You can look at Mr. Yi Zhongtian's "Three Kingdoms", which has a profound analysis of Cao Cao.
The Three Kingdoms is Luo Guanzhong's novel, so we should create a positive image and a negative image. Therefore, Cao Cao is a negative image.
Without Battle of Red Cliffs, China would have been unified long ago, and there would have been no later Three Kingdoms, Jin Dynasty and Northern and Southern Dynasties.
I'll give you some bibliographies that you may be interested in: Shu Wei and the History of the Three Kingdoms (by Chen Shou, with an annotated edition by Pei Songzhi).
And Yi Zhongtian's "Pin San Guo"
The description of the first two books has always been to minimize personal emotional factors.
The last one is that modern people re-examine Cao Cao with modern economic, political, human and moral optometry, so it is quite good on the whole.