After Liu Bei died of illness in the White Emperor's City, Zhuge Liang became the true head of the Shu kingdom. At that time, regardless of territory or population, there was a big gap between the Shu state and Cao Wei. If you simply compete for development and staying power, the Shu kingdom will not be able to fight Cao Wei no matter what, and the gap between the two sides will become wider and wider. Zhuge Liang saw this and decided to carry out the Northern Expedition by attacking instead of defending, and at the same time this was also to repay Liu Bei's favor of the Three Gu and fulfill his last wish to restore the Han Dynasty.
Unfortunately, Zhuge Liang's several Northern Expeditions were unsuccessful. Among them, the first and last are the most regrettable. The first time because of the wrong use of horses and lost the street kiosk, resulting in a good situation was buried; the last time it was difficult to trap Sima Yi's father and son in the upper valley, seeing that they were about to be buried in the sea of fire, at this time suddenly heavy rain fell, Sima Yi was able to escape. The fire in the upper valley brought a great psychological shadow to Sima Yi, and after that, no matter how challenging the Shu army was, he just couldn't hold out, and eventually consumed Zhuge Liang to death in Wuzhangyuan.
So the question is, if Zhuge Liang is replaced by Pang Tong, can the Northern Expedition succeed? Both were the top strategists in the Three Kingdoms, but they were distinctly different. Zhuge Liang was cautious all his life, rarely taking risks, his strength lies in field battles, siege is his biggest shortcoming, a small Chen Cang has not been able to fight for more than 20 days is the best example. Pang Tong's style is completely different from Zhuge Liang's, he always plays cards according to common sense when fighting, and he especially likes to take risks.
After Liu Bei and Liu Zhang turned against each other, Pang Tong proposed three strategies for pacifying Yizhou, and suggested that Liu Bei command his elite troops to take a small road to sneak into Chengdu, so that Xichuan could be pacified at the least cost. Later, Deng Ai succeeded in this way, but Liu Bei thought that it was too risky to do so, and he did not use Pang Tong's superior strategy. Instead, he chose the middle strategy, a city and a city to fight. Pang Tong also showed his talent in the siege of the city, as evidenced by the clever capture of Fushui Pass.
From this comparison, we can draw a conclusion that Pang Tong is more suitable than Zhuge Liang to serve as the commander of the Northern Expedition. If it was he who commanded the army to the north, breaking Sima Yi's "ninja divine skill" would be a high probability event. After the upper valley escaped from danger, Sima Yi once said to his generals: "If Kong Ming is out of martial arts, according to the mountain to the east, I am in danger; if I go out of Weinan, the west stops at Wuzhangyuan, and Fang has nothing to do." At that time, wugong was an important supply line for the Wei army, and it was also very close to Chang'an, so Sima Yi would say the sentence "If Kong Ming is out of martial arts, I will be in danger."
So why didn't Zhuge Liang use martial arts to cut off the grain route of Sima Yi's army? Because martial arts are not easy to fight, and siege is his natural shortcoming. Therefore, for the sake of safety, Zhuge Liang finally chose to send troops out of Wuzhangyuan, and thus lost the last chance of victory. If it is replaced by Pang's commandery, judging from his consistent combat style, he will definitely take "soldiers out of martial arts" as the first choice. Once the martial arts were lost, the Wei army's grain route would be completely cut off, and Sima Yi, who had no logistical supplies, could only fight with Pang Tong, and if the decisive battle failed, it was difficult to say whether Cao Wei could still block the joint attack of Wu and Shu.
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