When Zhuge Liang led the main force of Ji County to arrive in Qidao County, Zhang Xi had already ambushed the remaining Qianghu three tribes in accordance with the strategy of Midang, and achieved certain results.

The remaining Qianghu three tribes, completely unprepared, encountered the joint ambush of Zhang Xi and Pang De, not only lost a large amount of looted money and grain, but also suffered heavy losses in the main force of their own tribes, adding up to a total loss of nearly 10,000 people, and had to temporarily retreat and withdraw to the county seat where they were originally stationed.

Today's Qianghu Sanbu was completely blocked by Zhang Xi to the east of the Dao, and morale plummeted.

When Zhuge Liang led the main force to arrive and understood the situation, he immediately cooperated with Zhang Xi to launch a counterattack, divided his troops to besiege the county seat of the Qianghu three troops, and used the means of division and encirclement and various breakthroughs to encircle the Qianghu three Qiang soldiers.

The Qiang people of the three Qiang tribes were not good at defending the city, coupled with the loss of more than half of the money and grain, and the low morale, they could not hold it for too long, and in less than half a month, the counties were broken one after another.

The three Qiang tribes suffered heavy losses, the leaders of the second division were captured, and the leaders of one division only broke through with a few hundred followers, and their whereabouts were unknown.

After achieving a decisive success in Nan'an County, Zhuge Liang did not give the Qiang people a chance to breathe, and immediately sent Jiang Xu to lead the troops to recover Longxi County, and Ma Dai led the army to recover Jincheng County to drive away the Qiang people who were entrenched in these two counties.

At this point, the Qiang Rebellion in Qinzhou, at the military level, has been pacified.

The rest of the matter is to appease the Qiang people at the political level and win over the hearts of the people on the border.

For this reason, Zhuge Liang needed to stay in Tianshui County for a period of time, and by the way, he also temporarily left the Northern Army, which had no war, in Qinzhou.

This decision is somewhat out of place.

Just imagine, after the counterinsurgency is completed, the counterinsurgency army actually stays on the border and does not return. No matter how you look at it, this is a taboo thing for individuals.

Today's Zhuge Liang is not the prime minister of Ji Han in history, "in the palace and in the house, all as one", theoretically speaking, he has the ability to make decisions in government affairs, but in terms of military power, he promised not to interfere at the beginning.

In order to avoid trouble, Zhang Xi took the initiative to find Zhuge Liang and asked why he didn't return to Chengdu.

And Zhuge Liang, because of this, discussed with Zhang Xi.

"This time to pacify the Qiang chaos, it is too smooth, I intend to take advantage of the situation to expedition north to the Central Plains, I don't know what Yuan Chang's intentions are?!"

This is the real reason why Zhuge Liang did not choose to return to his teacher.

The Northern Expedition, Zhang Fei stared at it, and said that if Jianxing chose the opportunity for the Northern Expedition in five years, Zhuge Liang would definitely not break his promise to Zhang Fei.

Originally, Zhuge Liang thought that the Qiang Rebellion in Qinzhou this time broke out so seriously that within a month, the three counties would be lost, which would definitely affect the national policy of recuperation.

In order to quell this Qiang rebellion, it will take at least half a year or so, and it will take one to two years to completely stabilize the place.

But Zhuge Liang didn't expect that this time Pingqiang went so smoothly, except for the month or so when it snowed in winter, the Qiang people were defeated again and again. The troops sent from Chengdu in mid-October will have already quelled the Qiang rebellion and recovered their homeland in February of the following year.

Moreover, in the process of quelling the Qiang rebellion, it can be said that the main force of the Qiang people led by the five Qiang tribes was severely damaged, and the alliance between the five Qiang tribes was disintegrated.

The time spent on counterinsurgency was nearly half less than Zhuge Liang expected, and the money and food spent on counterinsurgency was one-third less than Zhuge Liang expected.

Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong discussed this problem, and the two calculated the little family background of the imperial court, and found that it was not without benefit to launch the Northern Expedition at this time.

First of all, there is the surprise.

In late September last year, the Qiang people launched a rebellion. Even if Cao Wei's intelligence system is wasted, he should have already learned the news at this time, and knew that the Northern Army of the Han Dynasty had gone north to quell the rebellion.

With such a large-scale war in the northwest region, normal people judged that even if Ji Han could put down the rebellion in time, the money and food spent would inevitably be not small, and it would be impossible to start a big war again in a short period of time.

After all, since the fifth year of Zhangwu, the Han Dynasty has been in a passive defensive position since the Han occupied Guanzhong, and has not used troops abroad for five or six consecutive years, and in the past three years, it has obviously shown an attitude of recuperation.

Of course, Cao Wei understood what the purpose of the Han Dynasty was to recuperate, so he had been constantly intruding on Yongzhou, at least not allowing Guanzhong to develop.

But now this Qiang rebellion will obviously interrupt the rhythm of the Han's recuperation, mobilize the Han's military deployment, and consume the Han's money and food, but Cao Wei will breathe a sigh of relief.

Because of this, Cao Wei was unlikely to have predicted that the Han Dynasty would suddenly launch a Northern Expedition in less than half a year after quelling the Qiang Rebellion.

Second, it is convenient to mobilize troops.

Now that the Northern Army has arrived in Qinzhou, the purpose is also to pacify the Qiang Rebellion, which is a matter on the surface, so Cao Wei's meticulous work in Shu will not be suspicious of the movement of the Northern Army.

