Is “Guo Jia's posthumous plan to pacify Liaodong” true?
In Chapter 33 of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it is written that Guo Jia left a posthumous letter before his death: 'Guo Gong, on his deathbed, wrote this personally and instructed: "If the Prime Minister follows what is written in the letter, the affairs of Liaodong will be settled."' However, in the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Book of Wei, Annals of Emperor Wu, the strategy of Cao Cao holding his troops and causing Gongsun Kang to kill the two Yuan brothers was actually Cao Cao's own plan: 'The generals asked: "When you returned, Kang sent the heads of Shang and Xi. Why?" He said: "They have always feared Shang and his brother. If I press them urgently, they will unite; if I ease off, they will plot against each other. This is the natural course."' The novel transfers this credit to Guo Jia's 'posthumous plan'.
The novel fictionalizes that Guo Jia left a posthumous plan to pacify Liaodong after his death, but in official history, this plan was actually devised by Cao Cao himself.
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