In 228, during Zhuge Liang's first Northern Expedition, he pretended to declare that he was going out of the Xie Valley to attack Yu County, and ordered Zhao Yun and Deng Zhi to lead a Shu army to defend jigu and attract the attention of the Wei army as suspects. The State of Wei was indeed successful, and the general Cao Zhen personally commanded the main force of the Wei army in Guanzhong to meet the attack. Zhuge Liang took the opportunity to take the main force of the Shu army out of Qishan and attack Longyou, who was guarding the emptiness. Cao Wei was not prepared that Zhuge Liang would play this hand, and was caught off guard, and the three counties of Nan'an, Tianshui, and Anding were successively captured by the Shu army.
The Wei Ming Emperor Cao Rui, who was sitting in Chang'an, hurriedly ordered Zhang Gao to lead an army to attack Jieting to reinforce Longyou. The street pavilion was the throat link between Longyou and Guanzhong, and Zhuge Liang ordered Ma Mo to garrison the street pavilion to defend against the Wei army. However, Ma Mo violated Zhuge Liang's deployment and instead of guarding the junction, he led his army to garrison the mountain, and as a result, zhang guo cut off the waterway, and the Shu army was confused due to lack of water, and finally collapsed, and Zhang Gao captured the street pavilion.
Rumor violated the brightness of the festival, the behavior was inappropriate, and it was greatly broken by Gao.
In this way, the Wei army opened a passage to reinforce Longyou, and Zhuge Liang had to withdraw his army back to Hanzhong, and the first Northern Expedition ended in failure.
Many people thought that Zhuge Liang's letting Ma Mo, who had no experience in leading soldiers, to guard the street pavilion was a big mistake, but considering that Zhang Gao was ordered to march to the street pavilion, Zhao Yun was still in Jigu. Jigu was close to Chang'an, which was the center of Cao Wei's rule in the Guanzhong region, and Cao Rui was also in Chang'an, so before defeating Zhao Yun, the main force of the Wei army obviously did not dare to leave easily, but continued to stay in the area of Yu County. Therefore, Zhang Hao was only commanding a partial division, and the strength of the troops would not be too much.
This can also be proved by the fact that after Ma Mo's defeat, his vanguard Wang Ping led more than a thousand of his soldiers to beat the drum and bluffed and pretended that the Shu army was coming, and he scared Zhang Gao back.
The strength of the Shu Han State was limited, and the total strength of the whole country was only a little more than 100,000. Deducting the soldiers and horses left in the country, Zhuge Liang's total number of troops that could be used during the first Northern Expedition was only 40,000 or 50,000 people, and then deducting the partial divisions led by Zhao Yun, the troops of Ma Chen who were defeated by Zhang Hao, and the troops who remained in Tianshui and other places, the maximum number of people who could come to the rescue of the street pavilion was only 10,000 or 20,000 people. If Zhang Gao had sufficient troops, he would not have been frightened back by Wang Ping at all.
Therefore, when Ma Mo defended the street kiosk, there were not many Wei troops to face, and the difficulty was not great.
In contrast, there were still many Wei troops in Longyou who continued to resist, for example, The Yongzhou Assassin Shi Guohuai retreated to Shangyi with his men and horses, and Longxi Commandery Taishou You Chu also held the city and refused to surrender. For Zhuge Liang, eliminating the remnants of the Long Right Wei army as soon as possible was the first priority, and it was more difficult, so Zhuge Liang would let Ma Mo go to the street pavilion, and he himself would take Wei Yan and others to continue to attack the remnants of the Long Right Wei army.
Just in case, Zhuge Liang also gave Ma Mo a plan for how to defend. With Zhuge Liang's personality, this plan is conservative at most, but it will certainly not be too much of a problem.
And the terrain of the street pavilion is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack, if Ma Mo in accordance with Zhuge Liang's deployment, honestly set up camp at the intersection, Zhang Gao's troops are limited, coupled with the Three Kingdoms period because of the technical level restrictions, the siege means are also very few, the defensive side has a great advantage, obviously Zhang Hao can not easily defeat Ma Chen, capture the street pavilion, guard the street pavilion is actually a relatively easy thing.
From this point of view, Zhuge Liang, in addition to letting Wei Yan undertake the task of attacking the strongholds, may be hoping to take this opportunity to exercise Ma Chen. I just didn't expect that Ma Mo would actually go against his own battle plan and eventually lose his army.