During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao made Cao Cao the Queen of Wei, and let Sima Yi assist Cao Pi as the crown prince, and helped Cao Pi win the battle for the throne, from being suppressed until the Cao Rui period was really reused, from the initial contact with the military to the control of the military, Sima Yi in the Cao dynasty change, became a Tuoguo auxiliary government official.
In the Three Kingdoms, he not only won Zhuge Liang, but also killed all elite opponents.
Cao Wei's ability to dominate the Central Plains in the Three Kingdoms was closely related to its military strategic layout. As early as the reign of Cao Cao, this layout had become four war zones on the east-west- south-north lines.
From the time of Cao Pi to the reign of Cao Rui, with the change of Cao Wei's sphere of influence, the important fronts became the three eastern, western, and southern fronts, and the eastern front, as a strategic place, Sima Yi's tentacles never reached into this war zone, so why did he dare not touch it?
Battlefront layout and power
Since the beginning of Cao Cao's period, Cao Wei's national strength is far superior to that of Shu Han and Eastern Wu, and according to its strategic position, it has arranged four fronts of west, east, south and north, except for the northern front, which is not important, to Cao Pi only pays attention to the other three fronts, because this is Cao Wei's military stronghold, which is a place where soldiers must fight. The western front here is the Yongliang front, which fought against the Shu Han; The southern front was the Jingxiang front, responsible for fighting Against Sun Quan, and the main opponent before the Battle of Xiangfan in 219 was Guan Yu; The Huainan Front on the Eastern Front was the main theater responsible for the operation against Sun Quan.
The main theater leaders of the three fronts of the capital governor and the town guard were the generals of the various fronts, and those who were named as the great generals were more senior and more powerful, such as Cao Xiu's general Zhengdong and Xiahou Shang's zhengnan general, which were symbols of high authority. The opportunity for Sima Yi to take over the military power was after Cao Pi ascended the throne, at that time Cao Xiu had become a meritorious general in the Eastern Expedition, and Sima Yi, as a rookie, had just started on the road of military merit, and his level was at a high level.
Since Cao Pi let Sima Yi guard Xuchang and gradually became the commander of the Jingzhou region, Sima Yi began his military career from the southern front. When Cao Pi died, his son Cao Rui succeeded to the throne, Sima Yi was transferred to fight on the Western Front, Zhuge Liang launched the Northern Expedition, the Zhenxi general Cao Zhen died in battle, Cao Rui sent Sima Yi to replace Cao Zhen to fight against Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi exchanged time for space, and eventually Zhuge Liang was dragged down, and after the northern expedition was victorious, Sima Yi was again sent to Liaodong to quell Gongsun Yuan's rebellion.
From Cao Pi to Cao Rui, Sima Yi already had his own power on two fronts, and although he often lost battles with Zhuge Liang, he advanced by defending, and as a result, he won the impatient Zhuge Liang. He became a Cao Wei vassal in charge of military power during the overlapping regimes and the Southern Expedition and the Northern War, but he alone could not control the military power on the Eastern Front.
The hardness of the Eastern Front
The Eastern Front of Cao Wei was the main battlefield against Eastern Wu, and its importance was determined by its unique geographical location, which was more coveted than the Southern Front. During the Three Kingdoms period, Hefei has always been a strategic place for Cao Wei to resist Eastern Wu and Shu Han, and after the Battle of Chibi, the three kingdoms' struggle against Hefei has never stopped. Cao Cao attached great importance to Hefei, and Sun Quan wanted to take advantage of Cao Wei's weakness to attack Hefei, but was defeated. This made Cao Cao more careful, and he always sent his henchmen to guard the town, without exception. In fact, the generals of the Cao Wei Expeditionary Force were always senior generals in the clan or army, so let's see what kind of cattle people the commanders of the Eastern Front were.
Cao Xiu, the first of Cao Wei's state, was one of the four assistant ministers, but his status and merit were far above Sima Yi.1 He was the leader of the second generation of the Cao Wei Emperor's office, and after the founding of the people's republic, he sat on the eastern front, starting in 221 as the general of Zhengdong and the assassin of Yangzhou, a year later he became a general of Zhengdong, and five years later he became the Great Sima and was defeated and killed in 228.
