Cao Teng

Biography & Historical Record

Cao Teng (曹腾, Tào Đằng), courtesy name Jixing (季兴, Quý Hưng), was an Eastern Han court eunuch from Qiao County, Pei State (沛国谯县; huyện Tiêu, nước Bái). He served four successive Han emperors from the reign of Emperor An through the mid-second century (roughly 126 into the 150s AD), rose to high Inner Court rank, and was enfeoffed as Marquis of Fei Village (费亭侯). Childless by nature of his office, he adopted Cao Song (曹嵩, Tào Tung), through whom the later warlord Cao Cao (曹操, Tào Tháo) inherited the Cao surname. Cao Teng died of natural causes in the late 150s. When Wei rulers sanctified their ancestors, Cao Rui (曹叡, Tào Duệ) honored him in 229 as Emperor Gao of Wei (高皇帝) — the only eunuch in Chinese official history granted an imperial posthumous title.

Service at the Eastern Han Court

Cao Teng entered palace service young and spent decades inside the Forbidden apartments as a trusted attendant of imperial princes and emperors. Unlike many contemporaries vilified solely as corrupt “Ten Attendants” types, the Hou Hanshu preserves a more measured portrait: he recommended able men, avoided some of the worst factional excesses, and cultivated a reputation for prudence that later historians cited when explaining why the Cao house could claim respectability despite eunuch origins. His marquisate at Fei Village confirmed that eunuch power under the mid-Eastern Han could still be rewarded with noble rank. That accumulated favor and wealth underwrote the adoption of Cao Song and, a generation later, Cao Cao’s education and early capital connections.

Adoption of Cao Song & the Cao Ancestral Line

Because eunuchs could not father heirs, Cao Teng formally adopted Cao Song, transferring surname, estate expectations, and political capital. Chen Shou’s Sanguozhi traces Cao Cao’s house through this adoption rather than through an unbroken agnatic Cao line of warrior aristocrats. Pei Songzhi’s notes on Cao Song’s uncertain birth (including Xiahou theories) sit downstream of Cao Teng’s choice: whatever Cao Song’s blood origin, the legal and social gateway into the Cao surname was Cao Teng. When Cao Pi (曹丕, Tào Phi) founded Wei and Cao Rui later arranged ancestral temples, Cao Teng’s posthumous elevation as Emperor Gao completed the ideological conversion of a eunuch-patron household into an imperial house.

Role in Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1 (Three Heroes Swear Brotherhood in the Peach Garden): Cao Teng appears only in the novel’s genealogical preface to Cao Cao. Luo Guanzhong names him as the eunuch who adopted Cao Song (Jugao), making Cao Teng the adoptive grandfather of Cao Cao. The same passage adds that Cao Song’s original surname was Xiahou, so readers meet Cao Teng as the court figure whose adoption created the Cao–Xiahou kinship web before Cao Cao ever rides against the Yellow Turbans. Cao Teng does not speak, fight, or attend the Peach Garden oath; his entire novel function is ancestral — to explain how a eunuch-linked Qiao family produced the central antagonist-hero of the saga.

Later chapters never return Cao Teng to the stage. When Chapter 10 murders Cao Song in Xu and Cao Cao invades, the narrative assumes the household Cao Teng founded: Cao Song’s wealth, Cao Cao’s claim to avenge a Cao patriarch, and the cousins Xiahou Dun (夏侯惇, Hạ Hầu Đôn) and Xiahou Yuan already serving in Cao Cao’s army all rest on the Chapter 1 lineage anchored by Cao Teng’s adoption.

Cao Teng (曹腾) — Historical & Literary Timeline

For detailed historical records, archives, and official chronicles, explore Cao Teng on Wikipedia.

Key Relationships

Family

• Cao Meng (曹萌, Tào Manh): Traditional father of Cao Teng in genealogical notices (no dedicated site post).
• Lady Wu (吴氏, Ngô Thị): Recorded spouse in household tradition associated with Cao Teng’s estate (no dedicated site post).
• Cao Song (曹嵩, Tào Tung): Adoptive son; later Grand Commandant and father of Cao Cao.
• Cao Cao (曹操, Tào Tháo): Adoptive grandson; warlord and founder of Wei’s power base.
• Cao De (曹德, Tào Đức): Great-grandson via Cao Song; murdered with Cao Song in Xu (193).
• Cao Pi (曹丕, Tào Phi): Great-great-grandson who founded Wei and elevated Cao Song as Emperor Tai.
• Cao Rui (曹叡, Tào Duệ): Later Wei emperor who posthumously titled Cao Teng Emperor Gao (229).

Friends

• Court colleagues of the mid-Eastern Han Inner Palace whom Hou Hanshu credits Cao Teng with recommending to office; individual names vary by memorial tradition rather than a fixed novel brotherhood.

Enemies

• No personal battlefield enemies in novel or history; political critics of eunuch power in the Partisan Prohibitions era opposed the class Cao Teng represented, though he himself is not cast as a Ten Attendants villain in ROTK.

Other

• Xiahou Dun (夏侯惇, Hạ Hầu Đôn): Linked through the novel/Pei theory that Cao Song was born Xiahou before Cao Teng’s adoption created the Cao line.
• Emperor Xian (汉献帝刘协, Hán Hiến Đế): Last Han emperor of the age shaped by Cao Cao — the political endpoint of the household Cao Teng founded.
• Emperor Ling (汉灵帝刘宏, Hán Linh Đế): Later Han sovereign under whom Cao Song, Cao Teng’s heir, reached Grand Commandant.