In 263 AD, the State of Wei raised 180,000 troops to cut down Shu, originally Sima Zhao's original intention was to let Deng Ai contain Jiang Wei, and then Zhuge Xu garrisoned the Yinping Bridgehead, cutting off Jiang Wei's rear road, and at the same time using Zhong Hui to attack Hanzhong, a strategic place without the main force of the Shu army, this strategy was originally very clever, because this not only surrounded Jiang Wei, but also attacked Hanzhong, which was empty of troops, which was simply a brilliant plan to kill two birds with one stone.
But unexpectedly, Jiang Wei came to an Armstrong circle, cleverly transferred away from Zhuge Xu, who was blocked at the head of the Yinping Bridge, and joined liaohua, Zhang Yi, Dong Jie and other troops to retreat to the Sword Gate Pass, before, Zhong Hui had already breached Yangping Pass, so the two armies confronted each other at the Sword Gate Pass, and could not stand each other, because the grain and grass were exhausted, Zhong Hui had the intention to retreat.
Deng Ai, on the other hand, arrived at Yinping while chasing Jiang Wei before, and heard that the Sword Gate Pass had been heavily guarded, so Deng Ai wrote a letter requesting that more than 10,000 elite soldiers from Yinping be selected to directly enter Shu from the Yinping Ancient Road.
First establish a rough understanding, probably have an impression.
The yinping ancient road is intuitively illustrated, from Wen County, Longnan City, Gansu Province, across the Sky Ridge to Nanba Town, Pingwu County, Sichuan Province, with a total length of 265 kilometers.
Strictly speaking, the Yinping Ancient Road started from Yinping County, that is, the Huyiba (where the old city of Wenxian County) was located in present-day Wen county, Longnan, Gansu, passed through the county seat of Wenxian County, crossed the Sky Ridge of Qingchuan County (the green line sections in the figure below are all Sky Ridges), passed through Tangjiahe, Yinping Mountain, Ma Zhuanguan, Jingjun Mountain, and reached Jiangyouguan (present-day Nanba Town) in Pingwu County.
One thing that can be determined here is the road from Skyscraper Ridge to Jiangyou (section B in the figure. Divided by a white line, the lower half is B) Deng Ai did walk, but the section from Yinping to Skyscraper Ridge has not been able to determine whether Deng Ai has walked so far.
The first smuggling route is Yinping
Most of the routes circulating on the Internet are the above pictures, and based on my reading of the data for several consecutive days, it can be inferred that the A section of this route is wrong.
From Yinping to Skyscraper, Deng Ai took another path. This is shown in the following figure
The second type of smuggling yinping route
According to many historical records and field investigations by relevant experts, the ruins of the Yinping Ancient Road stretched from the partridge dam in present-day Wen County, Gansu Province to Jiangyouguan (present-day Nanba Township, Pingwu, Sichuan). Passing through Yinping Bridge, crossing the Sky Ridge, passing through TangjiaHe, Luoyigou, Yinping Mountain, Mazhuanguan, Jingjun Mountain, and Qingdaokou, according to the ancient custom of three steps and two meters, it is more than 700 miles away. As stated on page 779 of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms: "In the winter of October, Ai Ziyin Ping Dao traveled more than 700 miles to no man's land."
Then the Yinping Ancient Road must be from Yinping County to Yinping Bridge, then to the Rangshui River (a tributary of the Baishui River), Liujiaping, and then over the Sky Ridge to Jiangyou.
According to the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, Zhong Hui Biography:
Deng Ai chased Jiang Wei to Yinping, and Jian Xuan was elite, wanting to enter the river from Handeyang from Zuo Dan Dao, and enjoy Chengdu, and travel with Zhuge Xu. Xu Yiben was invited by The Festival, Jiang Wei, and traveled west to fei Benzhao, so he marched to Baishui and joined him.
It can be guessed that Zhuge Xu returned to the Yinping Bridgehead (Yulei Pass) after being flyn by Jiang Wei, and just when Deng Ai also chased Jiang Wei to Yinping, but did not say in detail whether it was the Yinping Bridgehead (the straight-line distance between the two places was 50 kilometers), but the encirclement and suppression of Jiang Wei failed, Deng Ai wanted to join forces and go south, and Zhuge Xu did not let it. Therefore, deng Ai must have faced the risk of analyzing the failure of encirclement and suppression at the Yinping Bridgehead and Zhuge Xu, and Zhuge Xu obviously did not think much about this aspect.
