[Lightscreen]
[Seeing the Prime Minister surrounding Mount Qi and building Lucheng, Sima Yi knew this was shaping up to be a long, grinding slugfest.
He reacted fast.
Guo Huai, Fei Yao, and Dai Ling were to hold Shanggui with four thousand men. Then, the entire army would strike out and take down Kongming's four-wheeled carriage!]
Kongming looked up at the screen. ???
Everyone else in the hall underwent a collective pupil-dilation event. This old general with his hair completely unbound and wild is Sima Yi? And what in the world is a four-wheeled carriage? Some kind of siege weapon?
[Lightscreen]
[Sorry, wrong graphic. Let me fix that.
What I meant was, he struck toward Lucheng to relieve Mount Qi!
At the time, Sima Yi's deputy Zhang He had a suggestion. Boss, I have fought this Zhuge the Village Bumpkin many times. I think you should split the forces between Yongzhou and Meicheng, just in case things go wrong.
Sima Yi flexed his leadership muscles. I do not care what you think. I care what I think.
In Sima Yi's view, Comrade Zhang He was still too green. Would splitting the forces not just hand that village bumpkin a chance to take them apart one by one?
But why is history always so predictable? Sima Yi charged straight for Lucheng and Mount Qi, only to let out the exact same howl Cao Zhen had before him.
Zhuge the Village Bumpkin, you are not even here! Where did you go?!
The Prime Minister's response was simple. He left his reliable comrade Wang Ping to hold Lucheng and took the main force on a lightning dash for Shanggui.
Poor Guo Huai had already been bullied enough, and with just four thousand men, how was he supposed to fight the Shu Han main force? He hung up the No Fighting sign and sealed the gates tight.
The Prime Minister did not mind one bit, he returned to his old trade : Farming.
The Shu Han soldiers swapped their spears for sickles and harvested every last stalk of wheat around Shanggui.
He even shouted a message up to the weeping Guo Huai on the wall. Keep up the good farm work. When the wheat is ripe next year, I will be back! Then, right under the noses of Sima Yi's returning army, the Shu Han forces casually strolled back into Lucheng.]
Zhang Fei was officially floored. He had assumed it was a strike the reinforcements play, and Sima Yi had thought it was a decisive battle. But the military advisor had actually launched a surprise raid on the enemy's wheat.
Guan Yu did not hold back. "Sun Tzu said it best. One bushel of the enemy's food is worth twenty of your own. Kongming's ability to feed off the enemy makes him a true general of wisdom!"
Jian Yong started giggling to himself. When he saw everyone looking at him, he explained, "I do not know much about warfare. I just find the image hilarious. Kongming leading an army to steal the wheat while the defenders cry on the walls and the commander-in-chief can only watch from a distance. It is pure comedy."
The room erupted in laughter. Liu Bei was fully convinced now. "A response like this... Kongming really does have the bearing of a legendary general."
Pang Tong added his own praise. "By feeding off the enemy, he is forcing the Wei army to haul grain all the way from Guanzhong. Kongming becomes the one holding all the cards.
The future's language of initiative and passivity is so precise.
Seize the initiative and the world is yours.
Fall into passivity and you are just meat on the block."
Kongming's expression was complicated, but he finally spoke. "If things went this well, we should have achieved a major victory after breaking Sima Yi's army. So why did we still..."
The hall sobered instantly. Right. Why?
"Maybe more reinforcements came from Guanzhong," Guan Yu suggested.
He figured it was the only logical answer. "Cao Rui is decisive and composed, much like Cao Cao himself. And since the eastern front was quiet, he could throw everything he had into the west."
The moment the eastern front came up, everyone fell silent again. That ally of ours... does he even actually exist?
[Lightscreen]
[After the Prime Minister finished harvesting, comrade Zhang He tried again.
Boss, if we just fortify Shanggui, we can easily starve him out even if we have to haul grain from Guanzhong!
