During the period when the five tiger generals died one after another and Jiang Wei had not yet grown up, Wei Yan could be said to be the well-deserved number one general of the Shu Kingdom.

At that time, Liu Bei had less than 20,000 soldiers and had no food for his lone army, but Liu Zhang did not adopt the tactics of clearing the wilderness, but sent Zhang Ren, Leng Bao, Deng Xian and others to lead the elite to stop Liu Bei.

After Liu Bei defeated Liu Zhang, he sent Huang Zhong and Wei Yan to pacify Hanzhong respectively.

Later, Liu Bei was ready to find a general to sit in Hanzhong, and at that time, everyone thought that the person stationed in Hanzhong must be Zhang Fei, but Liu Bei directly promoted Wei Yan to this position.

At that time, Liu Bei said to Wei Yan: "I have appointed people like you, what should you do after you guard Hanzhong?" ”

Wei Yan pondered for a moment before replying: "If Cao Wei attacks the country, I will try my best to block the enemy army for the lord, and if the other party only has one general to lead an army of 100,000 to come, I will annex him for the lord!" ”

After Liu Bei heard this, he was very satisfied, and Wei Yan officially entered the field of vision of the high-level of Shu Han.

Later, on the occasion of Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition, Wei Yan led a partial army to the west into Qiangzhong, attacked Cao Wei's Liangzhou region, defeated Guo Huai, was promoted again, and was named Southern Zheng Hou.

And Wei Yan's most famous thing is that Wei Yan once offered a plan to get out of the Meridian Valley and attack Chang'an, but unfortunately Zhuge Liang felt that this plan was too risky, so he politely refused.

Regarding Wei Yan's strange strategy, many people in later generations have been in dispute.

Some people say that if it was according to Wei Yan's plan, Wei Yan would drop 5,000 elite soldiers and 5,000 grain and grass teams, first move covertly along the Qinling Mountains, and then cross the Meridian Valley north, and march directly to Chang'an in ten days.

And the Chang'an guard is Cao Cao's son-in-law, an incompetent person who climbed up by nepotism, and when he sees Wei Yan's army killing, he will definitely run away from the Wei River, and Wei Yan can rely on the amount of food in Chang'an City to support more than 20 days.

And in the past 20 days, as long as Zhuge Liang's army comes out of the valley and the two armies merge together, then the fertile Guanzhong Plain west of Chang'an, Jiujiang will all fall into the hands of Shu!

But in fact, under the precise calculations of later generations, a conclusion can be obtained, that is, the seizure of Tongguan is more operable than the capture of Chang'an, both at the strategic and tactical levels.

First of all, even if Wei Yan's plan to seize Chang'an was completely successful, it actually only controlled the western half of Guanzhong, and after the reinforcements from the Central Plains arrived, Shu would have to fight to the death with the Wei army in the plains.

In addition, Shu is mostly lightly armed, and if it fights Cao Wei's hoplites and cavalry on the plain like this, it will be a self-defeating death.

In addition, regardless of whether the guards of Chang'an will escape, the city of Chang'an alone has been repaired by Dong Zhuo, Li Dao, Zhong Xuan and others for several generations, and the city wall alone is enough for eighty miles in a week, and it is a well-known fortified city during the Three Kingdoms period.

Even if Wei Yan was lucky enough to capture Chang'an, he was already seriously injured, how could he hold Chang'an and support Zhuge Liang's Hou army for more than 20 days to come from Xiegu?

In addition, the Guanzhong region has become a battlefield, and Shuangfa cannot rely on the local supply of grain and grass, and the grain and grass of Shu need to be supplied from Hanzhong over the Qinling Mountains, but Cao Wei can directly carry out river transportation from Weishui, and the supply efficiency of the two sides is not the same at all.

In this case, Shu will inevitably not be able to support it for a long time, and if it is captured and then lost, this kind of useless work Wei Yan will never do.

Therefore, the purpose of the Meridian Valley is not to surprise Chang'an, but to emulate Han Xin back then, and to repair the plank road in the dark!

After getting out of the Meridian Valley again, Wei Yan will not seize Chang'an, but will go to seize Tongguan and Wuguan and other passes!

This move is aimed at keeping Cao Wei's reinforcements transferred from the Central Plains out of the pass, so as to cut off the connection between inside and outside Tongguan, so that the Shu army led by Zhuge Liang can calmly sweep away the Cao Wei forces in the pass!

Therefore, the true face of Wei Yanqi's conspiracy is to sneak attack Guanzhong, exit the Meridian Valley with lightly armed infantry, bypass Chang'an and quickly go east, and seize Tongguan and Wuguan from behind.

