Question: What were the consequences of Cao's tactical mistake?
About the article "Battle of Red Cliffs", section "Analysis".

Candidate passages:
A combination of Cao Cao's strategic errors and the effectiveness of Huang Gai's ruse had resulted in the allied victory at the Battle of Red Cliffs.
Zhou Yu had previously observed that Cao Cao's generals and soldiers comprised mostly cavalry and infantry, and few had any experience in naval warfare.
Cao Cao also had little support among the people of Jing Province, and thus lacked a secure forward base of operations .
Despite the strategic acumen Cao Cao had displayed in earlier campaigns and battles, in this case he had simply assumed that numerical superiority would eventually defeat the Sun and Liu navy.
Cao's first tactical mistake was converting his massive army of infantry and cavalry into a marine corps and navy: with only a few days of drills before the battle, Cao Cao's troops were ravaged by sea-sickness and lack of experience on water.
Tropical diseases, to which the southerners had long been immune, also plagued the soldiers of the north with the debilitating effects of sickness rampant in Cao Cao's camps.
Although numerous, Cao Cao's men were already exhausted by the unfamiliar environment and the extended southern campaign, as Zhuge Liang observed: "Even a powerful arrow at the end of its flight cannot penetrate a silk cloth" (Military Documents 1979:193).
The uncharacteristically poor preparation and miscalculations displayed by Cao Cao during this campaign may have been partly due to the recent death of his strategist and advisor Guo Jia.
Cao Cao himself had commented: "Had Guo Jia been with us, I would never have got into such trouble" .
Another key advisor, Jia Xu, had recommended after the surrender of Liu Cong that the overtaxed armies be given time to rest and replenish before engaging the armies of Sun Quan and Liu Bei, but Cao Cao disregarded the advice .
Cao Cao's own thoughts regarding his failure at Red Cliffs suggest that he held his own actions and misfortunes responsible for the defeat, rather than the strategies utilised by his enemy during the battle: "... it was only because of the sickness that I burnt my ships and retreated.
It is out of all reason for Zhou Yu to take the credit for himself."
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By autumn in the eighth lunar month, as Cao Cao's army reached the valley of Daling River (大凌河), Tadun and his allies realized what was happening and hastily withdrew from their prepared positions and gathered to face Cao Cao to the north.
With tens of thousands of men gathered, Tadun, along with Yuan Shang, Yuan Xi, and the two Wuhuan chanyu Louban and Wuyan (烏延), met Cao Cao's army at White Wolf Mountain (白狼山; near present-day Lingyuan, Liaoning).
The encounter was sudden for both parties.
Faced with superior numbers and the baggage left in the rear, Cao Cao's lightly armoured men became afraid.
The Wuhuan, on the other hand, were evidently unprepared for battle as they were not in proper formations, nor did they attempt to take the initiative by harassing Cao Cao's march.
Undaunted, Cao Cao climbed a slope to observe the enemy's formations.
He saw that the Wuhuan were unordered, and immediately unleashed his soldiers to exploit this weakness.
With general Zhang Liao leading the offensive, the light force swiftly defeated the Wuhuan cavalry, and Cao Chun's brigade captured Tadun.
Within a short time, Tadun and many of his men were killed and the battle was over.
Over 200,000 Chinese settlers and Wuhuan tribesmen surrendered to Cao Cao. 
Sun Quan put Zhou Yu in command of his 30,000 troops, largely stationed on naval vessels.
Zhou Yu set up a defensive position in conjunction with Liu Bei, whose army garrisoned on land.
Around this time, a spreading plague significantly weakened Cao Cao's forces.
Zhou Yu's subordinate Huang Gai pretended to defect to Cao Cao's side and was accepted by the latter.
Huang Gai brought with him a small group of men and they sailed towards Cao Cao's base on boats.
As the boats approached Cao Cao's fleet, Huang Gai ordered his men to set the boats on fire, and the burning boats crashed into Cao Cao's larger ships.
The fire spread out of control and completely destroyed Cao Cao's entire naval fleet.
Cao Cao's land forces at Wulin (烏林; in present-day Honghu, Hubei) were also attacked and driven back by Sun Quan and Liu Bei's armies.
Cao Cao suffered a drastic defeat at the Battle of Red Cliffs and was forced to retreat north back to Jiangling (江陵, located in present-day Jingjiang 荆江, not to be confused with present-day Jiangling County, Hubei). 
Cao Cao's father Cao Song was living in his hometown Qiao (譙; present-day Bozhou, Anhui) after retirement until it became a battle field when the Campaign against Dong Zhuo happened.
So Cao Song along with the rest of Cao's family moved to Langya (琅邪; present-day Linyi, Shandong) in Xu Province.
By 193, Cao Cao had established a base in Yan Province (covering present-day southwestern Shandong and eastern Henan).
And he invited his father over to his territory.
However, before Cao's family could reunite, they were murdered in the border line of Xu Province and Yan Province.
There were two accounts of how they were murdered.
One was that the governor of Xu Province, Tao Qian, sent his men to kill Cao's family because he was defeated by Cao several times.
The other was that Tao Qian actually sent people to protect Cao's family because he was afraid of Cao Cao.
But his men killed Cao's family for the great fortune they owned.
Regardless of Tao Qian's culpability, Cao Cao intended to hold him responsible for the murder of his father. 
Politico.com declared Cao's victory one of America's"Top 10 Political Upsets" of 2008.
Cao became the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress.
Cao's win made the 2nd District by far the most Democratic district in the nation to be represented by a Republican; the district has a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+28.
Obama carried the district with a staggering 74 percent of the vote, his 35th-best performance in the country and his fifth best in a Southern district.
Cao's victory over a tainted incumbent became a cause for celebration among many in Louisiana.
Wrote Jeff Crouere in his column "Ringside Politics", "The victory strikes a major blow against the reputation of Louisiana as a corrupt state".
House GOP members were particularly vocal in their glee over Cao's defeat of the Democratic incumbent.
Among many other statements, House minority leader John Boehner asserted Cao's win was "a symbol of our future" in a memorandum with "The Future Is Cao" as its subject line.