Zhuge Liang's first Northern Expedition,The general was killed, a crushing defeat!
Zhuge Liang made six northern expeditions, Shu Han took the initiative to attack five times, and was forced to defend and counterattack once. The fifth initiative of this defensive counterattack is like a continuation of life for Shu Han.
However, this way of injuring 10,000 enemies and injuring 8,000 is more like suicide. Zhuge Liang knew this, but as the weakest party in the division of powers, they had no choice.
If you don't live in this way, you can only perish in silence.
Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition strategy enabled the Shu Han regime to maintain a glimmer of life in the struggle against other regimes. If the Northern Expedition had not been adopted, the Shu Han regime might have been carved up by other regimes more quickly, or even perished.
Although the first of Zhuge Liang's five Northern Expeditions was the most likely to succeed, every decision he made was to continue the survival hope of the Shu Han regime.
The Cao Wei regime in Cao Cao's era clearly knew that Liu Bei's Wolong and Phoenix Chicks were strategists who could strategize, while the Shu Han regime was located in the Sichuan region, which was easy to defend and difficult to attack, due to its geographical location, so the Cao Wei regime was reluctant to enter into a direct conflict with the Shu Han regime.
Although the Shu Han regime started as the weakest of the three regimes, it also had the most internal problems, including ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples. Therefore, in the early days of the Shu Han regime, they did not have enough strength to compete head-on with other regimes.
This inertia gave the Cao Wei regime an inherent impression of the Shu Han regime: the Shu Han were internally chaotic and could not compete with their strong Cao Wei regime.
In a three-person fight, the strongest boxer will focus more on the second player of equal strength, and the weakest third player is usually overlooked.
Similarly, Cao Wei's wariness of Shu Han was relaxed and he did not go head-to-head, so it is often believed that if Ma Tan had not failed at Jieting, Zhuge Liang's first Northern Expedition might have been the closest to success in history.
However, Zhuge Liang's first Northern Expedition was actually disastrous and became a turning point for the entire Shu Han regime. His goal was to capture the Longyou region, while Wei's generals Zhang He and Xu Huang were busy fighting Eastern Wu.
To make matters worse, Cao Pi's death led to a rebellion in Mengda and the three counties of Liangzhou in an attempt to break away from Cao Wei's control.
After Liu Bei's death, Zhuge Liang gradually transformed the Shu Han regime from a regime based on Liu Bei's personal charm into a disciplined and core regular army in five years.
Therefore, when he learned of Cao Pi's death and the news that Cao Rui was about to ascend the throne, Zhuge Liang thought that the time was ripe for the Northern Expedition, so he wrote the "Teacher Table". As soon as this letter was issued, it received the full support of the Shu Han generals.
Zhuge Liang and Zhao Yun led the army into Hanzhong, and attracted the main force of Cao Wei to the Guanzhong region with the strategy of attacking the east and the west, and won a complete victory.
Zhuge Liang led the elite troops to raid Longyou, and the three counties of Nan'an, Tianshui, and Anding were unable to resist, and surrendered to Shu Han. Yu Jun was shaken, and Cao Rong transferred Zhang He back to defense in order to reduce losses.
However, Zhang He's return made Zhao Yun's Guanzhong front difficult, and Cao Rong had seen through Zhuge 's plan.
Zhuge Liang knew the strategic importance of the street pavilion, so he sent Ma Tan to defend it. Before Ma Tan sent out his troops, Zhuge Liang repeatedly emphasized that he should start drawing military maps as soon as he arrived at the street pavilion, so as to better understand the geographical situation of mountains and rivers.
In addition, Zhuge Liang also asked him to mark the location of his camp on the map and report this information as soon as possible. However, Ma Tan's pride made his actions in the street pavilion completely deviate from Zhuge Liang's instructions, and this Zhuge Liang's proud ** instantly turned into a wanton little bully, he ignored Zhuge Liang's advice and acted as he pleased.
In a state of self-confidence, Ma Jian even ignored the advice of his subordinate Wang Ping, who firmly believed that he had grown into a great general in his own right. Although Zhuge Liang asked him to deliver the message quickly, he forgot about it.
In the end, Ma Tan's overconfidence led to the loss of the street pavilion, and he realized his mistake. However, his self-righteousness had already cost him the best chance of the Northern Expedition.
During this Northern Expedition, Zhuge Liang lost another outstanding ally, Zhao Yun, who was the only surviving of the Five Tiger Generals of Liu Bei's period, who died of injury and illness during the retreat of the Northern Expedition at the age of sixty.
In this Northern Expedition, not only Zhao Yun died of illness, but also Ma Jian was beheaded by Zhuge Liang because of military law. Ma Jian is the younger brother of Zhuge Liang's once powerful adviser Ma Liang, so after Ma Liang's death, Ma Jian has been following Zhuge Liang, but his behavior has seriously shaken the morale of the army, although Zhuge Liang is reluctant, but in order to stabilize the morale of the army, he had to order beheading.
In addition, there were nine new generation generals who died in this Northern Expedition, they were Zhang Xiu, Li Sheng, Yang Qun, Ma Yu, Yan Zhi, Ding Li, Bai Shou, Liu He, and Deng Tong.
Although these nine generals were not enough to lead the army independently at that time, they were the new generation of generals of Shu Han carefully cultivated by Zhuge Liang, and as long as they were cultivated with enough time and care, they were all likely to become the core force of Shu Han in the future.
However, the performance of Ma Tan and others in the First Northern Expedition not only weakened the results of the Northern Expedition, but also sacrificed other generals as reserve forces. At the same time, Cao Wei also took this opportunity to see the strength of Shu Han, which made the subsequent Northern Expedition particularly difficult.
In the end, in the Fifth Northern Expedition, Zhuge Liang died of illness in Wuzhangyuan, and this Northern Expedition became a turning point in the decline of Shu Han.