"So… Liang went north, and Sun Quan came back an emperor?"
Kongming stared at the glowing screen for a long moment, as if it might clarify things out of shame.
He truly couldn't understand it. His lord's brother-in-law declaring himself emperor—and somehow he was involved?
How?
Why?
At what point did this become his fault?
"See?" Zhang Fei said proudly, slapping the air with confidence. "That's why you're the strategist!"
He gave Kongming a thumbs-up—big, emphatic, learned directly from the light screen. He even held it there a second too long, as if afraid the gesture wouldn't register.
Kongming laughed despite himself, half amused, half exhausted.
Right now, he didn't want praise.
He wanted answers.
[ Light-screen]
[Among the Chancellor's Northern Expeditions, if we're ranking them by sheer weirdness, the second one wins without contest.
In the spring of 228, the Chancellor marched out to Mount Qi. Then came the loss at Jieting, the collapse of the front, and a forced retreat back to Hanzhong.
That same year, in the twelfth month, he marched again—this time toward Chencang.
He and Hao Zhao spent about a month trading siege techniques, and then the Chancellor withdrew.
This expedition to Chencang was, frankly, bizarre.
First: the timing.
The twelfth month is deep winter. In ancient warfare terms, this is what you call "are you serious right now?"
Soldiers get lost. Fingers freeze. Supply officers start crying.
Men eat more just to stay alive. Charcoal, winter clothes, shelter—every single one costs extra.
Even if you somehow took Chencang, congratulations: you've won a very cold, very inconvenient rock.
To the west lies the Long Road to Longyou, where Guo Huai and his fortress at Shanggui are waiting.
To the east? Three hundred li of Guanzhong plain, where Wei cavalry can trample infantry like they're threshing grain.
After pacifying Longyou, Cao Zhen had already concluded:
After Mount Qi, Shu won't come again.
The plank roads are burned. The slanted paths are blocked.
If they attack Guanzhong, it must be Chencang.
Who guards Chencang? Hao Zhao.
Cao Zhen's logic was flawless.
The only thing he failed to imagine was that the Chancellor would show up in midwinter, apparently immune to cold, common sense, or seasonal etiquette.
Second: the siege behavior.
Appearing at an impossible time should mean a lightning assault—hit fast, take advantage of shock.
But the Chancellor didn't.
Instead, he politely sent Hao Zhao's fellow townsman, Jin Xiang, to persuade him to surrender.
Twice.
Which meant Hao Zhao went from "Why is Zhuge Liang here?" to "All right, time to fortify everything."]
"…That is strange," Guan Yu said slowly, fingers combing through his beard.
As a northerner, winter didn't frighten him—but even he knew better than to attack a city in freezing winds.
"In this weather," he added, "keeping soldiers from complaining already makes one a good general."
"Unless," he continued, eyes narrowing, "this army wasn't meant to win."
That thought settled heavily in the room.
"If there was never any intention of gaining ground," Guan Yu said, "then the madness becomes… deliberate."
"Answering Jiangdong?" he guessed.
It was the only explanation that didn't insult everyone involved.
"If Zhang He was summoned as reinforcements," Guan Yu reasoned, "then he must not have been stationed in Guanzhong. Close to Luoyang instead… likely guarding Xiangfan."
"General Guan is sharp as ever," Kongming said, nodding.
"That should be exactly it. Creating enough noise to pull pressure away from Jiangdong."
Zhang Fei snorted. "All that trouble just to scare people?"
Then he glanced back at Ma Su.
"Watch carefully," Zhang Fei said. "This is what real city defense looks like."
The screen showed only brief descriptions, but Zhang Fei's imagination supplied everything else—burning ladders, falling stones, men screaming, generals cursing.
Ma Su swallowed and nodded quickly, as if nodding might shorten the lesson.
"Oh!" Huang Yueying exclaimed suddenly. "Those scaling ladders!"
As someone deeply in love with mechanisms, her eyes lit up.
"They fold. They hide soldiers. They have shields in front and grappling hooks above."
She leaned forward, fascinated. "These aren't ladders. These are arguments made of wood and iron."
They were nothing like the crude ladders the army currently hacked together on campaign.
"Husband," she said admiringly, "this craftsmanship is astonishing."
Kongming hesitated.
Just a little.
"…Did I really build those?"
It wasn't false humility. The siege towers, well-ladders, and rams on the screen looked like inventions from a more ambitious future.
Each was elegant. Each was terrifying. Each looked extremely difficult to transport.
The roads of Hanzhong barely tolerated grain carts. Moving these things would require either miracles or very determined oxen.
Kongming paused for exactly one breath.
Then he started copying the designs anyway.
If the future him could make them, the present him could at least try.
As for the defenders wrapping oil-soaked cloth around arrows and setting them alight—Kongming barely blinked.
After developing the Eight Oxen Crossbow, he'd already created fire bolts: hollow shafts filled with tung oil, smoldering coal at the tail.
When they shattered, everything burned.
Old General Huang had been delighted.
Perhaps too delighted.
[Light-screen]
[To understand why the Chancellor staged such a strange expedition to Chencang, we need to talk about one of the Three Kingdoms' favorite unsolved mysteries:
Was the Later Memorial on the Northern Expedition a forgery?
The Earlier Memorial needs no introduction. "Must be memorized in full"—those who know, know.
The Later Memorial, however…
If we're being generous, it's loyal and tragic.
If we're being honest, it's despair with punctuation.
