The History of China - #44 - 3K 3: The Southern Strategy

Episode Date: October 29, 2014

Warping back in time half a century, we take a different look at the Three Kingdoms through the eyes of Shu Han of Sichuan, its regent lord Zhuge Liang, and his five campaigns against the northern stare of Cao Wei between 228 and 234. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hey everyone, I hope you'll enjoy today's episode. But before we launch in, a quick announcement. We are now just three weeks away, give or take, from the history of China's first anniversary. As I mentioned before, we are opening up to your questions to air for a special show. We have some great ones so far, but still have room for more. So please, whether it's about historical nuances,

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And if you enjoy this show, please rate us on iTunes, and maybe even donate through our links to PayPal or Patreon. I look forward to hearing from you all. Thanks for listening, and enjoy the show. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 42, The Southern Strategy So, last time we followed the progression of Cao Wei from the death of Cao Cao in 220, all the way to the state-slash-kingdom-slash-empires apparently unstoppable offensive against Shu

Han in 263, under the nominal leadership of the adopted great-grandson of Cao Cao, Cao Fang, but the actual leadership of the Duke of Jin, Sima Zhao. The rapid collapse of one of the three kingdoms took just about everyone by surprise. Remember that the states had been deadlocked for about a half a century by now, and now within a matter of weeks, the whole state had effectively crumbled. But before we follow that particular thread to its end, this time we're going to hop about five decades back in time and take a look at things from the other side of the Yangtze River.

Leaving Taowei in the distance, we're headed down south to look at the goings-on within Shuhan itself as it warred intermittently with the other two kingdoms. We begin today all the way back with Liu Bei and two of his closest allies, who web user Yuan Leo pointed out that I'd really only mentioned in passing and hadn't given nearly the detail they deserve. One I did talk about as he protected Jing province from the advances of Eastern Wu, but the other I hadn't mentioned at all. They are, respectively, the generals Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. The two had been among Liu Bei's earliest and most stalwart of allies, having joined Chang Bai Jiangjun, one of Liu Bei's disparaging but accurate monikers meaning the general of constant defeats, even before he went on that epic losing streak. As far back as the 180s and the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the three had been nigh inseparable. They formed a

relationship more like one of brothers than of military allies, and went so far as to frequently share sleeping quarters and even the same bed, according to the records of the Three Kingdoms. This was, of course, played up in the fictionalized romance of the Three Kingdoms, culminating there with the so-called Taoyuan Sanjieyi, or the Oath of the three kingdoms, culminating there with the so-called Taoyuan Sanjieyi, or the Oath of the Peach Garden, where the three swore an unbreakable vow of fraternity, phrased in chapter 1 as, quote, When saying the names Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei, although the surnames are different, yet we have come together as brothers. From this day forward, we shall join our forces for a common purpose,

to save the troubled and to aid the endangered. We shall avenge the nation above and pacify the citizenry below. We seek not to be born on the same day, in the same month, and in the same year. We merely hope to die on the same day, in the same month, and in the same year. May the gods of heaven and earth attest to what is in our hearts. If we should ever do anything to betray our friendship, may heaven and the people of earth both strike us dead. End quote. This oath, as it were, probably never took place, as the only place it is mentioned is in the novel written a millennia

after the fact. But still, it does seem to do their relationship justice, and moreover has stuck in the cultural memory of China itself, and so is worth mentioning, even if only to serve as context. This fraternal bond helped explain Guan Yu's decision to ditch his post under the command of Cao Cao, when word reached him that his brother, Liu Bei, had fled the north in Cao Cao's wrath following the disastrous Battle of Guandu to seek refuge in Jing province. Riding alone for thousands of miles, Guan Yu made a perilous journey to reunite with his two brothers. Oath or no, though, the inseparable trio would ultimately not die on the same day.

