is similar to Cao Zhen, Wei Yan is a figure with a big discrepancy between the image of the novel and the image of historical data. In "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Wei Yan killed his own chief and opened the city to welcome Guan Yu into the city. He was called by Zhuge Liang as a rebellious person. Although Wei Yan became a general in the army during Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition, Zhuge Liang always distrusted him, and finally Zhuge Liang asked Ma Dai to kill Wei Yan with his own will.
Zhuge Liang wanted to get rid of Wei Yan because he was worried that his rebellion would bring disaster to Shu Han. This also shows that in Zhuge Liang's eyes, Wei Yan is a person who is enough to threaten the Shu Han , so what is Wei Yan's ability? Zhuge Liang was not at ease before he died. In "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the ability of a military commander usually depends on his martial arts. Those who are strong in martial arts are the famous generals in the romance, and those who are strong in martial arts are those with strong single-handed ability, such as Lu Bu and the Five Tigers. Let's take a look at Wei Yan's martial arts level through the actual combat comparison in The Romance.
Chapter 63 of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", when Liu Bei entered Shu to compete for Yizhou, he was surrounded by four generals Huang Zhong, Wei Yan, Liu Feng, and Guan Ping. Before attacking Luocheng, Liu Zhang's generals, Ling Bao and Deng Xian came to stop Liu Bei's army. Wei Yan wanted to compete with Huang Zhong for credit and asked for his life to break the enemy. Huang Zhong was very dissatisfied with this, and said that he would single out Wei Yan to decide who to fight, and Wei Yan immediately agreed. Wei Yan and Huang Zhong worked together in Changsha, and they should know Huang Zhong's martial arts. But Wei Yan did not hesitate to agree to a heads-up with Huang Zhong, indicating that in Wei Yan's mind, he believed that he could defeat Huang Zhong. Due to Liu Bei's restraint, this heads-up match did not start, but from the subsequent encounters, we can see the level of martial arts of the two.
Wei Yan then singled out with Lingbao, and played to 30 rounds regardless of the outcome. While Huang Zhong singled out Lingbao, Lingbao felt unable to resist and chose to retreat. It can be seen from Ling Bao's reaction that Huang Zhong's martial arts of is stronger than that of Wei Yan. Huang Zhong is one of the five tiger generals, and Wei Yanwu's art is still under Huang Zhong, let alone the other four. "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" shows the martial arts level of the generals' abilities, and Wei Yan's abilities of are not as good as those of the five tigers.
Back in Chapter 95 of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Ma Di Shoujieting was defeated by Zhang Yun, and Zhang Yun pursued the remnants of Ma Di. Wei Yan's army stopped Zhang Xi, Zhang Xi turned around and withdrew, using deceit to lure and surround the chasing Wei Yan. It can be seen from this that Zhang Xi is not sure to defeat Wei Yan head-on. In Chapter 101 of The Romance of the Romance, in order to kill Zhang Xi, Zhuge Liang asked Wei Yan to use a trick to lure Zhang Xi into the wooden doorway. Wei Yan was originally a arrogant person. He once dared to fight Huang Zhong single-handedly, but at this time he did not object to Zhuge Liang's swindling scheme, which shows that Wei Yan did not have the confidence to kill Zhang Xi head-on.
In addition, Wei Yan was fought back by Pound during the Battle of Hanzhong, indicating that Wei Yan was slightly weaker than Pound. When Cao Cao attacked Zhang Lu, Zhang Xun also singled out with Pang Tong for a few rounds before retreating, indicating that Zhang Xun thought he could not win Pound. Zhang Xi can go head-to-head with Zhang Fei for 50 rounds in a deadly battle. If in a deadly battle, it should be fine for Zhang Xi to ask for self-protection. The situation will be similar to Wei Yan and slightly weaker than Pound. Combining the above two points, Wei Yan's Wu Yidang is equivalent to , one of the five best generals.
Cao Wei was a great country with abundant talents, but by the time of Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition, Zhang Xi was already an indispensable general of Cao Wei, and Zhuge Liang also used tricks to kill him. As for Wei Yan, he was a rare opponent in the Shu Han. When Zhuge Liang died of illness, Zhang Bao and Guan Xing had already passed away, and probably only Jiang Wei was the only one who could stand against Wei Yan. But when Wei Yan rebelled, Jiang Wei didn't think about fighting with Wei Yan. Instead, he said that Wei Yan was brave and asked Yang Yi about his plan. It was obvious that Jiang Wei was not sure enough to defeat Wei Yan in a heads-up. In this way, after Zhuge Liang's death, Wei Yan can be said to be the most powerful warlord in the Shu Han. It is no wonder that Zhuge Liang had to devise a strategy to get rid of him before his death in order to prevent Wei Yan from rebelling.