Cao Xiu was succeeded by Man Yu, who was a cattle man with few words among the many generals of Cao Wei in the Three Kingdoms, and was valued as early as Cao Cao's time, and he even dared to refute Cao Cao's face. In the battle against the Eastern Wu army, the battle was outstanding, and Sima Yi was once his subordinate. Man Yu became a general of the Zhendong Dynasty and beat Sun Quan in Hefei without temper. After Cao Rui's death, Man Yu continued to assist Cao Fang as a fourth-generation elder, but later retired to the front line due to his previous years.
Wang Ling was the third general of the Eastern Front Theater, who not only came from a prominent background, but also fought desperately to break through and rescue Cao Xiu in the Battle of Shiting. After Cao Fang succeeded to the throne, Cao Shuang took real power and made Wang Ling the general of Zhengdong, false festival, and military governor of Yangzhou. He was both literate and martial, but he was slightly inferior to the previous generals of the Eastern Front, and also opened a gap for the future Cao Wei's power.
During the three dynasties that Cao Pi went through to Cao Fang, the person in charge of the military power on the eastern front was either a clan office, or a meritorious figure with much higher seniority than Sima Yi, or a person who was deeply trusted and valued by the Cao clan, and Sima Yi could not afford to provoke anyone, and where was the opportunity to get involved in Cao Wei's military power on the eastern front?
Cao Wei, who controlled the military power
Cao Cao was always on guard against Sima Yi, and after 11 years of literary work in the XiangFu, he was afraid that he would harm his own government. Sima Yi neither lacked strategy nor had enough endurance, and he could allow Cao Wei to reap the benefits of the fisherman, that is, to take advantage of the contradiction between Sun Quan and Guan Yu to design a drama of sandpiper and clam competition, and his resourcefulness was comparable to Zhuge Liang. After Cao Pi ascended the throne, Sima Yi went from guarding Xuchang to gradually becoming the commander of the Jingzhou region and began to contact the military. Cao Pi died and left a testament, appointing Sima Yi, Cao Zhen, Cao Xiu, and Chen Qun as auxiliary ministers, and Sima Yi was the least weighty in front of the great generals who had achieved great military achievements.
Sima Yi, who was originally a civilian cadre, constantly proved his ability with the blood of the enemy during the invasion of Eastern Wu and the rebellion of Meng Da. As a result, he was appointed by the Wei Ming Emperor Cao Rui to the post of general of the Hun Horse, and Sima Yi became a heavy minister of Cao Wei who held military power and entered the fast lane of his career. Sima Yi first served as a military commander, and then went to Liaodong to eliminate Gongsun Du, and was promoted to general and lieutenant.
He traveled from war zone to theater, so that the protégés of the army were old, there were a large number of people in the concubines and founding fathers, and the two war zones on the western and southern fronts were his cronies. Through several generations of kings to become auxiliary subjects, dignified and upright to grasp the real power, the so-called situation of the times, coupled with the untimely death of Cao Pi Cao Rui, his longevity also survived the death of many elite opponents including Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi's seniority became deep and accumulated.
end
When the contradiction between the clan and the clan became more and more prominent in the post-Cao Cao era, Sima Yi, who did not want to become the founder of the dynasty, finally found a breakthrough from Wang Ling's eastern front and took the military power on the eastern front. However, it has to be said that there were three rebellions against the Sima family in Huainan on the eastern front, which shows that although Sima Yi controlled the political power of Cao Wei, it was not a lie that he could not affect the military strength of Cao Wei's eastern front.
During the Three Kingdoms period when the warlords were fighting among the warlords, for the sake of their respective forces, war and chaos were everywhere, bringing deep disasters to the people, Sima Yi was a minister of two generations of orphans, an old minister of the three dynasties, perhaps he did not want to continue to work for the Cao family, but the Cao Wei era was in decline, and the return of the Three Kingdoms to Jin may also be an inevitable historical development! What do you think about that?