As I mentioned in episode 39, Guan Yu would be captured by Sunchuan's forces in Jing province in 220, they having successfully infiltrated and captured the key defenses of the region. There he would be executed on Sanyuan's orders, having been deemed too dangerous to be kept alive. Zhang Fei, having been made the general of chariots and cavalry after Liu Bei declared himself emperor in 221, was tasked to hunt down Sun Quan for the death of their mutual brother in arms. He was given a force of 10,000 troops and was to rendezvous with Liu Bei's own forces to assault Sun Wu in 222, but before departing,

Zhang was betrayed and murdered by two of his subordinates, who took his head as a gift for Sun Quan, to whom they defected. And of course, following his crippling defeat at Xiaoting, Liu Bei himself took ill in 223 and followed his brothers-in-arms into death. As his successor, he designated his eldest son Liu Shan. But since the boy was only 16 at the time of his father's death, he also designated Zhuge Liang as his regent and head of government. As one of his first acts in office, the young new emperor granted Zhuge the title of the Marquis of Wu and shortly thereafter the governor of Yi province, making him pretty much the commander-in-chief of all of Shu Han. For his part, Zhuge Liang sought to bury the hatchet with Sun Quan and Eastern Wu,

and sent envoy after envoy to make peace, re-enter their previous alliance, and improve their relations. The main threat and prime usurper of the Han dynasty, from the perspective of Shu Han, was and must be Taowei. And so long as Sun Wu was a necessary frenemy against the northern monolith, they would have to be tolerated. But even before Shu could hope to mount an effective strike against the north, Zhuge Liang deemed that they really needed to bring all of Shu under Emperor Liu's effective control. Making claims on the entire country while barbarian tribes are still running around your own backyard pillaging is, well, rather embarrassing. Thus, Zhuge's first action would be to subdue the tribes of the Deep South,

nipping what he thought might have been a brooding revolution against Shu in the bud. In the spring of 225, the southern edges of Shu were in revolt, and the Yong, Gao, Zhu, and Meng clans, collectively known in Mandarin as the Nanman or simply Southern Barbarians, had seized several cities along the state's outskirts in Nanzhong. As a quick aside for our weekly language lesson, the term Nanman is particularly pejorative. You may remember that most often, the so-called barbarian tribes had been called the Yue, but the character Man uses the radical for insect or lizard, chong.

As such, in naming the southern tribes nanman, the Chinese were effectively suggesting that they were subhuman lizard people. Rather than simply crush the rebels under boot heel, however, Zhuge Liang heeded the advice of his military advisor, Ma Su, who suggested that if lasting peace were to be achieved, such a brutish strategy would not avail Shu Han. Rather, they'd be better off attempting to win over the populace of the south, winning hearts and minds, as it were. The traditional story goes that time and again, the leader of the rebel clans, Meng Huo, was defeated and captured by Zhuge's armies. And yet, he let

the rebel commander go free each time, that he might eventually achieve Meng's genuine surrender. But this, quite frankly, is rather absurd. Capturing a rebel commander and releasing him not once, not twice, but seven times, in an era where the conventional punishment for rebellion was watching your entire extended family be put to death? Not likely. Moreover, several contemporary historians have raised the question over whether there was a Meng Huo at all. Yunnan historian Zhang Hualan wrote that Meng's personal name, Huo, which means captured, is far too coincidental to be genuine,

given the rebel leader's supposed fate. Others contend that Meng Huo was a historical figure, but the story of him being captured and released seven times is almost certainly fictional. Somehow or another, after some number of defeats, Meng Huo, or whoever, came to the realization that the southerner's cause was hopeless and surrendered. In the romance's telling, he states, He then stripped off one of his sleeves, which is the sign of swearing an oath, and pledged, again, quote,

by the Chancellor's celestial might, the Southerners will never rebel again, end quote. This victory in bringing the Southern tribes to heel would be instrumental in Shu's future endeavors. By securing the South, Zhuge Liang acquired its valuable resources, which in turn allowed Shu Han to grow its economy and, critically, its military. With his army bolstered, he could begin launching sorties into Caowei to probe for weaknesses without needing to worry about possible rebellion from the south. With the southlands thusly quelled, Zhuge Liang turned his gaze once again northward toward his true enemy, Tawei. After making preparations, he began what would

