At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, china was divided into three kingdoms, and After more than 400 years of unification of the Western Han And Eastern Han Dynasties, China once again ushered in a division, from the first year of Yankang (220) when the Wei Wen Emperor Cao Pi usurped the Han Dynasty, to the first year of Taikang (280) when Sima Yan, the Emperor of Jinwu, sent a large army to attack Eastern Wu to achieve reunification again, and China fell into a situation of division of the Three Kingdoms for more than half a century. And the first act to break the stalemate of the Three Kingdoms, there is no doubt that Cao Wei's famous general Deng Ai smuggled into Yinping to attack Shu Han, and after Shu Han was attacked and destroyed by Deng Ai, the general trend of the unification of the three kingdoms was already unstoppable.
But what surprised many people was that Deng Ai, who had originally had the great merit of destroying the country, not only did not have time to really enjoy the reward, but he was killed before he even returned to the territory of the northern Wei state, but he was also saddled with the stigma of rebellion, and it took a full ten years before he was rehabilitated.
In the fourth year of Jingyuan (263), the great general Sima Zhao, who controlled the government of the Wei state, formulated a strategy of first attacking the Shu state and then attacking the State of Wu down the river, and it was Sima Zhao's confidant Zhong Hui who was responsible for leading the main force of the Shu army. The Wei army was divided into three routes, deng Ai, as the general of Zhenxi, had the task of leading an army of more than 30,000 people to contain the main force of the Shu general Jiang Wei in Gansu, while The Yongzhou Assassin Shi Zhuge Xu led more than 30,000 troops to encircle Jiang Wei's rear road, so that Jiang Wei could not return to Defend Shuzhong. As for the Zhenxi general Zhong Hui, who led the main force to destroy Shu, with more than 100,000 people, taking advantage of The fact that Jiang Wei was tied down in Gansu, he took advantage of the situation and marched from Hanzhong to Chengdu, the capital of Shu Han.
Through this arrangement, it is not difficult for us to find that if the development of things is really carried out in accordance with this pre-war design, then although deng Ai has a share of the work of destroying Shu, he is definitely not the first merit, because attacking Chengdu to destroy the Shu state is obviously the task of the main force of more than 100,000 people led by the Zhenxi general Zhong Hui, but we all know in later generations that deng Ai smuggled across Yinping and took the lead in capturing Chengdu.
The reason is simple, the ideal is very full, but the reality is very bone. The early deployment of the Wei army was supposedly not too much of a problem. However, zhuge Xu wrapped up Jiang Wei's back road and stopped Jiang Wei from defending this link, but there was a problem. After Jiang Wei knew that Zhong Hui would lead his troops to attack Hanzhong, he actually understood that Hanzhong could not be defended. So Jiang Wei decided to return to Shuzhong, and when zhuge Xu was blocked in the front and chased by Yang Xin and others under Deng Ai's Jincheng Taishou Yang Xin and others, Jiang Wei used a move to attack the west, pretending to detour north to the east to attack the rear of Zhuge Xu's army, and successfully let Zhuge Xu rush to it, and left the important place where Jiang Wei would meet the division, the bridgehead, and as a result, Jiang Wei did not really attack Zhuge Xu's army, but quickly passed through the bridgehead.
After joining forces with Liao Hua and Zhang Yi, Jiang Wei, Liao Hua, Zhang Yi, and others used the danger of the Sword Pavilion to block the Wei army's attack. And the danger of the Sword Pavilion, the later Li Bai in the poem "Shu Dao Difficulty" has a "one husband when the pass, ten thousand fu can not open" evaluation, Zhong Hui led the army was helplessly blocked by Jiang Wei outside the Sword Pavilion, when the long time could not be attacked, the Wei army's grain and grass also began to have problems, Zhong Hui felt that this time it was impossible to destroy the Shu kingdom, so he prepared to return to the dynasty.
Zhong Hui's idea was opposed by Deng Ai, who wrote to deng ai that now that the Shu army had just suffered a major defeat, it should be chased by victory, and if it took the Yinping path, although dangerous but unexpected, it could be directly inserted into Fu County, which was equivalent to attacking the heart of Shu Han. If Jiang Wei came to the rescue, Zhong Hui could attack the Sword Pavilion and lead the troops into Shu; if Jiang Wei did not come, the empty troops in FuXian would inevitably be unstoppable, so that they could successfully enter Shu.