If the Northern Army is transferred back to Chengdu immediately after the counterinsurgency is over, it will be a waste of military rations to send troops from Chengdu again and again during the next Northern Expedition.

It is better to rest directly in Qinzhou, and when the time is right, directly enter Yongzhou and attack the Central Plains.

Third, the Han Dynasty pacified the Qiang Rebellion, and the main force was concentrated in the northwest region, even if Cao Wei did not relax his vigilance, the direction of defense would be concentrated on the three passes in the north and south of Yongzhou, and the defense of Jingzhou would inevitably be weakened.

This created conditions for the Jingzhou Army to secretly prepare and attack Wancheng in the north.

This time, the focus of Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition was not placed in the northwest direction.

To enter Guanzhong from Yongzhou, you need to connect three checkpoints - Wuguan, Tongguan, and Hangu Pass.

These three checkpoints are all set up in places that are easy to defend and difficult to attack, and along the Yellow River, Cao Wei's investigation in the past two years has also been very strict, and it is not realistic to sneak across the river and gather troops to attack Hedong.

On the contrary, in terms of Wancheng, Dengxian, Xinye and other places are still controlled by the Jingzhou Army, and if they want to attack north, they can directly attack near Wancheng.

As long as Wancheng is conquered, the Wuguan on the west side of Wancheng will face the trend of being attacked by the enemy on its back and will inevitably not be able to defend it for a long time.

As soon as the Wuguan Pass was broken, the Northern Expeditionary Corps stationed in Yongzhou had a passage into the hinterland of the Central Plains, and at the same time could bypass Tongguan and Hangu Pass and approach Luoyang.

Therefore, Zhuge Liang thought about this Northern Expedition many times, and felt that it was still necessary to let the Jingzhou Army serve as the main attack, and the Northern Army of the Han Dynasty and the Yongzhou Army would play auxiliary containment.

And there is an unexpected benefit to doing so - from the Battle of Hanzhong to the first two Northern Expeditions, the Jingzhou Army has always been in an auxiliary position, and this time it suddenly became the main direction of attack, and Cao Wei may not have reacted.

The only trouble is that the defender of Wancheng is Sima Yi. This person is not easy to mess with.

This is not easy to mess with, and it is really not what Zhuge Liang said.

In the romance, before Zhuge Liang was going to go on the Northern Expedition, he was shocked when he heard that Sima Yi was guarding Chang'an, and he said something "only worried about this person".

Then Ma Jian gave him a divisive plan, spreading rumors, causing Sima Yi to be suspicious of Cao Rong and remove him from military power, but in fact, this is pure nonsense by Luo Guanzhong.

Let's not mention that it was Xiahou Nan who was in Chang'an at that time, and there was nothing to do with Sima Yi at all. Just said that between Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi, there was no intersection at all before, with the intelligence gathering ability of this era, how could Zhuge Liang regard Sima Yi as a lifelong enemy as soon as he came up?!

This is purely Luo Guanzhong's opening of God's perspective, and he should make up the bridge.

However, in this time and space, Zhuge Liang still knows a little bit of Sima Yi's ability.

But it's not that Zhuge Liang has any prophetic ability, it's just that from the perspective of the last Northern Expedition, Sima Yi was ordered to defend Wancheng, and he learned that Sima Yi's ability was not bad.

Not everyone can face the Jingzhou Legion led by Guan Yu personally in that kind of defeat situation, and they are still capable of turning the tide.

Of course, there is an element of helping in time, but Sima Yi was able to gather the morale of the army in a short period of time, and he has already shown the qualities that an excellent general should have.

But there is one thing to say, Zhuge Liang's understanding of Sima Yi is still incomplete, and Zhuge Liang analyzes that Sima Yi's ability is probably similar to Cao Wei's Guo Huai or Zhang He.

The person who really confirmed that Sima Yi was "not easy to mess with" was Zhang Xi.

No way, Zhang Xi, like Luo Guanzhong, is a person who has opened the perspective of God.

Don't look at Sima Yi who was later ridiculed as "afraid of Shu like a tiger", but if you really want to talk about it, in the middle and late stages of the Three Kingdoms, he also suffered Zhuge Liang's loss in the Battle of Lucheng, and was beaten with a result of "three thousand firsts", but from a strategic point of view, Sima Yi's strategy of sticking to avoiding the war was right, and he finally completed his goal and held Guanzhong, without giving Zhuge Liang any chance to enter Guanzhong.

This person's character is really not good, an old fox, good at forbearance and not trustworthy. But the military level, this person is no worse than any famous general in the world.

Even if Guan Yu of the Jingzhou Legion is led, if he can't have a big enough advantage in the local area, he may not be able to break through Sima Yi's defense and occupy Wancheng.

Not to mention Guan Yu now, his physical condition has deteriorated to a certain extent, and he is not sure whether he can personally lead the troops to the battle.

And the rest of the Jingzhou Legion, although Xu Shu is resourceful, but his ability to lead the troops is insufficient, and Wang Ji, although he is both civil and military, is not prestige enough. The rest of Guan Ping, Deng Ai, Kou Feng and others had little chance of winning when facing an old fox like Sima Yi.

Therefore, Zhang Xi suggested that Zhuge Liang should find a way to pit Sima Yi if he could, or send a suitable general to lead the Jingzhou army on his behalf.

(End of chapter)