become the first of his five northern expeditions, starting in 228. The overall goals and strategies of these expeditions can be traced as far back as 207, when Zhuge Liang had outlined in the broadest terms what would be required for Liu Bei to seize control of the north through Hanzhong Prefecture. This was known as the Longzhong Plan, and it had emphasized a two-pronged assault, one from Sichuan and the other north through the Qin Mountains. The target would be the once-and-future capital, Chang'an, which, situated as it was along the Great Bend of the Yellow River,

would make a perfect stronghold to launch further northward campaigns. But the intervening years had forced Zhuge to alter his grand vision, since with the loss of Jing province to eastern Wu, only one of his two military prongs would be in play. In his autobiography-slash-memorial work written just before he launched his campaigns in 227, Zhuge explained his decision and strategy as, quote, We should lead the three armies to secure the central plain in the north. Contributing my utmost, we shall exterminate the wicked, restore the house

of Han, and return to the old capital. Such is this subject's duty in repaying the former emperor and affirming allegiance to your majesty." Zhuge's plan called for a march north from the region of Hanzhong, which was by this time one of the main population centers in northern Yi province. In the early 3rd century, Hanzhong had been sparsely populated, surrounded by dense and untouched forests. But as we'd mentioned earlier, its strategic importance lay with the fact that it occupied a long and fertile plain along the Han River, between two massive mountain ranges, the Qin in the north and the Mizhang in the south.

Geographically, the rugged barrier of the Qin Mountains provided the greatest obstacle to Chang'an. The mountains formed a nearly solid wall of parallel east-to-west ridges, and in between those peaks were all but impassable valleys, whose canyon walls often rose sheer above the churning valley streams below. As a result of earthquakes, landslides, and geographic shifting, it remains an extremely complicated and treacherous area, even to this day. Access from the south was limited to a few mountain roads carved into the side of cliffs, which we've discussed in the past, called gallery roads.

These crossed major passes and were remarkable for their engineering skill and ingenuity, but the paths remained difficult and dangerous, even with such engineering feats. Before setting out, Zhuge Liang held a council of war to determine which route his army should take to Chang'an. The idea of sending a strike force across the Qin mountains to take Chang'an by surprise was considered, but ultimately rejected by Zhuge, who opted for a more cautious approach. Instead, he sent two small forces northward to begin harassing the region called Mei, visibly, loudly, and often. This would, hopefully, convince the defenders of Wei that the Shu armies intended to strike there.

In reality, though, this was nothing more than a distraction from Zhuge's true objective, a region far to the west of Chang'an called Longyou, which included the Tianshui, Anding, and Nan'an prefectural capitals, and most critically, Mount Qi, which Zhuge Liang planned to use as a defensive bastion to stage further strikes towards Chang'an. This, however, would be met with what can be best described as total failure. Wei's then-emperor, Cao Rui, moved himself to Chang'an to personally oversee its defense, and his general, Sima Yi, easily crushed the internal rebellion that had been timed to

coincide with the Shu Han army's operations. Finally, the force of some 50,000 infantry and cavalry were sent against Zhuge Liang's main army at Jieting. Zhuge's vanguard force was cut off by the Wei forces when its commander Ma Su had gone by the book, that is to say, doing exactly what Sun Tzu's art of war dictated that he'd do, and took the high ground, entrenching himself up on top of a mountain. Now this must have seemed like a good idea, but the stratagems of Sun Tzu proved themselves to be far from flawless when the Wei commanders simply cut off access to the water supply and waited them out. Most of the vanguard would be exterminated,

but a small force did manage to break through the Wei lines and make a run for it. Even then, though, it was only fear of a potential ambush that stopped the Wei commander from riding the lot of them down. Zhuge Liang was forced to order his army, attacking Mei, to retreat back to Hanzhong, since he feared that the Wei army could potentially outflank his main force. Following this enormous defeat, Zhuge ordered the vanguard commander executed for his incompetence, and requested of the emperor that he be demoted from chancellor down to general of the right, though that nominal demotion would have no practical effect on his command over Xu Han's government or military.

