The period of the Three Kingdoms war, witnessed the emergence of powerful heroes, brilliant strategists and schemes that changed the wheel of history. The following are the most prominent schemes handed down from time to time, like anecdotes that are unique in history.
Guan Yu was entrusted by Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang to guard in Kinh Chau, the lifeblood of the throat, located at the fork in the road between Wei, Thuc and Ngo. The great admiral on the eastern side of Ngo at that time was La Mong , stationed on the other side of the Truong Giang, often glancing at Kinh Chau but still often underpowered by Quan Vu’s power.
In 219, Guan Yu brought his army to the north and conquered Cao Cao’s territory. The great admiral of Dong Ngo, La Mong, saw this as a good opportunity to recapture Kinh Chau. However, Quan Vu still left a lot of powerful defenders here, making La Mong struggle to know what to plan.
Quan Vu sent his army to fight the Wei army, this opportunity was very difficult to get, so La Mong immediately plotted to take Kinh Chau.
La Mong came up with a trick, discussed with Sun Quan to put Luc Ton, who was an anonymous scholar, to become the Great Admiral instead of him to make Guan Yu subjective. As soon as Luc Ton took office, he sent a letter praising Quan Vu with humble and flattering words. Sure enough, Guan Yu was hit by a psychological blow, showed contempt for Luc Ton and began to gradually withdraw troops from Kinh Chau to mobilize on the battlefield of Phan Thanh to deal with Cao Cao.
As soon as he heard the news, La Mong immediately took action. He disguised a warship as a merchant ship, and the elite soldiers all wore white clothes to pretend to be merchants to avoid the storm in order to hide the dense defense of Kinh Chau army by the river. La Mong gave people to bring ceramics, silk, gold and silver as bribes to the guarding general so that he could stay at the wharf late at night with the least precaution.
While Guan Yu was still being held in northern Phan Thanh, La Mong’s army had quietly walked along the Yangtze River as far as Kinh Chau. La Mong sent an elite army to the citadel to capture all the defenders alive. After that, he changed into Han’s clothes and entered his army and went to Kinh Chau to ask to enter the city. When the gate fell, Kinh Chau fell. L’Mong’s entire army passed through Guan Yu’s patrol line undetected.
La Mong ambushed troops outside the city, waited for the soldiers who surrendered to open the gate and then rushed in.
This is the classic “White robes” (white shirt crossing the river) that registered La Mong in the history books. As for Quan Vu, unable to capture Phan Thanh, he had to retreat. In the middle of the way, he heard that Kinh Chau had fallen. Then he had to run to Mai Thanh. On the way, the Ngo army set up an ambush to capture Guan Yu alive and then beheaded him.
In 208, Cao Cao sent 830,000 troops to the south with the ambition of unifying China. Wei’s army was very powerful, full of momentum after consecutive victories in the north, especially after destroying 700,000 Yuan Shao’s troops. When approaching the banks of the Yangtze River, Cao’s army camped, proudly sent a challenge to the whole Jiang Dong, then under the rule of Sun Quan.
Cao Cao sent troops to Jiangnan, wrote a letter to urge Sun Quan to surrender.
Under increasing pressure from Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Quan were forced to form an alliance. Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei’s advisor, personally crossed the river to cooperate with Zhu Du, the great admiral of Dong Wu. However, the generals of Dong Ngo are often jealous of Zhuge Liang’s talent, so many times plotted to harm him.
Once, they said that to deal with the Northern army needed 100,000 arrows in 10 days and asked Zhuge Liang to do it. Zhuge Liang calmly accepted, set up a military order and promised that only 3 days would be enough.
Jealous of Zhuge Liang’s talent, fearing that with such an outstanding person, he would harm him later, General Dong Ngo devised a plan to harm him. (Internet).
Zhuge Liang spent the first two days preparing in secret. He mobilized 20 boats and placed 30 soldiers on each boat. Then arrange around the group of real soldiers are fake soldiers made of straw. On the third day, he brought his friend Lu Su and led the boats across the Yangtze River to approach Cao’s naval camp.
Thick fog covered the river bed, Zhuge Liang ordered his soldiers to shout and beat the battle drum. Frightened by the shouts and blinded by the fog, the Wei army fired arrows in the direction of the noise. The arrows that were shot swarmed the straw soldiers on the boat. When the straw soldiers on one side were filled with arrows, Zhuge Liang turned the boat around to continue receiving arrows.
