influence.