He was SO fanatical that he attempted to revive Shu after it's collapse by collaborating with an enemy general (Zhong Hui) who sought to rebel against Wei. He even sought to restore the weak-willed Liu Shan to the throne.
So fanatical that he died in the attempt, of course.
I suppose that could be fanaticism. It could just have been wounded pride. But hey, I don't know. Willing to concede the point.
Shu practically drafted every last troop they could possibly manage and still only had enough to almost match what Wei had only on their border with Shu, and Wei could have spared more. Wei had many more on the border with Wu and elsewhere.
True. Shu weren't hopelessly outnumbered, though. Partly because of Wu drawing a lot of Wei's attention, as well as the very dangerous tribes up north.
Superior? I beg to differ. Not unskilled, but not on par in my opinion...
I'm talking about Wang Ping, who most certainly was superior to Guan Yu(who, militarywise, was a huge failure- awesome administrator, though), Ma Chao(who was competent, but not all that impressive) and Huang Zhong(who accomplished rather little, but had an impressive showing at Hanzhong).
He'd be hard-pressed to challenge Zhang Fei, who was arguably the best general Shu ever had.
But it doesn't really matter. Double-checking my facts, and he died in 248(at more than 50 years of age). Jiang Wei weren't in command until 253(19 years after Zhuge died).
So yeah, he was a Zhuge only officer, and a darn good one.
To be fair, Zhuge did have perhaps the best lineup of Shu officers. Well, except lacking Liu Bei and Zhang Fei. :P
and I'm not sure about the others but if my memory serves, Liao Hua was old as dirt at that point. He was a part of the older generation.
69 years old.
It was more a comparison to the dead guys, rather than specific generations.
Not that he was part of the older generation anyhow. More like the mid-generation(which Zhuge was too). He was born 24 years after Liu Bei.
And Wei was never crushingly more talented before that point, except maybe in sheer number of talented officers.
Which kind of was what I said. :P
Shu was amply capable in terms of talented officers in the earlier years, just outnumbered, as always.
Examples beyond Zhang Fei and Liu Bei himself(both doubled as tacticians and generals)? Zhuge wasn't an early officer.
Cao Cao had Cao Ren(as good as Zhang Fei), Zhang He, Zhang Liao- all of these were more talented than just about any early Shu guy not named Zhang Fei and Liu Bei. And Jia Xu and Cheng Yu. And he himself was possibly the most talented man of the era.
...Or perhaps I should be going with the actual empires? In which case Shu loses both the above, while Wei keeps some.
I know both kingdoms had a bigger number of talents, but Wei had both bigger numbers, and generally bigger talents.
Heck, even Wang Ping, who was one of the best Zhuge Liang had, was a Wei officer who changed sides. :P
Liu Shan was corrupt... He practically sllowedHuang Hao (if I remember is name correctly) run the empire just because of his... Liking of him.
Note that Liu Shan WASN'T a noticeable negative influence on the war effort, actively going against Huang Hao on Jiang Wei's behalf, even forcing Huang Hao to apologize publicly for speaking badly of Jiang Wei?
Also, contrary to what some people think, he never called Jiang wei back at crucial times.
As for letting Huang Hao run the empire... The kid didn't really become the reigning emperor until 30 years into his reign. Before that, he was just being pampered. Is it really that surprising he was used by Huang Hao- who had been one of his closest "friends" ever since the earliest days of his regime?
Liu Shan, as far as emperors go, wasn't bad. Just mediocre and pampered. Compare him to actual corrupt and incompetent emperors, like Sun Hao, to see what I mean.
Jiang Wei forced Zhong Hui (one of Wei's best) to decide to retreat, and it was up to Deng Ai to save him.
Uh... when? The only historical mention I could find was the stalemate at Jiange(which was basically a similar defensive line to Hanzhong).
And Deng Ai was far away from that, going over the mountains.
A few Wei generals were perhaps on par or superior to Jiang Wei, but you make it seem as though they all were, which was certainly not the case.
No, I said the GOOD Wei
tacticians. Any of the earlier commanders in chiefs(Cao Zhen, Sima Yi) would have stomped him just as bad as Deng Ai.
Zhong Hui was a good general, but he wasn't really a tactical genius.
Perhaps good wasn't a strong enough word. :P I meant the higher echelons.
Jiang Wei was a competent officer... Perhaps a little too shortsighted and arrogant to have been the commander of the entire army, however.
If he were serving under someone like Deng Ai, instead of against him, I think he would have a valued general to him.
You know what, I think you're right. He did do reasonably well when not in highest command himself.
So he was competent, just not at the task he was given. He was a good officer, but not a good commander/man in charge. He needed directions.
"Right man in the wrong place", as one could say.
When I said that was why he looked down on, that is what I was hinting at. His repeated campaigns drained Shu of its resources... but you can't really say he killed Shu.
I'm still of the opinion that him letting Wei past the almost impassible Hanzhong Pass was the cause of Shu's fall.
Especially since he dismantled the very same defenses erected by Wei Yan and that Zhuge himself had valued highly.
Wei was larger than Shu and Wu combined, he may have made the inevitable come sooner, but my point is that at least he was trying.
With Shu's northern border, they could've held Wei of almost indefinitely(instead of attacking and draining themselves).
Had Shu lasted to the northern tribes invasions, they would have had a decent shot at taking a lot of Wei.
Wu was actually more threatening in some ways.
If he had succeeded, Shu likely would have won the war, and history would be rewritten.
True.
I can't really argue with that...
Though, Zhuge Liang had been draining Shu's resources just as Jiang Wei had, with only marginally better results. The borders remained virtually unchanged despite both of their efforts.
True. None of them really had an easy time either, fighting some of the most brilliant men of the era- Cao Zhen, Sima Yi and Deng Ai.
On that note, Cao Zhen really should be playable in Dynasty Warriors. Would be fun to see an intellectual, tactician counterpart to Xu Zhu(Zhen was obese).
If you want some nice info on the three kingdoms period, ask the gamefaqs user Xiahou Mao. He hangs around a lot of history sites and has read up on almost all of the history books. :P