Alright, so that was the historical battle, but what about the fictional one? Because it's actually in the romance, rather than the records, that Zhuge Liang's most famous military exploit occurred right here, following his loss at Jieting. In the novel, the failure to secure the region exposed Zhuge Liang's current location to the enemy general, Sima Yi, the nearly defenseless town of Xicheng. The novel tells of Zhuge ingeniously coming up with and employing the so-called empty fort strategy to scare off the imminent invaders. He deployed the few troops under his immediate command away from the city, and those few who remained to dress as civilians and sweep the streets. He ordered all of

the city gates thrown open and then sat atop the main gate with two children at his side, playing a flute as Sima Yi approached with his army. Now, whatever General Sima had been expecting, it certainly wasn't this. He'd known Zhuge Liang to be an extremely careful tactician who almost never took unwarranted risks. Him sitting atop the city wall, playing away on his flute while the gates to an apparently empty city lay open beneath him could only mean one thing. It must be some kind of trick. Zhuge was well known for his deadly ambushes, and Sima Yi did not plan to become the next victim. Thus, rather than attacking, he ordered

his armies to retreat, buying Jugalian the time he needed to get the remainder of his troops safely back to Xuhang. Yes, it certainly does make for a great story, but it is entirely made up. For starters, the story puts the wayforces at between 150,000 to 200,000 troops, which against Juga's supposedly measly 2,500 defenders, could have simply surrounded them and waited them out rather than turning around and retreating. Moreover, at the time of the Battle of Jueiting, Sima Yi was nowhere near this theater of operations. In fact, he was stationed as the area commander of Jing province, hundreds of kilometers away. According to Moss Roberts, as he annotated his English

translation of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, quote, the historical Sima Yi was not at the Western Front for the vacant city ruse, but at the more important Southern Front with Eastern Wu. quote, more importance to the Weishu conflict than the Weiwu conflict, and three kingdoms accordingly builds up the Zhuge Sima Yi rivalry in the events of AD 228. End quote. Briefly, Cao Wei seemed poised to reassert its domination over Hanzhong, or at least give the backpedaling Zhuge Liang a run for his money. But shortly after this defeat, Cao Wei was itself dealt a devastating and thoroughly unexpected defeat at the hands of Sun Wu, losing the vast majority of a force some 100,000 strong at the Battle of Shiting. Fearing a breakthrough by the armies of Wu,

the court of Cao Wei pulled back from Shuhan and diverted those western troops to the critical weak point to the east. Fencing a target of opportunity, Zhuge once again mobilized his forces northward in December of 228, this time aiming at capturing the city of Chencang, which acted as Cao Wei's critical communication hub in the region along the Wei River. Though the city defenders were vastly outnumbered, a skeleton crew of about 1,000, against an attacking force of somewhere between 20 to 100 times that size, the city commander, Han Zhao, had made extensive preparations and refused calls to surrender. Amazingly, in spite of bringing to bear his full complement of siege equipment, including battering rams, scaling ladders, and archery towers, the defenses of Chencang would not

be broken. Matters were further worsened by the Wei defenders using explosives to stave off assaults on the city walls. For three weeks, both the besiegers and the besieged held their ground, until the Wei army was able to arrive with reinforcements and supplies for the besieged held their ground, until the Wei army was able to arrive with reinforcements and supplies for the besieged city. Himself short of grain, Zhuge Liang once again abandoned his effort

and retreated to Hanzhong. When one of the Wei subcommanders attempted to pursue Zhuge's retreating forces into the harsh Qin mountains, his detachment was surprised and killed by Zhuge, ensuring his place as the undisputed master of ambushes. It would be Zhuge's third campaign in which he would finally be able to claim a victory.

