Zhuge Liang
Also known as Zhuge Liang 诸葛亮 · Kongming 孔明
- Dates
- 181–234
- Era
- Three Kingdoms, Shu Han
- Role
- Chancellor of Shu Han and author of the Longzhong Plan
Zhuge Liang was a real chancellor with a real plan, while the empty fort, the borrowed arrows, and the borrowed east wind belong to the novel.
Who was Zhuge Liang?
Zhuge Liang was the chancellor of Shu Han and Liu Bei's principal adviser. He was born in 181, a man of Langya who grew up in exile and farmed at Longzhong. The Records of the Three Kingdoms say Liu Bei went to him and was received only on the third visit. That is the historical kernel of the three visits. The snow, the sleeping pose, and the boy who sings at the gate are the novel. In the conversation that followed, the Longzhong Plan 隆中对, he told Liu Bei to take Jing province and Yi province, ally with Sun Quan, and wait for a change in Cao Cao's north. Liu Bei followed the outline. Shu Han was the result.
After Liu Bei's death in 223, Zhuge Liang governed for the young Liu Shan, restored the Wu alliance broken at Xiaoting, and ran a poor region with strict administration. From 228 he opened northern campaigns against Wei. They did not take Chang'an. He died of illness in 234 at the Wuzhang Plains, facing Sima Yi. The Records preserve his Former Memorial on the Expedition 前出师表 of 227, a document of duty rather than of magic. The empty fort, the straw boats that borrow arrows, the summoned east wind, and the seven captures of Meng Huo are the novel, though an empty-fort anecdote was already doubted in the fifth century.
Key works
Former Memorial on the Expedition 前出师表
Submitted in 227 and preserved in his Sanguozhi biography, the memorial reviews Liu Bei's trust and his reasons for marching north, and this text is accepted as his. A second, later memorial is of disputed authenticity.
Key ideas
隆中对
The Longzhong Plan
隆中对 is a strategic memo, not a prophecy. Hold the west and the middle Yangtze, stay allied with Wu, and move north only when Cao Cao's bloc cracks: Shu's later history is this plan under shortage.
和吴
The Wu alliance as a necessity
A state the size of Shu could not fight Wei and Wu together, so Zhuge Liang's restoration of the Wu alliance after 223 is state policy. The stratagem book later calls the same idea borrowing a knife, while the historical version is an alliance that included mutual suspicion.
Administration before theatrics
The Records praise his fairness in rewards and punishments and his attention to supply. The northern campaigns were limited offensives from a smaller base, and logistics, not weather magic, is what the history can show.
Famous episodes
The Longzhong Plan
Historyc. 207
Liu Bei called at the farm and, on the third visit, heard the plan: take Jing and Yi, link hands with Sun Quan, keep the Rong and the Yue quiet, and wait for a fault in the north. The Records include the speech. It is the most important document in his life. The novel's staging is optional. The strategy is not.
Wuzhang Plains
History234
His last northern campaign, in 234, stalled against Sima Yi, who would not give battle even when Zhuge Liang sent women's clothes to shame him. Zhuge Liang died of illness in camp, and the Shu army retreated. When Sima Yi pursued, Yang Yi and Jiang Wei turned the columns and beat the drums as if to attack, and he pulled back. A saying held that a dead Zhuge had scared off a living Sima, and stratagem 21 uses the retreat, while the death itself is history.
The empty fort
NovelNovel, 14th c.; anecdote doubted in the 5th c.
In the Romance, chapter 95, after the loss at Jieting, Zhuge Liang sits on an open wall with a zither and a handful of men, and Sima Yi retreats rather than enter an empty city. An earlier anecdote, preserved in Pei Songzhi's commentary, tells a similar bluff. Pei already found it hard to square with where the two commanders actually were. The scene everyone knows is the novel, and stratagem 32, the empty fort, is this fiction.
Myths vs facts
He borrowed arrows with straw boats, called the east wind, and so won Red Cliffs.
Red Cliffs was fought in 208, and the Records give the fire attack to Wu, with Zhou Yu and Huang Gai in the leading roles. Borrowed arrows and a summoned wind are in the novel. Zhuge Liang was in Liu Bei's service, and he was not the stage manager the Romance makes him.
The empty fort happened as in the opera, and it proves he could always bluff Sima Yi.
The famous form is chapter 95 of the novel. A related anecdote was already called into doubt by Pei Songzhi in the fifth century, because the commanders were not placed as the story requires. It is not evidence of a historical habit.
He marched 'six times out of Qishan' and captured Meng Huo seven times.
The northern campaigns from 228 to 234 were several, and not all went by Qishan, so the number six is a proverb. The seven captures of Meng Huo are not in Chen Shou. They are later story, staged in the novel and repeated under stratagem 16, while the historical southern policy is a separate fact.
Takeaways
- Write the plan, including the ally you cannot do without.
- Keep the chancellor's memorials apart from the novel's magic.
- A smaller state buys time with supply, not with miracles.
Related stratagems
Rivals and connections
Sources
- Chen Shou, Records of the Three Kingdoms 三国志, Shu shu, Biography of Zhuge Liang
- Pei Songzhi, commentary on the Sanguozhi 裴松之注 (5th c.)
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三国演义, ch. 95 (novel, 14th c.)