As we all know, in the history of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Yan's "Meridian Valley Conspiracy" made it difficult for many people to let go, because this strategy was not only related to the success or failure of the Northern Expedition of Shu Han, but also involved Zhuge Liang's military talent.
Wei Yan's plan was intended to make a major strategic breakthrough by making a surprise attack on Chang'an with a rapid march, but Zhuge Liang rejected it with his usual cautiousness, and no one knows whether this decision was correct.
Since ancient times, the discussion on this matter has never stopped, and even today there is no fixed conclusion, so the "Meridian Valley Conspiracy" has become a controversial topic in history, and it is also a legacy issue that cannot be ignored in the history of the Three Kingdoms.
So, is Wei Yan's Meridian Valley conspiracy feasible? Today, let's talk about this topic.
Wei Yan conspired with his Meridian Valley
In 228 AD, Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of Shu Han, launched the Northern Expedition against Cao Wei, which was crucial to the future fate of Shu Han.
In this Northern Expedition, Wei Yan, who was a general in Hanzhong, proposed a strategy, that is, the "Meridian Valley Raid" that later generations called a miracle.
According to Wei Yan's description, he would take 5,000 elite soldiers and 5,000 stone of grain, and then march east along the Qinling Mountains, passing through the Meridian Valley and advancing northward.
On the vast Qi Mountain, Meridian Valley is the closest road to Chang'an, so 5,000 elite soldiers are expected to reach Chang'an within ten days.
The guard of Chang'an will be Xiahou Nan, this person is timid and afraid that he has no demeanor, and if he sees the arrival of 5,000 elites, he will definitely panic and prepare to flee.
In such a situation, there will be a weak defense and lack of food in Chang'an City, and Wei Yan will quickly attack the city with 5,000 soldiers, then he can break through Chang'an and win the battle in one fell swoop.
The Qinling Mountains are the dividing line between the north and south of the mainland, and can also be regarded as the watershed of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River.
Judging from the current map, the Meridian Valley is steep and the road is difficult to walk, and such harsh conditions are very impressive even now, not to mention in ancient times when the transportation technology was not very developed, so the ancients would leave such a sentence "Qinling Six Roads, Meridian is the King".
The Meridian Valley is a 330-kilometre-long canyon with a treacherous terrain, but its northern end is Chang'an County in Shaanxi Province, and its southern end extends to Shiquan County in the south. The north entrance is called "Zikou", and the south entrance is called "Wukou", so it is called Meridian Valley.
The terrain of the Meridian Valley is steep and precipitous, and the plank road in the valley is tortuous and steep, and the march here is like walking on thin ice.
However, because it connects the main road from Qishan to Chang'an, and holding the key position of the Meridian Valley is equivalent to controlling the main road of north-south traffic, so this place has always been a strategic place for soldiers to fight.
In general, the road of Meridian Valley is not easy to walk, but the meaning of its existence is very important, it can quickly reach Chang'an from Qishan, and Wei Yan is even more confident that 5000 elites can be reached in 10 days.
Zhuge Liang has always been known for his "prudence", and the most risky thing in his life is the empty city plan, so he did not approve of Wei Yan's plan, and Wei Yan was frustrated and disappointed by this result.
Wei Yan's plot was not implemented until the death of the two, which became a pity in history, so some people say that if Zhuge Liang adopted Wei Yan's plan, Shu Han might be able to successfully capture Chang'an and change the whole situation.
This is a kind of regret issued by later generations, and it is also a pity issued by many people for Wei Yan, which has gone beyond the scope of the Northern Expedition of Shu Han. So, is the Meridian Valley strategy really feasible, or can it really help Shu Han settle the situation with one move?
All 50,000 people were buried in it
On the issue of Meridian Valley, it is somewhat untenable to simply say that some tactical ideas are available, and we can discuss it from several military operations in history.
The Shu Road is difficult, it is difficult to go to the blue sky, but the Shu Road is not without a way. In the same way, although the Meridian Valley is very difficult, it is not that no one has marched from here, and the generals of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty have walked here.
Let's take a look at the results of the two generals following Wei Yan's strategy, during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Huan Wen followed Zhuge Liang to lead the army to the Northern Expedition, and one day he thought of Wei Yan's Meridian Valley strategy, thinking that it was very practical.
So he led thousands of elite soldiers to secretly march quickly from the Meridian Valley, but was ambushed by the former Qin army in the Meridian Valley, the number of the former Qin army was only a fraction of that of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, but relying on the ease of waiting for work and the Qinling Mountains, the Huan Wen army was annihilated before it left the valley.
Gao Yingxiang, who suffered the same result as Huan Wen, is a typical tragedy. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Gao Yingxiang wanted to lead an army of 50,000 to quickly pass through the Meridian Valley, with the obvious purpose of quickly capturing Xi'an.
As long as he could quickly control Xi'an, the entire Shaanxi was under his control, and he walked in the valley for nearly a month, and when he arrived at Heishuiyu, more than 10,000 Ming troops suddenly appeared. The ratio of the two sides was 5:1, but the Ming army relied on the danger of Qinling to defeat Gao Yingxiang's army.
Judging from the above examples, Meridian Valley, as a military strategic channel, has great complexity and risk, not only for the general's tactical test, but also for the entire army's body and physiology.
Some people may say that Deng Ai's walk through the Yinping Path was not successful? This has a great resemblance to Wei Yan's Meridian Valley conspiracy.
Decades after the deaths of Zhuge Liang and Wei Yan, Cao Wei's general Deng Ai adopted a similar strategy to Wei Yan, passing through Yinping Road, digging mountains and building bridges through difficult and dangerous roads, and successfully smuggling Yinping for hundreds of miles, and it was this act that eventually led to the demise of Shu Han.