Sima Yi's response was basically this. The village bumpkin has a long, slippery road back to home. I am worried about him. Let me see him off.
Sima Yi tailed the Prime Minister and watched him march right back into Lucheng and slam the gates shut, without even a polite invitation to come inside for a cup of tea.
With the Prime Minister entrenched in Lucheng and Mount Qi still under distant siege, Sima Yi chose his move. He dug in on the high ground and refused battle. The Prime Minister thought it over and adjusted. He pulled the siege troops back from Mount Qi to Lucheng and built an additional camp to the north to protect the water supply.
The relieved Wei generals Jia Si and Wei Ping practically begged Sima Yi for permission to attack. Denied.
This led to them carving their names into history with one legendary insult. You fear Shu like they are tigers! What will the world say about you?!
Still, Sima Yi refused. Not only that, he conveniently fell ill.
The play is not hard to read. The Wei army was stronger, so refusing battle built up their stored frustration. The Prime Minister's army had the morale high from the wheat harvest, but that would not last forever. After dragging things out for over two months, Sima Yi decided the time was ripe. He waved his hand and gave the order. Attack Lucheng!]
The tension in the hall spiked hard. Even those who knew nothing of war could feel it. The decisive moment had arrived.
Zhang Fei was still confused. "Could he not have won by just listening to Zhang He?"
Guan Yu shook his head. "He would not have lost. But he would have lost face."
"And if he just attacked the military advisor head-on?" Zhang Fei pressed.
"He would not lose face," Guan Yu replied. "But he would lose the battle."
Zhang Fei finally got it. "So if this Sima Yi gets beaten at Lucheng..."
"He loses the war," Wei Yan finished flatly. "And his dignity along with it."
Liu Bei had lost the strategic thread entirely. Why pull the troops away from Mount Qi?
But he trusted his gut completely. "Kongming will take this!"
[Lightscreen]
[In May of 231 AD, a massive battle erupted north of Lucheng between the Prime Minister and Sima Yi.
Zhang He was ordered to hit Wang Ping's position south of the city while Sima Yi led the main force against the northern sector. A two-pronged pincer.
The Prime Minister kept his cool and gave clear orders. Wang Ping was to hold the southern camp at all costs while waiting for reinforcements.
Wei Yan, Gao Xiang, and Wu Ban, three of his top commanders, would meet Sima Yi head-on.
Like the battle at Yangxi, we have no detailed play-by-play. Only the final tally. Sima Yi's force was utterly shattered. The records claim three thousand armored heads taken, five thousand sets of black armor captured, and three thousand horn bows seized. In the south, Wang Ping fought Zhang He to a stalemate.
When Zhang He saw his boss had been routed, he pulled back fast.
This crushing defeat forced Sima Yi to retreat to Shanggui to lick his wounds, while the Prime Minister once again laid siege to Mount Qi.
The entire Longyou situation was looking up again!]
Kongming could not bring himself to feel happy at all. The failure to secure Longyou was already written in stone. Every victory he heard about now only made the pain cut deeper.
Guan Yu did some rough calculations based on what he knew of the Cao bandits' strength. "Sima Yi likely had around fifty thousand men. If three thousand armored heads were taken, the true butchery must have been at least six thousand dead."
Wei Yan saw a different truth entirely. "The... the military advisor knows how to train soldiers too?"
The light screen had mentioned before that earlier expeditions were partly for training purposes, and those efforts had apparently not gone so well.
But this time they had won while outnumbered. Besides the quality of the generals, the soldiers themselves must have been simply superior.
Liu Bei was grinning ear to ear. His military advisor really was unmatched. He waved off Wei Yan's comment casually. "Kongming is training a special infantry unit right now. Quite impressive, actually!"
Wei Yan's curiosity was thoroughly piqued. Liu Bei, meanwhile, had caught another name. "Wang Ping truly is an excellent general! He was the one who used drums and false banners to bluff Zhang He into retreating after the Jieting disaster."
