Liu Chan thought it was very good, Liaodong Gongsun Yuan rebelled against Cao Wei, and the wei state would be affected to some extent, but what he did not expect was that Emperor Wei Ming sent a capable Sima Yi, and it took less than a year to pacify Liaodong without affecting the internal wei state, so the opportunity for the Northern Expedition of the Shu state did not appear.
Although there was no large army in the Shu state in 238 AD, Jiang Huan also acted according to Liu Chan's instructions, and like his predecessor Zhuge Liang, he left Chengdu and personally came to Hanzhong to garrison the army, in order to make preliminary preparations for the northern expedition in the future.
But at this time, the comparative situation between Shu and Wei is no longer than before, after these years of development, the State of Wei is obviously getting stronger and stronger, the State of Shu has consumed a lot of national strength after zhuge liang's five northern expeditions in the early stage, and there is a point, compared with Zhuge Liang, there is still some gap, when Zhuge Liang is still planting in the grass, there is already a road map for marching in all parts of the world in his chest, and Jiang Huan is still a person with hindsight compared with him.
Regarding the gap between himself and Zhuge Liang, I believe that Jiang Huan knows it better than we do, so he adopts a completely different attitude towards Wei. The number of times Jiang Huan took the initiative to attack was not very large, that is, there were a few times when Jiang Wei led some people and horses to march to the northwest, which was considered to have made an offensive attitude, but the purpose was not strong, and the harvest was not great. In the years when Jiang Huan was stationed in Hanzhong, he mainly put up a defensive posture, and the results were more obvious, and the Wei army did not dare to take the initiative to attack.
Many people saw that Jiang Huan defended more and attacked less, and they thought that he lacked initiative and did not intend to continue Zhuge Liang's northern expedition, but in fact, this was not the case, after years of research and thinking, Jiang Huan planned to take a different path from Zhuge Liang's northern expedition.
Jiang Huan believed that Zhuge Liang's five Northern Expeditions before and after were basically by land and sent troops from Qinchuan, and that road was very difficult to walk, and it was very inconvenient to march and retreat, and the Northern Expedition was not successful, which was a big reason. Jiang Huan changed his mind for a moment, he felt that he could consider the waterway, and the Shu army could march east along the Han River and the Shu River to attack the wei and Shangyong counties of the Wei state.
After the idea was decided, Jiang Huan began to act, and he ordered his subordinates to build many ships, intending to attack the Wei state from the east by water. But things were not coincidental, just when the army had not yet set off, Jiang Huan was sick, and he was still very sick, and the matter of sending out troops was delayed.
Originally, before Jiang Huan planned to send troops, many people within the Shu State did not recognize his approach, thinking that Zhuge Liang did not attack from the waterway, that was considered, mainly the matter of sending troops by waterway, it was easy to set out, whether it was loading soldiers or transporting grain and grass, the capacity of the ship was large enough, but in case the troops were unfavorable, if you also wanted to retreat from the waterway, it would be troublesome, it was really not a good idea.
If Jiang Huan did not get sick this time, with Liu Chan's trust in him and the scope of his personal power control, it would basically become a fact that jiang Huan was sick and things were delayed, and the opposition in the imperial court became louder and louder, and finally Liu Chan had no idea, and he sent Shangshu Ling Fei Yi and the central supervisor Jiang Wei to Hanzhong to persuade Jiang Huan to dispel the idea of sending troops by water.
At this time, in 244 AD, Jiang Huan felt that his body was not very good, and it was unlikely to complete the plan to lead the army to the east, so he took the illness and wrote a letter to Liu Chan. The general meaning is as follows.
It has been six years since I was ordered to garrison Hanzhong. As a courtier with high hopes from the monarch, it is my duty to restore the World of the Han Dynasty, but I am a person with stupid talent and a bad health, so things have not progressed so far, and I am very ashamed in my heart and uneasy about sleeping and eating.
Now that Cao Wei has occupied a vast territory and has been operating for many years, it is not an easy task to crush them at once, if we can work together with Wu Guo to form a corner to exert forces together, there is still hope, even if we cannot quickly annex Wei Guo, we can also slowly encroach on its territory. But in recent years, Wu Guo has been a little hesitant, and every time he wants to agree with them to send troops, he finally can't get a clear answer, so this road is not very good.
I had previously consulted with Fei Yi and others that since Wu Guo was unreliable, it was necessary to rely on himself and find another good strategy. In the western liangzhou area, the terrain is very dangerous, and the Qianghu people there still have feelings for the Han Dynasty, and do not cling to the Wei state with a dead heart. Before we sent troops to attack Qiangdi, we drove out the Wei general Guo Huai, and according to the analysis of the current situation, occupying Liangzhou should be the top priority.
Therefore, Jiang Wei was appointed as the assassin of Liangzhou, and Liangzhou was used as the forward base, and after Jiang Wei led his troops from the northwest to attack the right side of the River in the State of Wei, I could unite the army in the rear as his support and support. Fuxian that place traffic is very convenient, water, land in all directions, where there is an emergency can be quickly arrived, I will go to Fuxian garrison.
After writing to Liu Chan, Jiang Huan began to garrison Fu County, and the year before that, Jiang Wei had already been promoted to the rank of General of Zhenxi, plus the History of Liangzhou Assassination, making positive preparations for the future crusade against the State of Wei.