New City, in the area of Hefei City, Anhui Province, has become the key offensive target of the Eastern Wu Northern Expedition because it has confronted the defense line of the Yangtze River . In the Battle of New City in 253 AD, the Grand Tutor of Wu State, Zhuge Ke, mobilized 200,000 troops, while the Wei general who guarded the city had only 3,000 troops. However, Zhang Te still repelled the attack of the Eastern Wu army. After the Wei reinforcements arrived, the Wu soldiers retreated in a hurry, losing more than 20,000 people. So, the question is, during the Battle of Xincheng, Eastern Wu sent 200,000 troops, so why was it defeated by 3,000 Cao Wei?
1. The victory of the Battle of Dongxing made Zhuge Ke arrogantly underestimate the enemy
In 252 AD (the fourth year of Wei Jiaping, the first year of Wu Jianxing), the year before the Battle of Xincheng, Cao Wei dispatched 150,000 troops, divided into three groups, and attacked in both east and west directions of Sun Wu . Among them, the Eastern Army took Sima Zhao as the governor and led 70,000 troops to the eastward. In this battle, the Eastern Wu was commanded by Zhuge Ke, the Grand Tutor, and led an army of 40,000 to fight against the Wei army that was attacking Dongxing. The Wei army was defeated. Sima Zhao was stripped of the marquis because of his defeat in the war, while Zhuge Ke's reputation in the Wu Kingdom reached its peak.
However, the victory of the Battle of Dongxing also made Zhuge Ke arrogantly underestimate the enemy, and even rashly launched the Battle of New City. In the spring of 253 AD (the fifth year of Jiaping in Wei, the second year of Jianxing in Wu), before Zhuge Ke formally sent troops, the ministers of the Wu State believed that the country was ineffective and the soldiers were exhausted, and unanimously dissuaded them. However, Zhuge Ke did not obey. In this regard, in my opinion, Zhuge Ke's mentality at this time was the same as Jiang Wei after 's Battle of Taoxi, after winning a big victory, he wanted to make new contributions, but he was defeated.
In response to this, the minister of Cao Wei, Wang Ji, , put Zhuge Ke and Jiang Wei, and commented: "In the past, Zhuge Ke took advantage of the victory of Dongguan to exhaust the troops on the river to encircle the new city. The city was not pulled out, and the dead were too half. Jiang Wei was lightly invaded by the Tao, and the army was not in charge. After the victory, the upper and lower levels underestimated the enemy, and the enemy was not in deep concern."
2. Zhuge Ke believed in Zhang Te easily and was hit by a plan to surrender
In the battle of Xincheng, Cao Wei's goalkeeper Zhang Te led 3,000 people to resist guarding, and fought hard for more than a month. Zhang Te and General Le Fang died of illness and half of the soldiers died. Against this background, Zhuge Ke supervised his troops to attack and the city was about to fall. Therefore, Zhang Te carried out a slowdown in his army and surrendered to the Wu army, which meant that Zhuge Ke would suspend the attack and he would immediately surrender. As a result, Zhuge Ke believed in the other party and let his soldiers siege him without attacking him.
Zhang Te took the night to repair the city defense fortifications. After the reinforcement was completed, Zhang Te continued to defend. After learning that he was deceived, Zhuge Ke continued to urge the soldiers to attack. However, "War; courage; work in one go; decline again; exhaust three times." At this time, the soldiers of the Eastern Wu no longer had the initial aura, so Zhuge Ke missed the best opportunity to attack the city.
3. Non-combat loss is severe
According to historical records such as " Three Kingdoms ", when the Battle of Xincheng broke out, the weather was very hot, and Wu Jun was exhausted and drank unclean water, causing diarrhea and edema. More than half of the sick were sick, and the ground was full of casualties. The officials in each barracks reported too many sick people every day. Zhuge Ke thought they lied and wanted to kill them, and no one dared to say it again. However, judging from the final result, non-combat reduction undoubtedly weakened the military advantage of Eastern Wu, and became one of the reasons why Cao Wei won the more with fewer.
4. Zhuge Ke is stubborn and self-righteous, which leads to his subordinates being disloyal and despicable. Finally, in the battle of New City, Zhuge Ke had no good plans and was ashamed to be unable to capture the city. Therefore, his resentment often appears on his appearance. This is obviously an immature manifestation, which makes the already tired soldiers even less cohesive. Against this background, because General Zhu Yi proposed different combat proposals, Zhuge Ke immediately seized his military power and expelled him back to Jianye .
At the same time, Duwei Cai Lin proposed combat strategies many times, but Zhuge Ke refused to adopt them. As a result, Cai Lin fled on a horse and surrendered to Cao Wei. Because of the information brought by Cai Lin, the generals of Cao Wei learned that the Wu army was exhausted, so they sent reinforcements.In July 253 AD, Zhuge Ke had no choice but to lead his army to withdraw. The injured and sick soldiers were wandering on the road, supporting each other with difficulty. Some fell to death in the ditch in a ditch, and some were captured. The entire army was immersed in sorrow.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Cao Wei general Wenqin took advantage of the situation to pursue and chase more than 10,000 people. However, after the disastrous defeat in the Battle of Xincheng, Zhuge Ke was at ease and went out to live in the small continent in Jiangzhong for a month. He also planned to develop fields in the Xunyang area. The edicts to call him back were continuously issued, and he slowly returned. Since then, Zhuge Ke has lost prestige among the ministers and the people, and people have more and more resentful words of people towards him, which has led to Zhuge Ke being eventually eliminated by Sun Jun .