At the same time, the main army and horses led by Zhuge Liang went out of the Xiegu Pass to attack various important places in the Guanzhong, and attacked the troops in the Meridian Valley as soon as possible, held the Tongguan, and then slowly encroached on the Guanzhong and the Longxi area, and resisted the enemy outside the Tongguan!

From a strategic point of view, Wei Yan's Meridian Valley strategy is indeed more valuable than Zhuge Liang's strategy of sending troops to Longyou, after all, after Liu Bei's death, Shu Han was silent for many years, and Cao Wei was indeed a little lax in the southwest, whether it was Liangzhou, Longyou, or Guanzhong, the garrison forces in these places were a little weak.

But from a tactical point of view, the danger factor of the Meridian Valley conspiracy is far greater than Zhuge Liang's plan.

Although the garrison in Guanzhong is insufficient, after all, there are famous generals like Guo Huai!

If Wei Yan really wanted to sneak attack Tongguan and other passes, Guo Huai would definitely give up entanglement with Zhuge Liang as soon as possible, and instead attack Wei Yan with all his might, striving to annihilate Wei Yan's troops before Zhuge Liang's army arrived.

Moreover, Wei Yan's plan must be concealed and sudden, and it cannot be discovered by Cao Wei in advance, although the communication in that era remained unchanged, and the army of 10,000 people was still unknown.

Not to mention the steep roads in the Meridian Valley, the high mountains on both sides confront each other, and the water flow in the middle is turbulent, so you can only rely on the plank road to the same sex.

If the plank road is in disrepair, it will definitely consume a lot of time to repair, which will seriously affect the speed of the march, and only ten days will be enough, Wei Yan will definitely be able to ensure that his army of 10,000 people can pass through the Meridian Valley and reach Tongguan?

In fact, two years later, Cao Zhen also tried to attack Hanzhong from the Meridian Valley, but was affected by the torrential rain on the way, and in the end it took a full ten days, and only walked less than half of the distance, and when they really arrived in Hanzhong, the Shu army was already ready, and the Cao Zhen who killed him was defeated!

There are countless examples of wars in Hanzhong and Guanzhong in history, and the most successful person is Han Xin, who Wei Yan wants to imitate, but the reason why Han Xin was able to obtain Guanzhong back then has a lot to do with Xiang Yu's slow increase in Guanzhong.

On the contrary, in the defeat of the combat force, Gao Yingxiang, the rebel army at the end of the Ming Dynasty, also chose to get out of the Meridian Valley, but Sun Chuanting led 20,000 recruits who were newly recruited for four months, and directly ambushed Gao Yingxiang's 50,000 main force, so that Gao Yingxiang's entire army was annihilated, and even Gao Yingxiang himself was injured and captured.

Although there were many uncertain factors on the battlefield, compared with the state of Shu Han and the state of Cao Wei at that time, Zhuge Liang rejected Wei Yan's Meridian Valley conspiracy, not only because of his distrust of Wei Yan, but because the Meridian Valley conspiracy was really difficult to implement.

However, Wei Yan was able to come up with this strategy that made modern people can't help but think about it, pay attention to prove how shocking Wei Yan was when he proposed the surprise plan to attack Meridian Valley at that time!

It's a pity that although Wei Yan is good at raising soldiers, brave and scheming, he is too arrogant and has an extremely evil temperament, which provokes Yang Yi and Wei Yan like fire and water, and even Wei Yan has tried to kill Yang Yi with a knife several times, which also laid the groundwork for his death.

In fact, there are also different accounts about Wei Yan's death.

Some people think that Wei Yan's death is like in the Romance, and it was Wei Yan's intention to rebel, but there is another record in "Wei Luo" that is very different from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

According to "Wei Luo", the person entrusted by Zhuge Liang with military power was originally Wei Yan, and Yang Yi was afraid that Wei Yan would take the opportunity to kill him, so he spread rumors that Wei Yan was going north to join the enemy, and based on this, he sent troops to attack Wei Yan.

Wei Yan felt that if the sword soldiers were together, they would be innocent, so they only fled without fighting, and were finally chased and killed by Ma Dai.

The truth of the matter is now unknown, but after reincarnation, Wei Yan did not break away from Shu Han, but still chose to die for Liu Bei under his command, and I don't know whether to praise Wei Yan's loyalty or praise Liu Bei's charm.

Wei Yan interrupted the soul knife in his hand, pointed at Ma Chao from afar, and drank loudly.

"Pony, let's fight!"

"Hmph, look for death!" Ma Chao glared angrily, raised his hand, and the phantom of the golden spear fell into his palm.

"Qin Yu and Pang De, you two are on the lookout, and look at me in the lily, take down this thief!"

After Ma Chao finished speaking, he held the tiger-headed Zhan golden gun and rushed directly towards Wei Yan.

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