The smoke of war is blowing slowly with the north wind, and the future of Dahan Jiangshan is struggling in this battle. In the twenty-fourth year of Jian'an, the situation of returning to Jin has taken shape, and the trio of Wei, Shu and Wu has gradually become clear. And this year, Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of Shu Han, secretly decided to let Shu break out of one-third of the territory, and recapture the Guanzhong region where Cao Wei was based. So he wrote the "Teacher Table" that year, and the tragic and magnificent words were full of his determination to realize the great cause of "Jiuyuan".
Why did Shu Han fail to go north to confront Cao Wei? The reason is nothing more than two points: one is that the ancestor Liu Bei died too early, and the other is that Zhuge Liang is both wise and brave, but after all, he is better at strategizing, and he has never really brought the courage of Wanfu to the extreme. However, Zhuge Liang finally made up his mind, he believed that with the sufficient resources and population of Shu, coupled with his own resourcefulness, as long as he fought with the Wei army, he would be able to win a small victory, and then step by step, and finally capture Guanzhong, threaten Eastern Wu, and fight with Cao Wei.
But who would have thought that Zhuge Liang's first Northern Expedition would fall into the quagmire and never return, it would be a complete fiasco.
Before the Northern Expedition, Zhuge Liang made careful arrangements for the situation at that time. He first asked Zhao Yun to feign attacking the key points and attracting Cao Wei's main force; He led the main force to attack Qishan and cut off the enemy's rear route. At first, everything went well, three of the five counties in Longyou heard the wind and surrendered, the enemy army had no time to take care of it, Zhuge Liang marched all the way, Cao Wei was shocked, and urgently dispatched troops to deal with it.
However, Cao Rui's deployment of troops to Yu Yu does have excellent eyesight. The feint troops who sent Cao Zhen to resist Zhao Yun were obviously the best among the generals; And letting Zhang He personally resist Zhuge Liang's main force shows the degree of attention. The most critical thing is that Zhang He was ordered to take down the choke point of the street pavilion. Zhuge Liang naturally realized this, so he sent his cronie Ma Jian to defend it.
Ma Tan can be said to be Zhuge Liang's most confidant general, so the prime minister repeatedly instructed him to be cautious against the enemy, and assigned Gao Xiang and Wei Yan to respond on the left and right flanks of the street pavilion. Although Zhuge Liang had unparalleled trust in Ma Tan, he obviously had some faint worries, and his intuition told him that there would inevitably be some losses in this battle.
Sure enough, Ma Tan's conceit led to the most crucial defeat of the campaign. He did not listen to the dissuasion of his military advisor Wang Ping, and insisted on stationing his army on an isolated mountain. When Zhang He bravely surrounded Ma Tan's garrison and cut off its water supply, Ma Jian and his gang fell into a desperate situation. In desperation, Ma Jian had no choice but to flee by himself and hand over military power to Wu Ran.
At the same time that Ma Tan's troops were defeated, Zhao Yun also encountered a crazy counterattack by Cao Zhen's army in Baochu Road. Since Zhuge Liang only gave him a few thousand men and horses, he was unable to compete with Cao Zhen's army at all. The two armies of Gao Xiang and Wei Yan were also blocked by Guo Huai and Zhang He respectively, and they were useless. The favorable situation of the great victory of the entire Northern Expedition plummeted for thousands of miles and disappeared in an instant.
Although Zhuge Liang also tried to take Xixian County and regain some face, there is no doubt that this Northern Expedition has been a complete rout. Alas and sighed, he had to make up his mind to severely punish Ma Jian and several others to enforce military discipline, including Ma Tan, Zhang Xiu, Li Sheng The three generals, plus Yang Qun, Ding Li, Ma Yu, Yan Zhi, Bai Shou, Liu He, Deng Tong, and Zhao Yun, who died in depression soon after, a total of 11 generals folded this battle.
