In the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang can be called the embodiment of God. On Zhuge Liang's body, there are both grass boats borrowing arrows, wooden streams of cattle and horses, and the most amazing thing is the empty city plan. Some of these magical stories that happened to Zhuge Liang were true and some were false, and even some of them did not happen to him, but to other characters in the same period.
Judging from the existing historical data, the two stories that can be affirmed certainly did not happen to Zhuge Liang. One is the straw boat borrowing arrows, and the other is the empty city plan.
In the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao marches south and points his sword at Jiangnan. In order to resist Cao Cao, Liu Bei formed an alliance with Sun Quan. At this time, Sun Liu's combined forces were far inferior to Cao Jun's in both soldiers and weapons and equipment. In order to win the war, the jealous Zhou Yu asked Zhuge Liang to create 100,000 arrows within three days, if he could not complete the general law disposal.
Knowing that zhuge liang would certainly not be able to build 100,000 arrows within three days, zhuge liang observed the sky at night and found that the river was foggy within three days, so he came up with a way to pretend to sneak up on Cao Cao late at night, forcing Cao Cao not to dare to rush out of the army and had to keep shooting arrows to resist this 'sneak attack'.
On the other hand, Zhuge Liang planted many scarecrows on both sides of the fleet of "sneak attacks", and eventually these arrows followed the grass boats back to the camp of Sun Liu's combined army.
The story sounds very dramatic, showing Zhuge Liang's wisdom everywhere. But the ideal is very full, and the reality is very bone. The protagonist of this familiar story is not Zhuge Liang, but Sun Quan.
According to the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Liu, "'Quan came to watch the army by a large ship, the minister fired his crossbow randomly, the arrow was on his ship, the ship was heavy and overturned, and Quan returned to the ship, and received arrows on one side, and the arrows were flattened, but they were returned''" The story takes place after the Battle of Chibi, and as the victor of the war, the strength of Sun Wu's regime has been greatly improved. In order to achieve self-revenge, Sun Quan also organized the Northern Expedition many times.
In the first month of the eighteenth year of Jian'an, Cao Cao confronted Sun Quan. In the first engagement, the Cao army was defeated, so it could not hold out. One day, Sun Quan took advantage of the mist on the surface of the water and took a light boat to break into the front of the Cao army from the mouth of the Wusukou to observe the deployment of the Cao army.
After marching five or six miles, Sun Quan ordered the drum music to ming in unison, cao Cao was suspicious, and when he saw wu jun rectifying the mighty and mighty, he was afraid of deception, and did not dare to go to war, and sighed: "'When a son is born, he should be like Sun Zhongmou, and Liu Jingsheng's son should be like a guinea pig! ''
Subsequently, Cao Cao ordered the crossbow to fire in unison and shoot at Wu Chuan. After a while, Sun Quan's light boat was hit by too many arrows on one side, and the hull was tilted, and there was a danger of overturning and sinking. Sun Quan hurriedly ordered the bow of the ship to be turned around so that the other side would receive arrows again. A moment later, the arrows were flattened, and Wu Jun returned safely. Only then did Cao Cao know that he had been deceived.
It can be seen that the historical "straw boat borrowing arrows" is the result of Sun Quan's urgent wisdom, while in the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", it is interpreted as Zhuge Liang's intention and carefully planned by him.
Compared with drafting ships to borrow arrows, the empty city plan is even more than zhuge liang's "deification".
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the empty city plan occurred during Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition.
At that time, Zhuge Liang was trapped in the small city without soldiers, facing Sima Yi's thousands of troops and horses. Zhuge Liang knew that it would definitely be too late to mobilize troops at this moment, and the final outcome of abandoning the city and fleeing would be even more miserable. So he thought of the empty city plan, and finally scared away Sima Yi as he wished.
Unlike the depiction of Zhuge Liang's empty city plan in the novel, in the zhengshi "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", there is no trace of any record of Zhuge Liang's empty city plan.
In fact, the empty city plan does have its own thing in history, and the story also takes place in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period. According to the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms and the Biography of Cheng Yu, Yuan Shao was in Liyang at the time and was about to cross south. At this time, Cheng Yu only led seven hundred soldiers to defend Juancheng.
When Cao Cao heard about this, he sent someone to inform Cheng Yu that he would send him two thousand more soldiers to help him defend the city. Cheng Yu refused, and said to him: "Yuan Shao has 100,000 people and thinks that he is invincible." Imami Yu has few soldiers, and he will not attack easily. If you benefit from the Yu soldiers, you must not fail to attack, and if you attack, you will lose both of your momentum. Hara No Doubt! ''
In Cheng Yu's view, if there is an increase in troops, when Yuan Shao crosses the way through Juancheng, he will inevitably send troops to attack, and once the war occurs, Juancheng will inevitably be conquered, so it is still not the best policy not to increase troops. Cao Cao followed Cheng Yu's advice. Later, Yuan Shao heard that Cheng Yu had few troops, and he did not bother to attack.
Although Cheng Yu's empty city plan did not look as thrilling and undulating as Zhuge Liang's empty city plan looked. It is only Yuan Shao's unremitting efforts to take advantage of the crisis. But this is the empty city plan that may exist in reality.
In fact, there are many more storylines about the deification of Zhuge Liang in the novel, such as the aforementioned Muliu Niuma, a magical invention that has not been found to have relevant archaeological objects.