Deng Ai's smuggling into Yinping is very adventurous, when he comes out of the Yinping Trail, people are sleepy and tired, if there is a slight army here to block, this strange army will all be explained in the local area.
It's a pity that the national strength of Shu was already in decline at that time, and Liu Chan did not set up a single person and a soldier to defend the important Meridian Valley, so there is a great element of luck and objective in Deng Ai's scheme, we can take a look at it from the map.
The Qinling Mountains are between Chang'an and Hanzhong and Chengdu, and there are about five paths from Hanzhong to attack Chang'an, and these five paths are fanned out from west to east, and the Meridian Valley is the one closest to the east (Chang'an).
As long as Cao Wei sent a small number of soldiers and horses to defend the Meridian Valley, it would be impossible for Wei Yan's army to pass, and even if the Shu Han army crossed the Qinling Mountains from the remaining four roads, Cao Wei would still have a lot of time to prepare.
On the contrary, it is very different, the exits of the passages on the five Qinling Mountains are relatively close to Hanzhong, which means that Shu Han needs to send 5 waves of men and horses to defend the five passes, and such military investment is not a lot of pressure on Shu Han in the later period.
It was precisely because of the lack of defensive forces of Shu Han that Deng Ai bypassed Hanzhong and went straight into the hinterland of Shu Han, and there were no soldiers available in the rear of Shu Han, so that Cao Wei stole his home.
However, there is no shortage of Cao Wei's military strength, and he will definitely send people to garrison in Meridian Valley, not to mention that they only need to garrison this pass.
The purpose of Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition
Regarding Zhuge Liang's rejection of Wei Yan's "Meridian Valley Conspiracy", many netizens gave their own opinions, such as:
Wei Yan's genius, brave and strategic, not like the five tiger generals only have courage and no strategy, Zhuge Liang is a little afraid of such a person, because it poses a threat to his governance, so he does not reuse you, but after his death, he killed Wei Yan with a plan, it can be seen that Zhuge Liang is narrow-minded, jealous and jealous, and cannot achieve great things!
According to today's words, Zhuge Liang at that time was too lonely! He was the emperor who was standing! He grabbed the power! When he came out of Qishan, he did not listen to Wei Yan's strategy. Guarding the street pavilion and sending horses. But I forgot what Liu Bei commented on Ma Tan when he was in the White Emperor City. Later, the street pavilion was lost, which caused the Shu Kingdom to be unable to shake up!
Judging from the comments of the above two netizens, the former is a bit of putting the cart before the horse, and the latter is the key to the problem. Or, compared with Chang'an, the center of Shaanxi, the street pavilion is more important to Zhuge Liang, where does this point of view begin?
Cao Cao and Liu Bei fought a battle in Hanzhong, and the result was that Cao Cao was defeated and Liu Bei won the final victory. Could it be that Cao Cao is not as good as Liu Bei, the answer is no, because the two have different views on Hanzhong.
Hanzhong is the gateway of Shu Han but not the gateway of Cao Wei, if you want to come out of Sichuan, you must pass through Hanzhong, if you lose Hanzhong, it is equivalent to losing the passage out of Sichuan, so Liu Bei will inevitably fight Cao Cao on this issue.
What could Cao Cao do if he seized Hanzhong? With Cao Wei's strength at that time, he could not enter Sichuan at all, and instead of fighting Liu Bei here to waste his strength, it was better to seek development, and when his strength was enough to swallow the whole of Sichuan, Hanzhong and Yizhou could be put together.
In the same way, Chang'an is Cao Wei's gateway in the northwest, even if Shu Han takes this place, will he have the ability to compete with Cao Wei in the Central Plains?
If the two sides are stumbling in Chang'an, it is still Shu Han who will suffer in the end, and the consumption of materials and soldiers alone will not be able to support it.
Zhuge Liang didn't understand this truth, so his purpose of going out of Qishan was not to occupy Chang'an, but to have another plan, that is, the Yongliang land in the west of Chang'an, and Zhuge Liang chose a passage on the west side of the Qinling Mountains every time he went out of Qishan.
"Attacking the strong with the weak" is not enough to support Shu Han to defeat Cao Wei, and only by "strengthening oneself and consuming the enemy" to fight a protracted war can one seek a glimmer of life.
Shu Han is far behind Wei in terms of land area, population and economic resources, and the national strength of Shu Han is greatly weakened after the battle of Liu Bei and Yiling.
Yongzhou and Liangzhou are relatively remote in geographical location, rarely war-torn and densely populated, and the Hexi Corridor area is rich in products, especially rich in grain and horses. If Shu Han was able to control this area, it would not only be able to effectively supplement its shortage of population and materials, but also pose a strategic threat to Wei.
Shu Han can go directly to Yongzhou and Liangzhou from Hanzhong out of Qishan, while Cao Wei needs to pass through Qinchuan for 800 miles, and then go west through Chang'an to reach the destination, so that Wei's national strength will inevitably be consumed faster than Shu Han.
However, there is a key place from Hanzhong to Yongliang, that is, Jieting, this place is like a T junction, whoever occupies it will be in the active position, and the troops and material supplies are constantly transported to the front line.
It's a pity that such an important place was lost by Ma Yan, so that Zhuge Liang's first Northern Expedition ended in failure. If the first Northern Expedition is successful, the problem of population and lack of resources in Shu Han will be solved, and the situation in the following Northern Expeditions will be greatly improved.
From this point of view, Zhuge Liang did not adopt Wei Yan's "Meridian Valley Scheme", and did not deny that this strategy was not feasible, but said that it had no practical meaning at all, and if he had a choice, he would rather use Chang'an in exchange for Street Pavilion.
What do you think differently about this?