Jiang Wei finally gets the better of Deng Ai, but even that ends up backfiring.

* Transcript

* Map of Key Locations

* Graph of Key Relationships

Transcript

PDF version

Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast. This is episode 146.

Last time, Jiang Wei had launched another incursion into Wei territory. Oh and by the way, I counted, and this is the fifth time in the last seven episodes where I began an episode with some variation of “Last time, Jiang Wei had launched another invasion of the North.” So yeah, the guys defending the Wei border were probably getting as tired of this as you are.

So anyway, to repel Jiang Wei this time, one of Deng Ai’s strategists, a man named Wang (2) Guan (4), pretended to defect to Jiang Wei. But Jiang Wei wasn’t fooled at all, and he took Wang Guan in with the intention of turning Wang Guan’s scheme against him. He sent Wang Guan to escort his provisions to Qi Mountain. Meanwhile, Jiang Wei scrapped his original plan of marching through Xie (2) Gorge. Instead, he sent some men to hide along the road to watch for spies from Wang Guan.

Sure enough, within a few days, they captured a messenger that Wang Guan had sent to Deng Ai. Jiang Wei interrogated the guy and got the letter. It said that Wang Guan was going to be transporting provisions to the main Shu camp on August 20, and that Deng Ai should meet him in the Tan (2) Valley. Intel in hand, Jiang Wei executed the messenger and then wrote a separate letter that said basically the same thing, except instead of a rendezvous on August 20, he told Deng Ai to lead his army to Tan (2) Valley on August 15.

While that fake message was on its way to Deng Ai, Jiang Wei went about setting the trap. He had his men empty a few hundred of his provisions carts and fill them with fire-starters and covered them with blue cloth. He then ordered the general Fu Qian to lead the other 2,000 Wei soldiers who defected with Wang Guan and escort the carts as if they WERE provisions. Jiang Wei and Xiahou Ba then each led an army and lay in wait inside Xie Gorge. He also ordered three other generals, Jiang (3) Shu (1), Liao Hua, and Zhang Yi, to advance toward Qi Mountain.

 

When Deng Ai received the fake message about the rendezvous, he was delighted and immediately wrote back to say the plan was a go. On August 15, he led 50,000 crack troops toward Tan (2) Valley. While he was still a good ways off, he sent scouts to go take a look from a high vantage point, and they saw countless provision carts moving in the valley in an unbroken line. When Deng Ai took a look for himself, he saw that these carts were indeed being escorted by Wei soldiers.

Now, Deng Ai’s men said, “It’s starting to get dark, we should go meet up with Wang Guan right away and escort him out of the canyon.”

But Deng Ai replied, “The hills ahead fold in on each other. If there is an ambush, it would be hard to fall back. We should just wait here.”

But just then, two riders rushed onto the scene and said, “General Wang is being pursued because he has transported the provisions across the border. He is asking for immediate backup.”

Deng Ai immediately ordered his troops to advance. Around seven o’clock that night, the moon was shining bright, and Deng Ai heard loud cries coming from behind the hills. He figured it was Wang Guan engaged in a fight, so he rushed toward the sounds. Suddenly, an army dashed out from behind some woods. They were led by the Shu general Fu Qian,