"Fengxiao will not die, and Wolong will not come out." As a topic in the discussion of the three countries on the Internet in recent years.
One is the Cao Wei military division who followed Cao Cao to create a foundation; One is the prime minister of Shu Han, known as Wolong; The two have never met in their lives, but it has caused many people to compare them today.
So is Guo Jia really that strong? If you don't die young, can you compete with Zhuge Liang?
01 Genius Strategist
Guo Jia, whose name is Fengxiao, was born in 170 A.D. and died in 207 at the age of 38, which is indeed not a long life, so this is also the reason why many people lament his untimely death.
However, although Guo Jia died relatively early, he still left a lot of "highlight moments".
Compared with Zhuge Liang, Guo Jia was active in the era of competition in the late Eastern Han Dynasty earlier, and when he was young, he used to be incognito and make friends with various heroes and heroes.
In 196, Cao Cao's strategist Xi Zhicai died, so he asked Xun Yu to recommend a strategist who could disintegrate, and it happened that Guo Jia and Xun Yu were friends, so he introduced him to Cao Cao.
When the two met, Guo Jia showed his strategic vision and put forward the theory of "ten wins and ten defeats", predicting that Cao Cao had ten victories and Yuan Shao had ten defeats, and believed that Cao Cao would definitely be able to achieve great things.
It was this kind of exposition that deeply aroused Cao Cao's appreciation, and introduced Guo Jia into his command, and even set up an official position of military advisor to give full play to his abilities.
Guo Jia's first "highlight moment" was during the "Eastern Expedition to Lü Bu", when Lü Bu's army held on to Xiapi, causing Cao Cao's army to be unable to attack for a long time, and even wanted to withdraw his army.
At this time, Guo Jia stood up and took Xiang Yu in the past as an example, bluntly saying that Xiang Yu was only brave and lacked strategy in the past, and Lu Bu failed many battles at this time, and his morale must have been exhausted, so he persuaded Cao Cao to take advantage of the victory to pursue.
Cao Cao thought it made sense when he heard this, so he continued to increase his attack and adopted the tactic of "flooding Pi" and successfully defeated Lü Bu.
Later, Guo Jia also told Cao Cao that he wanted to get rid of Liu Bei as soon as possible, thinking that he was not very human, and once he was released, he would become "a disaster for several generations", but Cao Cao did not adopt it at that time, and finally regretted not listening to Guo Jia when Liu Bei became successful again.
Then, when Cao Cao unified the north, Guo Jia made suggestions behind the scenes, determined many grand strategic guidelines, and successively made outstanding performances in the Battle of Guandu, the crusade against Yuan Tan, Yuan Shang and other wars.
In the end, when Cao Cao decided to go on an expedition to Wuhuan, Guo Jia sided with Cao Cao in the opposition of many ministers, and successfully helped Cao Cao pacify the Liaodong region.
However, because he suddenly fell seriously ill at this time and died soon after, "Liaodong" became the curtain call moment for this "genius military advisor".
It can be seen that Guo Jia does have a lot of accurate insights on the grand strategic policy, and he is also one of the most important strategists in Cao Cao's early days, so can he really compare with Zhuge Liang?
02 Strategist Duel
Because Guo Jia died too early, Zhuge Liang and Guo Jia did not really have a duel, so how can we compare the two, I think it depends on the contributions made by each in the limited time.
Guo Jia, as Cao Cao's strategist, can start from the "Ten Victories and Ten Defeats" theory in 196 to the end of "Ruins in Liaodong" in 207, which is about 10 years.
Then we can also look at it from Zhuge Liang's side, Zhuge Liang came out of the mountain in the same year as Guo Jia's death - 207 AD, and it was at this time that he proposed the Longzhong pair.
At that time, Liu Bei was far from Cao Cao in the past, and could only be attached to Liu Biao's command, and under the leadership and command of Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei took the lead in standing on his heels, and later responded to the attack of Cao Cao's army, "crossing the river with the people" to form his own early forces.
Immediately afterwards, Zhuge Liang put forward the strategy of "uniting Eastern Wu", and with the cooperation of both sides, he won a great victory in the Battle of Chibi, and then followed Liu Bei to participate in the Battle of Yizhou and the Battle of Hanzhong.
From 207 to 218, after Liu Bei obtained Zhuge Liang, he gradually evolved from a small force that depended on others and ran around to a male lord occupying Yizhou and Jingzhou.
And in terms of Cao Cao, who had already dominated the north at that time, there were still back and forth, and they ended in victory in the Battle of Chibi and the Battle of Hanzhong.
If you look at the initial difficulty of Zhuge Liang and Guo Jia, in the same time period, Zhuge Liang's role in Liu Bei can be said to be greater than Guo Jia.
What's more, although they are both top strategists, in fact, the work of the two is not the same, Zhuge Liang is more of a "partner" with Liu Bei, and focuses more on various aspects such as grand strategy and internal affairs.
As Cao Cao's important courtier, most of Guo Jia was a part of the military strategy and strategic plan.
On the other hand, there are too few works left by Guo Jia, and Zhuge Liang has dabbled in literature, engineering, painting and other aspects, so the gap is even more too big.
Of course, some people say that it is because Guo Jia died prematurely, so is this really the case?
03 Influence of later generations
Why are people so keen to compare people with Zhuge Liang nowadays?
In fact, it affirmed Zhuge Liang's achievements from the side, after all, under the changes of the long years, Kong Ming has become a symbol of "wisdom", and in the eyes of people, he is always "exhausted".
And such an image will naturally cause many people to compare, and even hope to be able to suppress the other party, so such as Guo Jia, Fa Zheng, Jia Xu, Sima Yi and other strategists of the Three Kingdoms, some people will claim to be better than Zhuge Liang.
However, the fact is that Zhuge Liang himself does have shortcomings, and even failed a lot in his subsequent strategies, and it happens from time to time to use the wrong people and the wrong strategy, but no strategist has ever had the same achievements as him.
The reason is actually very simple, there are many resourceful people in all dynasties, and there is no shortage in such a period as the Three Kingdoms, but there are very few people like Zhuge Liang who "do their best and die".
As the prime minister, he is already above 10,000 people, and even the emperor obeys his command in everything, but Zhuge Liang still sticks to his own position, and he has to deal with big and small things by himself, even if he dies, he is contributing himself to the country.
The situation in the late Shu Han period can be said to be a big mess, and in such a situation, it can still be resurrected from the place of death, and even be able to gather forces to carry out the Northern Expedition, and compete with Cao Wei and Eastern Wu in the most barren places.
At the same time, under the leadership of Zhuge Liang, the economic development of Shu Han was rapid, and a variety of water conservancy projects were also built, the number of fertile land was increased, and the lives of the local people were greatly improved.
Therefore, even in the countless years after Zhuge Liang's death, his deeds are still constantly sung, such an achievement is unattainable by countless strategists, which is inseparable from the creation of the times, but it is also his own ability.
There may be countless "top strategists" in history, but "Zhuge Liang" has become a unique symbol.
Sources of information:
[1] Huai'an Political Science and Law 2023-03-09 - Cao Cao's "chief staff" - military secretary Guo Jia