The story of the empty city plan must be familiar to everyone, and the protagonist of the story comes from two strategists we are very familiar with, that is, Sima Yi and Zhuge Liang. At that time, Sima Yi had actually seen through the empty city plan, why did he withdraw his troops? Sima Yi said that if I didn't withdraw, I would be finished. What's going on?
First of all, look at the course of this incident in that year, Zhuge Liang's northern expedition was very smooth at first, but there was a strategic point related to whether the Shu state could further enter the north, that is, the street pavilion, and at that time Zhuge Liang's student Ma Mo took the initiative to ask Miao to go to the town to guard the street pavilion, and the unexpected result was that Ma Mo did not listen to Zhuge Liang's arrangement, and lost the street pavilion, Sima Yi took advantage of the victory to pursue, and at that time Zhuge Liang's soldiers were still in the north in the future to help.
Therefore, Sima Yi's army of more than 100,000 people surrounded Zhuge Liang's thousands of remnants in Xicheng. In the absence of soldiers and no support, Zhuge Liang could only open the city gate and play the piano and drink tea comfortably on the top of the city tower, without the slightest intention of panic. Sima Yi, fearing that there were ambush troops lurking in the city, led the troops to retreat. In this way, Zhuge Liang's plan to empty the city frightened Sima Yi's hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
However, as Zhuge Liang's old rival, was Sima Yi really so easily deceived by him? In fact, it was not, so when Sima Zhao volunteered to use a small force to explore the truth, Sima Yi decisively refused. What's so mysterious about that? Sima Yi knew that Cao Rui was wary of him at every turn, and only when Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition came, the imperial court would give him military power.
If he sent troops to kill Zhuge Liang now, then he would not be able to achieve his purpose of balancing power. Once Zhuge Liang died, the State of Wei was no longer in serious trouble, and the remaining remnants of the Shu State and the painless border harassment of the State of Wu could no longer have a great impact on the State of Wei, and he and the Sima family behind him might be lonely. Therefore, in the face of Zhuge Liang's plan to empty the city, Sima Yi's retreat can also be regarded as a consensus between the two.