Another point, according to the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Deng Ai Biography"
Deng Ai said, "Now that the thief is urging him to fold, it is advisable to take advantage of it, from Yinping by diagonal path through Hande Yang Pavilion Fun Fu, out of the Sword Pavilion West Hundred Miles, to Chengdu for more than three hundred miles, the strange soldiers rushed to his heart." ”
According to this, it can be seen that Deng Ai has asked the locals and knows the way to walk the Yinping Ancient Road. When Deng Ai was at the head of the Yinping Bridge and knew the yinping ancient road, it must be the second way to take more reasonable.
If it is the first way according to what many people say, I guess Deng Ai will be dead if he can't climb the Skyscraper Ridge. The first route is at an altitude of up to 3154 meters, and even the low peak at the southern end of deng ai rolled down is more than 2400 meters high.
The highest point of the Skyscraper section
And the slope is unusually steep, up to about 75 degrees, see the naked man in the picture below at point A, really called the cliff, if Deng Ai rolls down from here, even if it rolls from point A to point B, then it is also necessary to roll 200 meters, such a slope, in fact, can not use the word roll, equivalent to jumping from 60 floors, in this condition, the possibility of survival is extremely small.
In this way, more than 10,000 elite soldiers are estimated to be dead. The skyscraper slope of point B is about 45 degrees, and Deng Ai's march has since found that there is a section of obstruction, but it is a high probability to roll down the slope of 45 degrees and wrap it in felt to prevent being scratched.
Skyscraper Ridge
Zoom in to see the slope, here the naked man is magnified 1000 times, the actual person here is an ant.
Today's Skyscraper Ridge is the Skyscraper Ridge marked in the valley above
Of course, even so, the road to the Skyscraper Ridge is also quite difficult to climb, because in ancient times this section of the road is rarely walked, so some roads are as wide as only one person's feet, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms describes soldiers climbing wooden edge cliffs, fish through, you can imagine how difficult it is.
A yinping trail
After crossing the Skyscraper, Deng Ai never climbed a peak higher than the Skyscraper, and then marched all the way across the Tangjia River, Yinping Mountain, Ma Zhuanguan, and then to Jingjun Mountain, and then directly to Jiangyou.
However, the original Yinping Ancient Road did not use the Yinping Mountain and the horse to turn the pass. As shown in the figure below, the thick blue strip is the Yinping Ancient Road.
A section of the Tangjia River on the Yinping Ancient Road
However, Deng Ai chose to go over Yin Pingshan to Mazhuanguan and then go southeast to the direction of Jingjun Mountain, the reason for this was to avoid the place where people gathered in Qingxi Ancient Town (Northern Wei Mapan County), which increased the probability of a surprise attack on Jiangyou.
Avoid the ancient town of Qingxi
According to the "Chronicle of Long'an Province", "Jingjun Mountain, Shu Kongming once placed an army here, and the ruins still exist." ”
It shows that here in jingjun mountain Zhuge Liang had the Tun Shu army as an outpost to prevent a sneak attack from the Yinping Ancient Road, but later was dismissed by the hou lord, if this is the case, it can only be said that the sky is going to die in Shu, if Deng Ai's army passes through here and encounters the Shu state sentry on the mountain, it can be guaranteed that Shu Han has time to digest this surprise attack, and Zhuge Zhan also has time to seize Jiangyou. Of course, this is a digression, not today's topic.
Ambush troops were set up on Jingjun Mountain
Out of the Jingjun Mountain and the Qingdaokou, Jiangyou Pass was in front of him, and in the face of the Wei army that had fallen from the sky, Ma Mi, who had already sent three schools of men and horses to ambush Tian Zhang, could only choose to surrender.
As soon as Jiangyou was opened, it could be clearly seen from the map that crossing the Mage Mountain or going straight down the Fu River was the plain area, so the Wei army quickly connected Fucheng and Mianzhu, approaching Chengdu, Liu Chan surrendered, and Shu Han died.
It is not difficult to see that Deng Ai's smuggling of Yinping this time is very difficult, and the terrain of Bashu's generation is particularly difficult to walk, and I later simulated the marching route of Deng Ai, which is really eighteen bends in the mountain road.
I have to admire Deng Ai, even if there is a certain element of luck, but his leadership of the army and temporary decision-making have reached a perfect point, in order to contribute to the success of this harvest, it is difficult to say that another general will be the same as Deng Ai.