The Three Kingdoms period was an era of war, and of course many large-scale battles broke out. There are often many small local battles in a large-scale campaign. This is a very understandable thing. For example, Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition. Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi were often regarded as rivals, but in fact the two wars were only concentrated in Zhuge Liang's Fourth Northern Expedition and Fifth Northern Expedition.
The two sides of the Fourth Northern Expedition fought rather fiercely; the fifth Northern Expedition entered a state of confrontation, but some battles also took place in this state. The following small editor will talk about the confrontation between Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi in the four and five cuts.
Zhuge Liang's four cuts
I. Schrödinger's "Battle of Halo City"
In the ninth year of Jianxing in the Shu Han Dynasty and the fifth year of Cao Wei Taihe (i.e., 231 AD), Zhuge Liang launched the Fourth Northern Expedition, which was actually the second if it was a large-scale Northern Expedition aimed at cutting off long right. At this time, Zhuge Liang's opponent, Cao Zhen, the main general of Cao Wei's western front, was in a very bad physical condition, and the Wei Ming Emperor Cao Rui urgently transferred Sima Yi from the middle line to the western front, and began the confrontation between the two.
Zhuge Liang besieged Qishan Fort, and Sima Yi, Zhang Gao, and others marched to Longyou. Zhuge Liang came to Shangyi to defeat Guo Huai, Fei Yao, and others, and cut the wheat from Shangyi. Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi met at Shangyi, after which Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi moved south together to reach the city of Halo near Mount Qi. There is no doubt in various historical sources about the record of this process in the early period of Zhuge Liang's Fourth Expedition.
However, in the following "Battle of Halo City", there was a state of Schrödinger, and the records in the Book of Jin and the Spring and Autumn of the Han Dynasty were very controversial. The "Battle of Halo City" in the Book of Jin and the Chronicle of Emperor Xuan records that Sima Yi won a great victory and achieved the record of "killing ten thousand prisoners"; the "Spring and Autumn of the Han Dynasty" records that Wang Ping on the Shu Han side resisted Zhang Gao's attack in the southern siege, and Zhuge Liang sent Wei Yan, Wu Ban, Gao Xiang and others to counterattack Sima Yi and won a great victory of "three thousand heads".
The Spring and Autumn of the Han Dynasty and Jin Dynasty is not a canonical history, but it has a slight fit with the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Shushu, and Wang Ping's Biography"; the "Book of Jin" is a canonical history. The recorded records of the two are all isolated evidence that there is no way to compare, perhaps it is possible to fight two battles in the area of Halo City. However, Xiaobian believes that whether it is "three thousand heads of the first" or "ten thousand prisoners", these two figures have a lot of water, Zhuge Liang did not have self-deprecating behavior after the war, which proved that it is impossible to lose tens of thousands of people; Sima Yi was rewarded after the war, if there are really three thousand soldiers or small leaders in the army who are eliminated by Zhuge Liang, it seems unlikely.
II. The "Battle of the Wooden Gate" Suspected of Killing people with a Knife
In the Fourth Northern Expedition, Zhuge Liang did not show defeat (that is to say, "killing ten thousand prisoners" was almost unreliable), but due to weather reasons, Li Yan, who remained in Hanzhong, could not send grain to the front line, and Zhuge Liang had no choice but to withdraw his troops. Sima Yi ordered Zhang Gao to pursue Zhuge Liang, and Zhuge Liang set up an ambush at this place in the Mumen Valley and successfully shot Zhang Gao, who had rushed to pursue.
Like the Battle of Halo City, the Battle of Mumen was also quite controversial and was believed to be Sima Yi's murder with a knife. Because Zhang Gao himself did not want to pursue Zhuge Liang, but Sima Yi's attitude was very tough. From a certain point of view, Zhang Gao can be said to have been forced to die by Sima Yi.
Some people believe that Sima Yi killed Zhang Guo by Zhuge Liang in order to eliminate Cao Wei's old ministers and pave the way for his own usurpation. Xiao Bian thought that this idea was still problematic, after all, at that time, Sima Yi had not yet become an auxiliary chancellor, his influence in the dynasty was limited, and Cao Rui showed no signs of early death. At this time, Sima Yi did not have the opportunity to control the cao wei dynasty.
However, from this time period alone, Zhang Gao defeated Ma Chen at the "Battle of Jieting" at the time of Zhuge Liang's first attack, which directly led to the failure of Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition and his prestige on the western front was higher than that of Sima Yi; during Zhuge Liang's fourth expedition, Zhang Gao and Sima Yi had many differences in military decision-making, especially expressing dissatisfaction with Sima Yi's passive attitude of avoiding war and challenging Sima Yi's authority. Judging from these performances, Sima Yi also had a motive to eradicate Zhang Gao. Therefore, Xiaobian's view of the "Battle of the Wooden Gate" is that it may be just a simple decision-making failure, or it may be Sima Yi borrowing a knife to kill people.
