Zhuge Liang's five Northern Expeditions seemed to be surging with momentum, but in fact, there was only one real chance of success, that is, the first time.
Because before this, the Cao Wei regime did not pay enough attention to the possible Northern Expedition of the Shu Han regime, and only by surprise could it attack it, so this was the only chance for the Shu Han regime to win.
By the end of the First Northern Expedition, the Cao Wei regime had begun to pay attention to the western defensive line, and under such circumstances, it would be difficult for Shu Han to succeed again.
Therefore, looking back at Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition now, people will feel sorry for Wei Yan's Meridian Valley plot, thinking that if the plan succeeds, perhaps Shu Han can win.
Pei Song said in his quotation to the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms that Wei Yan and Zhuge Liang suggested: Give me five thousand elite soldiers, from the Meridian Valley Road, but in ten days you can reach Chang'an, and then you can balance Guanzhong in one fell swoop.
This is also the strategy known as the Meridian Valley Conspiracy by later generations, which is not the first in history, and Han Xin's "Ming Xiu Zhan Dao Darkness Chen Cang" is also about this strategy.
Many people will say that the benefits of the Meridian Valley's strange plot are so great, Wei Yan wants only five thousand soldiers and horses, why is Zhuge Liang not even willing to take this risk?
In fact, things are far less simple than five thousand soldiers and horses, as mentioned earlier, the opportunity of the Northern Expedition can only be done unexpectedly for the first time, Zhuge Liang is cautious and cautious, must be foolproof, so he does not dare to act easily.
At that time, the route from the Shu kingdom to Guanzhong, that is, the four routes, were the Meridian Road, the Luogu Road, the Chu Chuan Dao, and the Chen Cang Dao, and Wei Yan's plan was to let Zhuge Liang take the Chu Chu Dao for his false dangling, while he himself preferred to perform Qigong.
Let's not talk about military thinking, that is, this spirit of letting the main forces pave the way for themselves is quite admirable, and the key is that if you want to go to heaven, you must also ask Zhuge Liang if he will give you this ladder.
Even if Zhuge Liang did not care about personal honor and disgrace, there was also a great deal of adventurism, because Wei Yan put forward too many hypotheses, he assumed that his five thousand soldiers and horses could reach Xi'an smoothly, that Zhuge Liang's main force could break through the bamboo, and that the defenders of the Cao Wei regime would fall in the wind...
Under so many hypothetical situations, if any link went wrong, it was a total loss, and at that time, the State of Wei judged that the Shu army would inevitably leave the Chu Chuan Dao in the north, and Cao Zhen, the commander of Cao Wei, led the army to defend the town of Xiegukou.
It can be said that even if Wei Yan succeeds, if the follow-up Zhuge Liang army does not kill, it will still be dangerous.
In contrast, Zhuge Liang's strategy was that the main force detoured out of Qishan, and the partial division was led by Zhao Yun, and then came out of the Xiegu Road, covering the main force with the partial division.
As Zhuge Liang said, "It is better to be safe from The Tan Dao, you can take the Long Right (that is, Gansu), and you will be able to conquer it without worry." ”
It should be said that Zhuge Liang had a certain military ideology, not only to fight steadily and steadily, but also to surprise him, when Cao Wei opened his position in the Chu Chu Dao, he heard Zhuge Liang coming out of Qishan Mountain, the government and the opposition were shaken, and the fear was great, and the three counties in the northwest responded to Zhuge Liang at the same time.
The area around Liangzhou itself was not the basic disk of Cao Wei, and from the time of Han Sui and Ma Teng, it did not deal with Cao Cao, and it has always been the source of rebellion against the central government, and Ma Chao only defected to Liu Bei after his defeat at Cao Cao.
It should be said that the time bomb that Zhuge Liangbei ignited in Liangzhou was quite beneficial to the subsequent operations of the Shu Han regime.
Many people say that Zhuge Liang did not adopt Wei Yan's strategy because Zhuge Liang was cautious throughout his life, and Chen Shou commented on Zhuge Liang in the "Zhuge Liang Collection": "The rule of The Rong is long, the strange plot is short, and the work of the people is better than the general strategy."
This is not to say that Zhuge Liang's military ability is not good, but that his ability to govern the country is superior to military strategy.
In the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang's Biography" commented on Zhuge Liang: "It can be said that he is a good talent for knowledge and governance, and guan and Xiao are yapi. However, after years of moving the crowd and failing to succeed, Gai Strain will be slightly ignored, not its director Qin Wei." It is believed that Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition ultimately failed because his military ability was not good enough.
Although Zhuge Liang was later carried into the "Ten Philosophies of the Martial Temple", it has to be admitted that the five Northern Expeditions were not successful once, and there must always be some reason.
I think it is not Zhuge Liang's military ability that is in trouble, but in the employment of personnel.
In the First Northern Expedition, Zhuge Liang used his loyal Ma Mo as the vanguard of the Northern Expedition and led the armies forward.
Ma Mo was originally a member of the army and had never actually commanded a large army, but Zhuge Liangli overrode the public opinion, and did not use the famous Shu Han generals Wei Yan, Wu Yi and others at that time, insisting on using Ma Mo, which was already a taboo for soldiers.
As we have already said, Zhuge Liang used Zhao Yun to bluff and cover the main force, but Zhuge Liang handed over the main force to Ma Mo, which was obviously intended to promote Ma Mo as his successor, and once the Northern Expedition achieved results, the credit was all Ma Mo.
But Ma Mo was actually a two-hundred-and-five, in the Battle of Jieting, abandoning the water source to garrison the troops on the mountain, learning from Xiang Yu and Han Xinbing, hoping to fight a battle against the water, and then putting it to death and being born later, the result was that after the arrival of Zhang Gao's troops, Ma Mo's army directly collapsed, disrupting the rhythm of the entire Northern Expedition, and Zhuge Liang had to retreat to Hanzhong.
Although Zhuge Liang and his harsh methods dealt with Ma Mo, the problem did not actually arise in Ma Mo, but in himself.
After Ma Chen's death, Zhuge Liang was also close to Yang Yi, Jiang Wei, and others, and it cannot be said that these people could not fight wars, but from the point of view of their origins, they were all from the army and were staff officers in the army.
After Zhuge Liang's death, after the suppression of the military generals, there was an embarrassing situation in the Shu kingdom of "there were no major generals in Shu, and Liao became a pioneer".
Generally speaking, Zhuge Liang's concept of governing the country is there, but in practice it is one thing, especially in terms of knowing people and doing things, Zhuge Liang is not very well manipulated.