Since Dong Zhuo's chaos in Beijing, the majesty of the Han Dynasty has been lost, the princes of the world have begun to support the army and respect themselves, and the battle of wits and courage between them has made people look very happy, and their mutual merger has also erupted into many classic battles, and at the same time, many military generals who are familiar to us, such as Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhuge Liang and so on.
However, when this group of people died, the Three Kingdoms also entered the later stages, at this time, the three forces of Wei Shu and Wu were facing the embarrassment of no successor. In addition to the Sima clan, Cao Wei also had famous generals such as Deng Ai and Zhong Hui, and Eastern Wu was left with famous generals such as Zhuge Ke and Lu Kang, while Shu Han was pitifully small, and only Jiang Wei alone carried the banner of the Northern Expedition, so Shu Han also became the first country to withdraw from the Three Kingdoms struggle for hegemony. But why did Jiang Wei, who was known as the pillar of the Shu Han Dynasty, keep losing to Deng Ai of Cao Wei?
Jiang Wei was originally a general of Cao Wei, and during Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition, Jiang Wei was responsible for guarding Tianshui County, and also thwarted Zhao Yun's attack here. After receiving Zhao Yun's battle report, Zhuge Liang was amazed by the young man's wisdom, so he broke up the relationship between Tianshui Taishou and Jiang Wei, and finally successfully recruited Jiang Wei to the Shu Han camp.
Jiang Wei joined the Shu Han dynasty soon after directly commanding an army of 5,000 people, from an enemy country to surrender a year after the surrender of the army can directly command the army, this trust and speed of promotion can be described as unique, thus seeing the importance Zhuge Liang attaches to him, Zhuge Liang in the last time also gave jiang Wei his annotated "Twenty-four Articles of the Art of War", and then explained to posterity to continue to cultivate Jiang Wei. After Zhuge Liang's death, Jiang Wei took control of the military power and left Jiang Wei by his side, and after Jiang Wei's death, Jiang Wei also inherited this power and became the leader of the Shu Han army, and began to lead the Northern Expedition with the Shu army.
Deng Ai's luck was not as good as Jiang Wei's, and he had been saddling up for Cao Wei Tuntian for the first half of his life, and he was only discovered by Sima Yi after working for more than twenty years. After carefully inspecting Deng Ai, Sima Yi found that he was not only proficient in Tuntian, but also had his own views on the military, so he arranged for him to be a Taishou and Assassin. Deng Ai's achievements in these posts made Sima Yi very satisfied, so Sima Yi transferred him into the army, thus opening the way for Deng Ai to be a famous general.
Jiang Wei and Deng Ai first clashed in 249 AD, the year of Cao Wei's Jiaping Dynasty, mainly because Sima Yi had killed the general Cao Shuang in that year and seized cao Wei's supreme rule. On the side of Shu Han was Yanxi for twelve years, when Jiang Wei had become the leader of the Shu army, and after he learned of the turmoil within Cao Wei, he directly sent troops to attack Cao Wei Yongliang.
At that time, Sima Zhao sent Yongliang to assassinate Shi Chen Tai and the General Guo Huai of Zhengxi to raise troops to resist Jiang Wei, and Deng Ai calmly analyzed the battle situation and believed that Jiang Wei was just bluffing, and his real intention was to occupy a place in Taocheng, because this was the throat of Yongliang, and if he successfully took this place, he could cut off the connection between Cao Wei's central government and Yongliang. For this reason, Deng Ai led the troops to Taocheng in advance to deploy, and when Jiang Wei's main force arrived, he was faced with an impregnable Taocheng, and later Jiang Wei returned without success, and Deng Ai was also able to move.
Their second encounter was at the Battle of Duangu in 256 AD, which was also Jiang Wei's eighth Northern Expedition. Cao Wei was very troubled by Jiang Wei's Northern Expedition, and this time he deliberately transferred Deng Ai to yongliang and gave him the right to mobilize the Yongliang army, which was also a confrontation between Jiang Wei and Deng Ai. At that time, Jiang Wei attacked Cao Wei's Nan'an Commandery with a highly morale- and his purpose was the same as before, mainly to capture the population.
Deng Ai analyzed Jiang Wei's intentions and personally attacked Wugong Mountain, and when Jiang Wei's army arrived, Deng Ai had already occupied favorable terrain, and Jiang Wei had no choice but to attack Deng Ai. But the condescending Wei army naturally did not have to worry, they just used bows and arrows to shoot a large number of Shu troops in Duangu, when the Shu army left tens of thousands of corpses after Jiang Wei could only flee with the Shu army, this war was also the worst defeat in Jiang Wei's 11 Northern Expeditions.
Their third confrontation was the Battle of Luogu in 257, and Jiang Wei absorbed the lessons of the previous defeat and decided not to confront Cao Wei, but to adopt harassment tactics, the purpose of which was to intercept Cao Wei's grain transport troops, cut off the food and grass of the Wei army, and at the same time achieve the purpose of feeding the war with war. And Deng Ai had insight into Jiang Wei's intentions, he deliberately collected grain and grass from the Yongliang area and then fought a war of attrition with Jiang Wei, and finally Jiang Wei withdrew from the army, and Deng Ai won the war again.
Their last confrontation was in 263. In this year, Sima Zhao, the ruler of Cao Wei, felt that the time was ripe, so he sent Zhong Hui, Deng Ai, and Zhuge Xu with 180,000 troops to attack the Shu state in three ways. At this time, Jiang Wei was in Tuntian, and he originally wanted to fight a defensive battle by relying on the fortifications that Shu Han had laid out in Puzhong for many years, but in the face of Cao Wei's absolute strength, these fortifications had no effect at all, and Jiang Wei could only retreat to the Sword Pavilion after losing his position, hoping to block the Wei army by virtue of his geographical advantages.
But Deng Ai personally took the strange soldiers to the Yinping Trail and crossed the mountains to reach Mianzhu. When he killed Zhuge Zhan's father and son in Mianzhu, Shu Han was horrified, and originally Jiang Wei thought of dividing his troops to return to Mianzhu, but at this time, Liu Chan, the lord of Shu Han, directly announced his surrender, and Jiang Wei was once again defeated at the hands of Deng Ai.
After the war, the Shu Han general Liao Hua made an evaluation of Jiang Wei, "Wisdom cannot be an enemy, but the strength is less than Kou, and it is insatiable, how can it be established?" Jiang Wei's ability was beyond doubt, otherwise he wouldn't have been valued so much by Zhuge Liang. However, it is true that his wisdom and strategy were inferior to Deng Ai's, and the strength and strength of the Shu Han state were weaker than those of the Wei state, and this disadvantage had already doomed him to failure.