In the spring of 229, he once again mobilized, this time aimed at the even further west prefectures Wudu and Yiping, on the western foothills of the Qin Mountains. With remarkably little resistance, the Shu army was able to take and hold the two prefectures. Taoist defenders, for their part, had been ordered to pull back and form a defensive line against further incursion against Tianshui. But though Zhuge's forces had taken their objective, it turned out to be a rather hollow victory. Though they did control Wudu and Yiping, the region's populations and cattle herds had been moved away prior to the Wei army pulling back, leaving little for the attackers to claim.

Moreover, the two regions' distance from Shuhan meant that maintaining them would be a costly endeavor, requiring money that the state quite frankly didn't have to spare, and as such, Zhuge Liang would shortly decide to, yes, once again pull his forces back to Hanzhong. Still, news of this victory pleased Emperor Liu Shan, who used it as an excuse to reinstate Zhuge as his chancellor. By 229, the Taowei court had had quite enough of Zhuge Liang's troublesome forays into their territory. Sure, he hadn't taken anything really valuable yet, but that could change if they didn't stop sitting on their hands and waiting for him to launch his next offensive. It was therefore

decided that the time had arrived to put Xu Han on the defensive, and to that end, the three commanders, Sima Yi, Cao Zhen, and Zhang He, were dispatched at the head of some 400,000 soldiers in a three-pronged strike aimed at retaking Hanzhong and knocking Zhuge Liang down a peg or two. The Wei offensive began in the autumn of 230, although almost immediately, things began to go awry. For one, heavy rains which lasted more than a month had turned the mountain passes into Hanzhong into impassable death traps. Moreover, Zhu Goliang

had sent two of his officers with small forces behind the enemy lines to sow discontent and stoke rebellion among the various non-Han peoples that had been dominated by Cao Wei. With almost no progress to the south and rising rebellions threatening their western and rear flanks, the Wei court called off their disastrous campaign after only a month and a half. Riding high on this recent string of successes, Zhuge Liang mobilized his fourth campaign into Saowei in early 231. This time, his goal was Mount Qi and the stronghold on its slopes. The tactic of using local insurgents as distractions had been working well, and once again Zhuge dispatched agents to sow rebellion among the Wei local peoples, while his main force settled into a siege of the mountain fortress. Though the Wei army

rushed to mount Qi's assistance, it was actually their rush that would spell an early defeat for them. Without any kind of unified strategy, two of the Wei commanders rushed ahead to try to envelop the besiegers in a pincer attack, but outside of their defensive positions, they found themselves easily crushed by Zhuge's superior tactics. With the Wei army in disarray, the Xu Han army helped themselves to the spring wheat harvests in the surrounding farmland, replenishing their dwindling food supply. But with more Cao Wei reinforcements arriving, Zhuge Liang made the decision to lift his siege of Mount Qi and withdraw to a more defensible position, the city Lucheng.

There, the two armies would clash in what would be a painful but ultimately inconclusive defeat for Zhuge at the hands of General Zhang He, who found that even in victory he could not press the advantage. As the army of Xu Han continued its withdrawal, it was pursued by Sima Yi and Zhang He into Mumun Pass, where, true to form, Zhuge Liang had staged yet another of his infamous ambushes. At a narrow chokepoint, he'd set up hidden nests of crossbowmen to fire on the Wei army as it attempted to pass through. In the course of the ambush, General Zhang He was struck in the leg, and he died soon thereafter. nests of crossbowmen to fire on the Wei army as it attempted to pass through.

In the course of the ambush, General Zhang He was struck in the leg and he died soon thereafter. Zemai was forced to withdraw his troops and allow the regent of Shu Han to escape. In the two years that followed the Battle of Mount Qi, both Shu Han and Cao Wei attempted to rebuild their armies and supply stores, since both knew that this grudge match was far from settled. That fifth and final northward push would come in the spring of 234, as the now 53-year-old Zhuge Liang mobilized another army of 100,000 through the Qin Mountains and onto the broad plains of Wuzhang.

Sima Yi, however, was well prepared for this strategy and sent his own force of 200,000 to build fortifications along the banks of the Wei River. When even this proved insufficient to stop Xu's northward incursions, though, Sima requested additional reinforcements, and after two months of maneuvering and countermaneuvering, managed to bog Zhuge Liang's army down into a stalemate on the Wuzhong plains.

