Battle of Fancheng
Cao Pi was recorded to frequently ridicule his subordinates. For example, Yu Jin was captured by Liu Bei's general Guan Yu at the Battle of Fancheng in 219, and was later taken back to Wu and detained there after the Wu invasion of Jing Province. Yu Jin was allowed to return to Wei after Wu briefly became a vassal state under Wei in 221. Cao Pi reinstated Yu Jin as General Who Pacifies the Borders () and announced that he would send Yu Jin back to Eastern Wu – where he had been imprisoned – as an envoy. However, before Yu Jin's departure, he was instructed to travel to Ye to pay his respects at Cao Cao's tomb. When Yu Jin arrived, he found that the emperor had commissioned artists to paint, in his father's tomb, scenes of the Battle of Fancheng. These scenes showed Yu Jin begging for his life to be spared and succumbing to the victorious Guan Yu, while his subordinate Pang De was shown dying an honourable death by resisting the invading forces to his last breath. Upon seeing the vivid mural, Yu Jin was so filled with regret and shame that he fell ill and soon died. Cao Pi further gave the deceased Yu Jin a negative-sounding posthumous title, "Marquis Li" (), for people to remember the latter as the "stony marquis (or vicious marquis)". Wang Zhong, a general who followed Cao Cao for many years, was also a subject of ridicule by Cao Pi.