The generals alone have lost so much, not to mention that more than 70 colonels and lieutenants at all levels have died on the battlefield. This Shu army, which already had a weak foundation, knocked out its family foundation all at once, and it can really be said that it has lost the foundation to continue fighting. In particular, the death of Zhao Yun is undoubtedly the heaviest blow to Zhuge Liang. This battle-hardened veteran general is the last confidant of the ancestor Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang regards him as a treasure, and wants to use his prestige and experience to maintain the morale of the army. But who expected, even Zhao Yun was demoted to a military position in this battle, lost his fighting spirit, and finally died in despair.
Some commentators said that Zhuge Liang himself also degraded himself to the third-level military rank, which can be regarded as taking responsibility for this defeat. It's just that he is still the supreme military commander of Shu Han, and he controls the power between the palms, so what is the point of degrading himself by three levels? But Zhao Yun tasted the price of this sourness.
In fact, after careful consideration, Zhuge Liang lost these 11 generals, many of whom are talents who are expected to become the pillars of the new generation of Shu Han. Yang Qun, Ding Li, and Ma Yu are all cutting-edge teachers under their command, how did they expect to fall like this? Although Yan Zhi is not young, he has the potential to become the successor of Zhao Yun and Guan Yu, Bai Shou and Liu He are also talented soldiers, not to mention Ma Yan, Zhang Xiu, and Li Sheng, who are already Zhuge Liang's confidants.
Zhuge Liang may have been aware of the serious losses of the First Northern Expedition that he launched four more Northern Expeditions four years later, tirelessly attacking Cao Wei. He seems determined to completely destroy Cao Wei and regain the lost territory in Guanzhong during his lifetime.
During the Second Northern Expedition (229), Zhuge Liang stationed in Yinping and cut off the connection between Cao Wei Guanzhong and the east. However, soon Cao Xiu and Xiahou Yuan approached Cao Wei's army, and Zhuge Liang could only leave Guan Yu to stick to Yinping and retreat to Hanzhong by himself, as a result, Guan Yu was killed, Yinping was lost, and Shu Han fell into passivity again.
In the third Northern Expedition (231), Zhuge Liang personally conquered Wudu, went straight to the heart of the enemy, and won more than 20 cities such as Qingping, Lefan, and Jiange in one fell swoop. If Sun Quan didn't have any dissent at this time, Zhuge Liang might be able to capture Guanzhong in one fell swoop, but the Shu-Wu alliance broke down and Cao Wei's reinforcements came, and Zhuge Liang could only temporarily retreat.
In the Fourth Northern Expedition (234), Zhuge Liang smashed Huanglong in an attempt to take Chang'an directly. Unexpectedly, he fell into the heavy resistance of Fu Sheng, the remnants of Fu Jian's separatist forces, and Cao Wei's army also rushed to the rendezvous, Zhuge Liang suffered heavy losses and had to flee from the wind.
The last Northern Expedition was in 237, and Zhuge Liang was seventy-five years old, but he still personally led the army to Wudu again. But at the critical moment of attacking Wudu, this brilliant military genius contracted malaria and died soon after. Before he died, he said to his son Zhuge Zhan: "I have served the country for more than 20 years and failed to fulfill my career, what a sin!" ”
Zhuge Liang's biggest dream and long-cherished wish in life failed to come true after all. At the time of his birth and death, he must have also recognized his limitations. On the one hand, he has extraordinary wisdom and foresight, but on the other hand, he lacks the spirit of a real general, cannot personally supervise the battle, and lacks the ability to control the overall situation at critical moments.
The Northern Expedition was five times, and the price paid by Shu Han was heavy, in addition to the 11 generals who died in the first Northern Expedition, the later Northern Expeditions also suffered countless casualties. Guan Yu, Ma Chao, Huang Soul, Fei Yi, Fei Shi and other talents who carried the top were all spared. By the time Zhuge Liang died, Shu Han's talents were out of control.
Zhuge Liang has been running around all his life to unify the world, but his diligent pursuit has accelerated the pace of the fall of Shu Han. Just a few years later, Shu Han was completely destroyed by Cao Wei, leaving only a tragic epic for future generations. Some people call Zhuge Liang a politician, some people call him a military strategist, and some people say that he is a literati, but in fact, it is difficult for him to tell which kind of person he is, maybe he is a romantic, or a person who pursues idealism.
But it is this idealism and romance that makes Zhuge Liang's life so legendary and wonderful.