So Deng Ai finally took advantage of the opportunity that Jiang Wei was tied down in the Sword Pavilion by Zhong Hui, took the Yinping Trail, experienced nine deaths, opened roads in every mountain and built bridges, and even crossed more than seven hundred miles of no man's land, and almost fell into a desperate situation because of grain and grass supplies. In this way, Deng Ai, who had experienced nine deaths, appeared in front of the Shu Han River Oil Defenders like a divine soldier descending from heaven, and the JiangYou Defender Ma Mi had to surrender to Deng Ai, while Zhuge Liang's son Zhuge Zhan gathered troops in Mianzhu to try to block Deng Ai's offensive.
At first, Zhuge Zhan did indeed block the offensive of Deng Ai's son Deng Zhong and others, but Deng Ai regarded death as a homecoming, and he understood that if he could not defeat Zhuge Zhan, his army would be completely buried here, and the plan to destroy Shu would also be put into vain, under Deng Ai's personal supervision, in the end Zhuge Zhan was broken by Deng Ai, and Zhuge Zhan and Shu Han Shangshu Zhang Zun were killed. After the fall of Mianzhu, Shu Han could no longer block the attack from Deng Ai's army, and the imposing Deng Ai passed all the way and cut the generals, directly approaching the base camp of the Shu Kingdom!
Later, when the lord Liu Chan saw the oppression of Deng Ai's army, he knew that Shu Han was finally the general trend, and under the advice of the minister who advocated surrender, Liu Chan surrendered to Deng Ai, and Deng Ai was able to enter Chengdu smoothly, and Shu Han perished. Liu Chan also sent people to order Jiang Wei and others who were still resisting to surrender, and Jiang Wei reluctantly surrendered to Zhong Hui.
The victory of the surprise attack on Shu made Deng Ai overjoyed, and he did not even ask the imperial court, he arbitrarily appointed officials in the name of Tianzi in accordance with the way of Deng Yu, the founding father of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and he made arrangements from the later lord Liu Chan to the Shu Han Qunchen, his original meaning may have been to be able to quickly stabilize the order in the territory of Shu Han, but he could not avoid giving others the excuse to frame himself, plus Deng Ai himself was also extremely proud of his merits in destroying Shu and even often boasted, all of which laid the foundation for his later unjust killing.
After Deng Ai destroyed Shu, he devoted himself to the preparations for the destruction of Wu, and although he was made a lieutenant by the Cao Wei regime controlled by Sima Zhao, and was even praised for his merits surpassing baiqi Hanxin and other famous generals in history, at this time, Deng Ai only wanted the imperial court to approve of his strategy to destroy Wu. Zhong Hui, who had long been resentful of Deng Ai for taking away his own efforts to destroy Shu, took this opportunity to change the upper table of Deng Ai's statement of the plan to destroy Wu, making his upper table appear arrogant and rude, and also falsely accused Deng Ai of appointing officials without authorization, so as a court lieutenant Wei Wan, who was the overseer of the army, was ordered by the imperial court to arrest Deng Ai's father and son and escort the two back to Beijing.
Deng Ai looked up at the sky and sighed, thinking that he was going to suffer the same calamity as Bai Qi after all. After Zhong Hui arrived in Chengdu, he escorted Deng Ai to Luoyang. However, at this time, Zhong Hui had more than 200,000 troops, including the Shu army, and Deng Ai was also squeezed out of power by himself, so he had a disobedient heart, and with the support of Jiang Wei and others, it eventually led to the Zhong Hui Rebellion. In the rebellion, Jiang Wei, Zhong Hui and others were killed.
Wei Wan, the overseer in charge of cleaning up the mess, knew that Deng Ai had been wronged, and now that Zhong Hui was dead, he was also involved in framing Deng Ai, and if Deng Ai was asked to go back to explain the situation, he would also suffer, so he sent someone to kill Deng Ai and his son Deng Zhong near Mianzhu, and Deng Ai's remaining sons in Luoyang were also killed because Deng Ai was suspected of rebellion, and his wife and grandson were sent to the Western Regions. It was not until the ninth year of the Tai Dynasty (273), a full decade later, that Deng Ai was rehabilitated by Sima Yan, the Emperor of Jinwu.