Zhuge Liang calmly sat down to pour wine with Lu Su while a rain of arrows was pouring down the side of the boat. (Photo: Internet).
Finally, after estimating that 100,000 arrows had been taken, Zhuge Liang ordered the arrow boats to return. The Wu generals came out to greet him in shame. Thanks to Zhuge Liang’s perfect plan, the Shu-Wu army was fully armed to be ready for war. After the battle of Xich Bich took place, 100,000 arrows made an important contribution to the victory of the Southern army. They stopped Cao Cao’s expansion and caused the Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty to lose and run away with a few remnants of troops.
After repelling Zhuge Liang’s attacks, Sima Yi returned to the court as a public servant. The Wei king, Cao Due , trusted him very much, and appointed him to the position of the great general of the Phieu cavalry. Before his death, Cao Due also assigned Sima Yi (along with Cao Sang) to be the main minister, helping his young child, Cao Phuong.
At that time, the power of the Wei dynasty was jointly held by Sima Yi and Cao Sang. However, with political tricks, Cao Sang gradually removed all of Sima Yi’s real power, often making all decisions by himself without asking Yi. Nominally, Sima Yi was still the head of the army, but his political role in the court was only “real name” . Cao Sang has taken over all power.
Sima Yi pondered when thinking that the real power was not in his own hands but in Cao Shuang’s hands. (Photo: Internet).
In 247, Sima Yi reported being sick and asked to return to his hometown to recuperate. But Cao Shuang was always wary of him. Cao Sang sent his confidant, Ly Thang, to take office as the historian of Kinh Chau, on the way to stop by to check the attitude of Sima Yi. When Ly Thang arrived, Sima Yi shook his hand with his shirt, but the shirt fell to the ground. He again gestured with his hand to the servant, indicating that he wanted to drink water. The servant brought up a bowl of porridge, Sima Yi sipped it little by little, the porridge running down the corner of his mouth spilled down to his chest.
Seeing that scene, Ly Thang was overjoyed in his heart, thinking that Sima Y was a waste, nothing to be afraid of anymore. In the following conversation, Sima Y also pretended to be dumbfounded, pretending to be deaf when three times deliberately misread the place where Ly Thang was about to take office: Kinh Chau read Tinh Chau again. Sima Yi also called his two children, Sima Su and Sima Zhao, to entrust them. Ly Thang fully believes that Sima Yi is seriously ill and is about to die.
He pretended to be seriously ill, Ly Thang “heard and heard” so he was very pleased.
After leaving, Ly Thang hurriedly went straight to Cao Sang’s house and told everything. After hearing that, Cao Sang felt very happy, from then on, he did not consider Sima Yi as anything, and tried to abuse his power more than before. But that was also when disaster struck him.
In 249, Sima Yi decided to take action. Taking advantage of the time when Cao Sang was supporting Emperor Cao Phuong to visit the tomb of Emperor Cao Due, Sima Yi launched a mutiny in the capital. He closed all the gates of Luoyang city, sent a report to Cao Phuong, sent a postman to expose Cao Sang’s crimes, and proposed punishment.
Cao Sang received news that Italy had controlled Do Thanh, the army was close to him, suffering because the time had passed…
When Cao Sang heard the news, he panicked and didn’t know what to do. The conspirator, Hoan Pham, advised Cao Sang to bring Emperor Cao Phuong and run to Xu Xuong and then called out to soldiers from all over the world to fight Sima Yi. But Cao Sang hesitated and did not decide, all night he fought with the sword and shed tears. In the end, Cao Sang naively believed in the advice of Sima Yi (promising to keep all positions for Cao Sang). Unexpectedly, after that, Sima Yi broke his word, ordered Cao Sang to be executed, and dismissed 9 of them for the crime of military service.
Cao Shuang strongly believed in Italy, but that belief led him to a death that he could not have imagined.
Sima Yi’s scheme was later passed on by people with the name “fake si, not crazy” (pretend to be stupid but not crazy). If you want to use that success, you must be extremely skillful and ingenious. The unscrupulous Cao Sang was naturally put in the wrong. Sima Y is not ashamed of Zhuge Liang’s “rivalry rival” . Although his intelligence is inferior to Luong, a lifetime of training in the field with the great Prime Minister of the Thuc Han Dynasty is enough for Sima Y to practice his bravery and wisdom. Later, Sima Y was the one who laid the first bricks for the Tan Dynasty to unify Trung Nguyen later.
(to be continued)