The Romance of the Three Kingdoms takes Liu Bei as the orthodox Han dynasty and Cao Cao as a rebel in the imperial court, and has a strong color of respecting Liu and degrading Cao, which also makes many of Cao Wei's famous generals become the data brushes of Zhuge Liang, the chancellor of the Shu Han Dynasty. Many people thought that except for Sima Yi, there were no people in the Cao Wei regime who could resist Zhuge Liang.
People often say that Zhuge Liang "went out of Qishan six times", in fact, Zhuge Liang had a total of five Northern Expeditions in his lifetime, of which only two were out of Qishan. Although the difference in strength between Wei and Shu was huge, Zhuge Liang had never been defeated in these northern expeditions, and he calmly withdrew his army after running out of grain and grass. Cao Wei's border defense troops were not in a big deal, and every time Zhuge Liang came, he had to mobilize the central army to go to the front line, and he was choking enough that he didn't even have the heart to build a palace.
Were the generals under the Cao Wei camp in the history of the Three Kingdoms all waste? Obviously not, in Zhuge Liang's Second Northern Expedition, this miscellaneous general led a thousand people to repel Zhuge Liang's 300,000 troops, and became famous in the first battle, this person was Hao Zhao. Shi Zai, Hao Zhao was a majestic man, he had served in the army since childhood, had several military achievements, was a miscellaneous general, and had been guarding Hexi for more than ten years, and both the people and foreign tribes were very afraid of him.
Zhuge Liang's first Northern Expedition had to retreat because of the defeat at the Battle of Jieting, and because the Xiegu Road was burned down by Zhao Yun during his retreat, Cao Zhen, the governor of the State of Wei, expected that Zhuge Liang would attack Chen Cang next time in an attempt to guanzhong, so he sent Hao Zhao to garrison with a thousand men.
In the spring of the following year, when the Shu army did indeed attack Chen Cang, Zhuge Liang first sent someone to persuade Hao Zhao to surrender, and Hao Zhao said to this fellow villager: "You know the state law of the State of Wei and my personality, great Wei treated me with great kindness, and now I have handed over such an important portal to me, I can only report to the country after I have died, go back and tell Zhuge Liang, let him attack." ”
Perhaps Zhuge Liang felt that Hao Zhao was a talent, and asked him to go to persuade him to surrender again, "Last time I already made my words clear, there is no need to say more." I know you, but the arrow doesn't have long eyes", Hao Zhao directly drove the lobbyist away.
Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition army claimed to be 300,000, and the actual number should be tens of thousands, even if exaggerated, but it was also more than ten times the strength of Chen Cangwei's army, and a wonderful siege war began. The Shu army set up a ladder to attack the city, and the Wei army released rockets to shoot the ladder, and the soldiers on it were burned to death. The Shu army attacked with a rushing car, and the Wei army tied a rope to a millstone and threw it down.
Zhuge Liang simply made a well with a height of 100 feet, let the archers stand on it and shoot arrows into the city, and sent people to fill the trenches with dirt blocks, ready to climb the city wall directly, and Hao Zhao built the inner wall. Zhuge Liang dug tunnels into the city, and Hao Zhao dug trenches in the city to intercept them. The two sides faced each other for more than twenty days, the Wei reinforcements arrived, Zhuge Army ran out of grain and grass and could not attack Chen Cang, forced to withdraw, posterity said "Kong Ming does not reduce the public loss, Hao Zhao does not reduce Mo Zhai."
"Why worry about the future burning like this?" Hao Zhao repelled Zhuge Liang's tens of thousands of troops with only a thousand men, and since then he became famous in the battle, and was personally summoned by Emperor Ming of Wei, who gave him the title of Marquis of Guannei and prepared to entrust him with reuse, but unfortunately he died of illness not long after.
On his deathbed, Hao Zhao warned his son, "I originally excavated a lot of coffins to defend the city, and now I am not long gone, and there is no point in burying thickly, and as for the burial place, there is no need to pay attention to anything." The generation of famous generals who made Zhuge Liang helpless fell.
Of course, there were other reasons why Zhuge Liang was forced to withdraw his troops due to his failure to capture Chen Cang, such as the difficulty of the ancient siege side, the gap in comprehensive national strength between Wei and Shu, the internal political situation, and so on. Pi Sauce welcomes everyone to leave a message below the article and exchange and discuss together.