Only one year separates the two. If you didn't know better, you'd think the Chancellor had suffered something on the scale of Yiling—total annihilation.
But as we've already said, after executing Ma Su and returning, Shu considered the campaign a success.
Congratulations flooded in so thick they wore down the thresholds.
The Chancellor was so overwhelmed he had to write "A Reply to Those Who Offered Congratulations."
Under these circumstances:
Liu Shan thought his Prime Minister had done his utmost.
Shu thought the Chancellor was brilliant.
The officers thought they'd been ruined by one extremely unfortunate Ma Su.]
Ma Su's head dipped lower and lower.
Zhang Fei reached out, grabbed his chin, and forced it back up.
"My brother already said it," Zhang Fei declared.
"Know defeat—and still move forward. Admit weakness—and plan for strength."
Ma Su nodded so hard it looked painful.
[Light-screen]
[If the Chancellor were truly this fragile, history would have ended long before Wuzhang Plains.
Another oddity: this Later Memorial doesn't appear in Shu's official histories.
Instead, it's preserved in Jiangdong literary collections.
Strange—unless it was written for Jiangdong.
In 224, before the restoration of the Han–Wu alliance, Sun Quan sent Zhang Wen to Chengdu as envoy.
Zhang Wen told Liu Shan, "Entrust our hearts and coordinate our plans, like the waters of one river."
Translation: joint military action was the bargaining chip.
So the Chancellor's original plan for early 228 likely looked like this:
West: the Chancellor marches to Mount Qi.
Jing-Xiang: Meng Da rebels.
East: Jiangdong crosses the Yangtze as a show of force.
Three fronts at once.
Cao Wei can't be everywhere.]
"But it still failed," Guan Yu said softly.
"If this had worked, Zhang He would've been stuck in Jing-Xiang. Cao Zhen could reinforce Guanzhong—but not enough."
"In that case," Guan Yu continued, voice heavy, "the Chancellor's window to take Shanggui would have been much wider. Perhaps…"
He stopped.
No one pressed him.
The silence said enough.
Kongming exhaled slowly, remembering Pang Tong's old accusation:
You care too much about restoring the Han—and too much about keeping allies.
Had he given Jiangdong too much leeway?
As for whether the Later Memorial was forged—
Kongming didn't care.
He was Zhuge Liang.
The truth of that document existed entirely within his own mind.
What troubled him was something else:
This plan benefited everyone.
Even as Guan Yu said—Jiangdong didn't need to truly fight. Just mass troops north of the Yangtze, posture aggressively, make Wei panic.
So how did this go wrong?
[Light-screen]
[As everyone knows, the King of Wu of Great Wei has three lifelong hobbies:
Backstabbing.
Switching allegiances.
Declaring himself emperor.
Sun Quan has never enjoyed being a supporting character.
At Hefei, he insisted on personally covering the retreat—just to look heroic—and immediately attracted Zhang Liao.
Same energy here.
Sun Quan was forty-six.
After Yiling, he didn't dare proclaim himself emperor because Liu Bei—the madman—was still alive.
Now?
Zhuge Liang was "reasonable."
Cao Rui was newly enthroned.
If not now, when?
The only thing missing was a respectable military achievement.
And then Zhuge Liang helpfully announced a Northern Expedition.
Opportunity knocks.
Sun Quan decided to go big. He would be the protagonist.
He secretly ordered Zhou Fang to stage a fake defection using Shanyue tribesmen.
Zhou Fang thought about it.
Then decided: too unreliable.
I'll do it myself.
He sent letter after letter praising Cao Xiu and insulting Sun Quan.
Then staged a full melodrama—cut off his hair, knelt at the envoy's gate, begged forgiveness.
Cao Xiu believed every word and rushed out, eager for glory.
Man Chong and Jiang Ji both smelled something wrong.
Cao Xiu ignored them.
Not just because he was foolish—but because his thinking matched Sun Quan's perfectly:
Why shouldn't I be the main character?]
"These maps…" Guan Yu said, impressed yet again.
Training the navy had sharpened his eye. One look at Cao Xiu's route and he frowned.
"Lake to the north. Yangtze to the side. No navy."
"If Jiangdong's fleet moves," Guan Yu concluded, "Cao Xiu dies."
Zhang Fei scratched his head. "My fake troops trick only worked once."
"So how did Jiangdong's bitter flesh act still work?"
Kongming, unfamiliar with the word protagonist, still grasped its meaning.
"The screen doesn't blame Cao Xiu alone," he said. "It says Wei's commanders."
"Which suggests…" he paused, then continued, "the original plan was a two-pronged advance."
Huang Zhong nodded firmly. "Xiangfan."
"If Xiangfan and Hefei advanced together, then even an ambush wouldn't have been fatal."
Simple logic.
No Xiangfan movement meant Jiangdong could shift all those defensive troops—and wrap Cao Xiu like a dumpling.
Liu Bei imagined himself in Cao Rui's position and felt a headache coming on.
"No wonder the screen said earlier—without Kongming's Northern Expedition, Wei might have destroyed itself."
"Xiangfan and Hefei, both guarding against Jiangdong… plotting against each other."
"Serving the same court," Liu Bei sighed, "yet acting like rival allies."
Zhang Fei slapped Huang Zhong's thigh and burst out laughing.
"Brother, why worry? Whoever wins or loses, it's all good news for us!"
He wasn't wrong.
The First, Second, and Third Northern Expeditions—and Shiting—
At their core, they were all part of the same tangled mess.
And history, as always, called it strategy.