There, the Shu army settled in and engaged in farming for themselves, which you may remember as the Tuntian policy that had been so successfully employed by Cao Cao against Yuan Shao. They were waiting, waiting for the Wu armies of Sun Quan to arrive and relieve them, as his emissaries had promised they would. The armies of Wu, however, found themselves ravaged by disease before they'd even crossed the Huai River, and were forced to abandon their campaign, basically hanging the armies of Xu Han out to dry. This turn of events sounded the death knell of Zhu Galiang's last great hope to break the stalemate and reunify China, and probably not coincidentally sounded his own death knell as well. The stress and strain, combined with what must have been

intense disappointment, caused the aging chancellor's health to rapidly deteriorate as the spring of 234 gave way to summer. As his condition worsened, he instructed his subcommanders as to the military future of Shu and finally died in early autumn at the age of 54. With their commander and chief strategist dead, the Shu armies pulled back. What else could they do? The top brass did their best to ensure that no one knew of Zhuge Liang's death,

not even their own subordinates. But Sima Yi apparently felt that something was different, and became absolutely convinced that his nemesis had perished. He attempted to give chase to the withdrawing Shu army, but Zhuge's successor, Yang Yi, displaying at least a little of his former mentor's tactical knack for surprise, turned his army around and laid waste to the Wei vanguard. In folklore, either a body double or a wooden figure is frequently said to have been dressed

as the late Zhuge Liang, leading Sima Yi to fear that his great opponent had only been pretending to be secretly dead in order to lure him into open battle, and retreated. This story led to the popular saying, meaning, even dead, Zhuge still scares away the living Zhongda, which was Sima Yi's courtesy name. Supposedly, Sima countered these embarrassing rumors with the retort that he had always been able to predict the intentions of the living Zhuge, but could not predict a ghost. With Zhuge Liang's death, so too was ended a major strategic thorn in the side of Cao Wei. It is surprising that Xu Han was able to conduct such extensive military campaigns, given that it was objectively the smallest and weakest of the three states.

As you may have noticed, in battle after battle, Cao Wei was able to field massively larger armies than the Shu force could possibly hope to field, and yet, through the brilliance of Zhuge Liang, they managed to keep Cao Wei on the defensive time and again. That said, the defensive resources and manpower required to undertake Zhuge Liang's five campaigns took a heavy toll on the limited coffers of the Shu government. This would be exacerbated by Jiang Wei's follow-up expeditions that took both the philosophy and form of Zhuge Liang's both in objective and outcome.

As such, it should come as no real surprise that by 263, regardless of still outwardly behaving as though it could stand toe-to-toe with the other two kingdoms, in truth, Shuhan was on the verge of collapse. Coffers empty, population depleted, and dissatisfaction with government policy at an all-time high. As such, when the Wei armies led by Generals Deng Ai and Zhong Hui at last approached the Shu capital city Chengdu, there was really nothing anyone could do, and they knew it. With very little struggle, the capital was conquered,

bringing the state of Shu Han to a sudden final end. Liu Shan, the second and last emperor of Shu, and the really, truly, I really mean it this time, last nominal emperor of Han, surrendered to General Deng outside the city. He was then brought to Luoyang and was granted the title of Duke of Anle and lived out peacefully the rest of his life before dying in 271 at the age of 64. As for the population of Shu, most stayed put, since very few people had the means to leave the lands they were on, even if they wanted to.

There are, however, some reports claiming that refugees of the collapsed state did flee west, and some even reportedly turning up in Sassanid Persia. And so here we stand. Three kingdoms entered. Two remain. But in the end, there can be only one. Next time, we'll take an extended look at Eastern Wu and the Sun Emperors as they find themselves rather unexpectedly facing down Cao Wei all by themselves.

And in Cao Wei, the Cao Dynasty will quickly find itself on very familiar, very treacherous footing as the new King of Qin will begin eyeballing the imperial throne for himself. Thank you for listening.