Cao Pi, the second son of Cao Cao, was the founder of the Wei state in the Three Kingdoms Period. Not long after Cao Cao's death, he established the Wei Kingdom to replace the Eastern Han regime and set Luo Yang as the capital.

In addition, Cao Pi was a literateur well versed in literature, reputed as "Three Caos" together with his father Cao Cao and his younger brother Cao Zhi. They gathered around quite a number of writers and formed a Jian'an literati group. His Yan Ge Xing (A Song of the Yan Country) is the first seven-character poem extant, and his "Lunwen" of Dianlun ("On Literary Form" in On the Confucian Classics) is the earliest existing monograph of literary criticism.