Zhang Fei felt a strong kinship with a general who used the same tricks he favored. "Facing Zhang He again at Lucheng? They are practically old rivals at this point. If only Wang Ping had been in command at Jieting..."
He clicked his tongue with deep regret. Ma Liang kept his head down and his brush moving, offering no comment whatsoever.
[Lightscreen]
[At this stage, Longyou turned into a brutal contest of pure logistics.
Because the Prime Minister had stolen the Shanggui wheat, Sima Yi was in a tight spot. Guo Huai was even dispatched to shake down the local Qiang tribes for grain.
The history books record it bluntly. At that time, the grain of Sima Yi and the others was also exhausted.
The Prime Minister was in the same boat. The Shanggui wheat was almost gone, and retaking Longyou was a slow, grinding process.
Everything took time, and time was the enemy of supply lines. The Prime Minister even wrote a letter to Li Yan to pour out his thoughts. This is the critical moment. Sima Yi is about to break too. If the supply pressure is too heavy, I will just go cut his grain routes and start farming locally.
Anyone could see the situation in Longyou was favorable. The Prime Minister believed that if they could just grit their teeth and hold on a little longer, Longyou would fall and the Han restoration would be within reach.
Then, right in the middle of his planning, a messenger from Li Yan arrived at the camp. Heavy rains have set in. I fear the grain shipments cannot continue. Prime Minister, please return.]
Liu Bei and Pang Tong spoke at the exact same moment. "Something is wrong!"
Pang Tong gestured for his lord to go first. Liu Bei said, "The light screen mentioned earlier that when Cao Zhen invaded Shu, Kongming requisitioned Li Yan's troops. He was afraid that had bred personal resentment."
Everyone nodded. They remembered that clearly. Pang Tong was more direct. "Sending a messenger like this... the whole thing reeks."
Guan Yu felt the same wrongness but could not see the logic. "If the message was false, what does Li Yan gain from it?"
That was the question eating at everyone. Why would you sabotage your own side? What is in it for you?
[Lightscreen]
[Even with victory right there in front of him, even knowing that just a little more endurance would bring Longyou back to the Han, the Prime Minister had no choice but to retreat.
Running out of food simply had consequences too catastrophic to risk.
Besides, the people and the miscellaneous Hu tribes of Longyou had already been stripped clean by Guo Huai. There was not a single grain left to scavenge anywhere.
So, with one last look at the Longyou he had almost won, the Prime Minister gave the bitter order to withdraw.
Seeing the Prime Minister retreat put a little spring in Sima Yi's step. But not much. He did not dare move himself. He had Zhang He for that. Go get them!
Zhang He's internal monologue at this moment was probably one long, profane rant. For starters, they were the ones who lost at Lucheng, not the village bumpkin. Now the Prime Minister was going home, and even Sima Yi himself should have been breathing a sigh of relief.
What was with the sudden bravado? And if he truly thought there was a chance, why not lead the charge himself? Why send the old man to do it?
But comrade Zhang He was just a working man. He tried to be diplomatic. Boss, the art of war says to leave an escape route for a cornered enemy. Never chase a retreating army. He thought his meaning was perfectly clear. This is an organized withdrawal, not a rout.
The history books capture the pure wage-slave despair of Zhang He in three words. He had no choice but to advance.
This is why being a general is so much more dangerous than being a civil official. Liu Ye offered a hundred suggestions the Emperor ignored, but he kept his rank and his salary just fine. Zhang He gave three perfectly sound pieces of advice and got repaid with a do it anyway.
In the end, he tragically, heroically, face-checked the bushes. At Mumen Trail, he walked straight into a Han ambush and was struck down by a storm of arrows.
One account says he died on the spot. Another says he was hit in the thigh and succumbed to the wound soon after.
Zhang He's death carries a strange, bitter taste. He was a veteran who had been fighting since Cao Cao's time. His achievements and seniority both outranked Sima Yi.
His death was not simply the result of Sima Yi having a brain fart.]