Zhuge Liang's Five Cuts
"Battle of Wugong Water"
In the twelfth year of Jianxing in the Shu Han Dynasty and the second year of Cao Wei Qinglong (that is, in 234 AD), after three years of preparation, Zhuge Liang made another Northern Expedition against Cao Wei, which was the Fifth Northern Expedition. In Zhuge Liang's Five Cuts, Sima Yi spent most of his time in a state of shrinking defense and dragging hard with Zhuge Liang, but the two sides were not without fighting. First of all, let's talk about the "Battle of Wugong Water".
The Battle of Wugong Water was a battle between Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi for control of Wugong Water, but unfortunately there are few historical records of this battle. On the battlefield between Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi, there was a Weishui in the east-west direction, and Sima Yi initially camped south of Weishui to confront Zhuge Liang. WugongShui, on the other hand, is a river in a north-south direction, bordering Weishui. Zhuge Liangtun's troops were in Wuzhangyuan, and if they attacked Chang'an to the west to occupy Guanzhong, they needed to cross the Weishui River to the north, and they needed to cross the Wugong Water to the west. The two sides fought on both sides of the Wugong River, and as a result, Zhuge Liang successfully built a bridge, repelled Sima Yi, and took control of the Wugong Water.
The battle between Jishihara and Yang Sui
The ultimate goal of Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition was to capture Longyou, occupy Liangzhou, and then cooperate with Hanzhong to launch a two-way pincer attack on Guanzhong. Zhuge Liang's Five Expeditions directly attacked Guanzhong, which was inconsistent with his strategy. Guo Huai believed that Zhuge Liang's purpose was not actually Guanzhong, but still Long Right. If Zhuge Liang crossed the Weishui River to occupy the Northern Plains, it would be Jishiyuan and block the traffic from Guanzhong to Longyou, and the hearts of the people in the counties and counties of Longyou would be easily shaken. Guo Huai's proposal to strengthen jishiyuan's garrison was approved by Sima Yi.
Sure enough, Zhuge Liang led his army across Weishui to attack Jishiyuan, but guo Huai counterattacked and could not successfully cross the river to control Jishiyuan; soon after, Zhuge Liang used the strategy of attacking the west to attack Guo Huai's western siege, and actually attacked Yangsui. Yang Sui is just west of Wugong Water, which is why Xiaobian put the battle between Jishiyuan and Yang Sui behind the "Battle of Wugong Water". Unfortunately, this military operation was also noticed by Guo Huai, and Yang Sui was not captured by Zhuge Liang because of his careful defenses (the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Shu, guo Huai's biography and the Jin Shu Xuan Emperor's Chronicle have different records of this, and the small editor uses the "Biography of Guo Huai").
Sima Yi took the initiative to attack Zhuge Liang
Although Sima Yi adopted a passive and war-avoidant attitude for a long time in Zhuge Liang's Five Expeditions, there are also records of taking the initiative to attack. The Book of Jin and the Chronicle of Emperor Xuan records that a meteor fell into Zhuge Liang's military camp. This phenomenon was regarded as an ominous omen in the eyes of the ancients, so Sima Yi launched a sneak attack and obtained more than 2,000 prisoners of war. As for whether this number has the same moisture as "killing thousands of prisoners", it still needs the reader to identify itself.
brief summary
In the later period of Zhuge Liang's Five Expeditions, Zhuge Liang repeatedly challenged Sima Yi, but Sima Yi always closed camp and defended himself and did not fight with Zhuge Liang. Zhuge Liang will do things personally, accumulate labor and become ill, and finally die of illness in Wuzhangyuan. From the above battles, the ratio of Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi's battle record is 3:3, from the battle record is a state of equal strength, from the whole situation of Zhuge Liang's four and five cuts, the two sides are also in a balance of power, Zhuge Liang did not capture any important cities, and Sima Yi did not defeat Zhuge Liang and expelled Zhuge Liang.
However, compared with Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi's conservative attitude of blindly avoiding war was really not very good-looking, and even his own subordinates generated strong dissatisfaction, ridiculing Sima Yi for "fearing Shu like a tiger". Zhuge Liang came and went freely in Cao Wei's territory, and even supplemented logistics in Tuntian in Cao Wei's territory, intending to spend a long time with Sima Yi in Wuzhangyuan. Therefore, judging from the performance of both sides, Zhuge Liang is probably still stronger than Sima Yi.
References: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Book of Jin, Historical Atlas of China, Dictionary of romance of the Three Kingdoms