Cao Cao led a large army and trapped Lü Bu in Xiapi City
In Chinese history, there are few stories about the surrender of high-level martial arts generals for their own use, because this kind of behavior is usually regarded as a taboo, which may lead to the opponent preferring to die rather than surrender, but to make themselves lose more and lose more than they lose. However, during the Three Kingdoms period, there was a famous story of Cao Cao killing Lü Bu.
In 198 AD, Cao Cao and Lü Bu fought a fierce battle in Xuzhou. Cao Cao's subordinate generals Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and others all fought against Lü Bu, but they could not defeat him. Eventually, Cao Cao adopted siege tactics and trapped Lü Bu in Xiapi City.
During the siege, Lü Bu's subordinate Chen Gong advised him to surrender, but Lü Bu firmly disagreed. Seeing this, Chen Gong secretly contacted Cao Cao and expressed his willingness to surrender to Cao Cao. When Cao Cao learned of this, he immediately sent his subordinate Zhang Liao to Xiapi City to persuade Lü Bu to surrender.
After Zhang Liao saw Lu Bu, he conveyed Cao Cao's meaning to him, and said that Cao Cao was willing to make him a marquis and share the world. Lu Bu hesitated, so he asked Chen Gong's opinion. Chen Gong was firmly opposed to surrender and advocated holding Xiapi. Lü Bu followed Chen Gong's advice and rejected Cao Cao's persuasion to surrender.
Seeing that Cao Cao could not persuade him to surrender, he decided to launch a general attack. During the battle, Cao Cao's general Dian Wei led a death squad to rush into the enemy line and successfully defeated Lü Bu. Seeing that the general trend had gone, Lu Bu was captured along with Chen Gong and others.
Cao Cao originally planned to take Lu Bu for his own use, and Lu Bu also intended to demote Cao Cao. But at the suggestion of the strategist Guo Jia, Cao Cao decided to kill Lü Bu. The reason was that Lü Bu was highly skilled in martial arts and difficult to control, and he had betrayed Cao Cao's ally Liu Bei. Cao Cao feared that leaving Lü Bu would cause endless trouble, so he ordered Lü Bu to be executed.