From the siege of Chen Cang in the middle of the Six Qi Mountains, Zhuge Liang's military command ability can be seen

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms describes Zhuge Liang as not only a strategic planning genius who can be longzhong, but also a military genius with clever calculations, but in fact, when we read the canonical history of the Book of the Later Han Dynasty or the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it is difficult to draw such a conclusion. We can see from a smaller battle in the Northern Expedition of the Shu Army.

In December of the second year of Emperor Ming of Wei, Zhuge Liang northern expedition to besiege Chen Cangcheng (about present-day Baoji), when the Wei general Chen Cangshou was named Hao Zhao, who was also a cattle man, he was born in Taiyuan, and had been guarding the border pass for more than ten years, and the history books said that he was "a majestic man and had several military achievements."

Zhuge Liang was a politician, and he did not rush to attack the city, but initially persuaded him to surrender, because in Zhuge Liang's view, the Shu army had tens of thousands of people, while Chen Cang only had more than a thousand people at that time, and reinforcements from Chang'an in the east were difficult to arrive quickly. If Hao Zhao knew what to do, it was better to surrender.

So Zhuge Liang sent Hao Zhao's compatriot Jin Xiang to shout to General Hao outside the city, but he was not moved, meaning to thank Mr. Zhuge that I would not surrender, and you would let your horse come and attack the city. Zhuge Liang was still not dead-hearted, and sent XiangZhong to persuade Hao Zhao to surrender, this time analyzing the stakes and advising him why he should end up with the destruction of the city and the death of people, but this Hao Zhao still did not listen.

There was no way, Zhuge Liang had to arrange a siege of the city, the first wave first sent a rushing car to rush up to the ladder to prepare to climb the city wall to attack, but unexpectedly there were already preparations in the city. The defenders used rockets to shoot at the ladder, and after the ladder caught fire, the Shu army burned to death, fell to death, and the rushing car was also smashed by the defenders' millstones, and the first round of siege was declared a failure.

Then, Zhuge Liang ordered the Shu army to launch a hundred-foot-high jinglan (a wooden siege device similar to a mobile arrow tower) to shoot arrows into the city, and the engineering troops tried to climb directly into the city, Hao Zhao also had a clever trick, they directly built another wall in the city wall to block the Shu army, this time unsuccessful.

So Zhuge Liang sent people to build tunnels day and night, trying to dig into the city through the tunnels, but Hao Zhao had expected Zhuge Liang's move earlier, and he sent soldiers to dig tunnels horizontally, but he did not succeed. In this way, the two sides attacked and defended day and night for more than twenty days, the Shu army was still unable to attack the city, the history books said that "bright and no plan", at this time the Wei state rescue arrived, Zhuge Liang had no choice but to retreat.

This account should be relatively reliable in Pei Songzhi's Notes on the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms of Wei Luo's Ming Emperor III. From Zhuge Liang's command operation this time, it can be seen that in fact, Zhuge Liang's military command ability is not much different from other ordinary generals, and may not be as good as Wei Yan.

Analyzing the reasons, Zhuge Liang had not been in contact with war before becoming Liu Bei's think tank, he was a scholar who studied the national strategy in Longzhong, his strengths lie in long-term vision and excellent planning ability, but the command of the battle requires the ability to adapt to changes, which is very different from strategic planning, Wei Ming Emperor Cao Rui (204 - January 22, 239) when he heard Zhuge Liang attack Qishan, said a paragraph: "Liang thinks he can, marches to the bottom of the well, and greedy for the three counties, knows and does not retreat, and the light will be broken."