Jiang Wei

Enters at the last moment, as an interruption — 'O Governor, you are the sport of one of Zhuge Liang's wiles' — and takes the ruse apart from the inside: if Nanan is closely besieged, how did a messenger get out; Pei Xu is an officer nobody has heard of; the Anding messenger carries no dispatch at all. Ma Zun's answer is the chapter's verdict: 'Were it not for you, I would fall into a ruse.' Introduced with his whole background — his father Jiang Jiong died in the court's service quelling a Qiang rebellion; he is well read, trained in every warlike exercise, a student of the books on war, a notably filial son, and already holds the rank of General. Closes the chapter promising a scheme to capture Zhuge Liang and relieve Nanan; the scheme itself, and the business of his mother, belong to chapter 93.

Out-thinks Zhuge Liang twice — reading the ambush-behind-the-city plan exactly and trapping Zhao Zilong with it, then dividing Tianshui four ways so the night assault walks into fires on every side. Broken only by the attack on Jicheng, where his mother is: he asks for the command that lets him 'keep the city and do my duty by my mother at the same time', and is let in on purpose. After that every escape closes — his grain raid is caught between Zhang Yi and Wang Ping, Wei Yan has taken Jicheng behind him, Zhang Bao strips him to a single horseman, Ma Zun shoots at him from Tianshui's wall and Liang Qian abuses him from Shanggui's. 'He could not explain the real truth to those who doubted him. Lifting his eyes to heaven, while tears rolled down his cheeks…' Cornered on the Changan road by Guan Xing and the chariot, he dismounts and bows his head. Then he immediately earns the title — his own arrow-letters to Yin Shang and Liang Xu are what actually open Tianshui.

Asked how he would beat the iron chariots and gives the answer of a student rather than a soldier — 'The enemy only depend upon force and courage. They shall not expect this fine strategy' — which earns Zhuge Liang's smiling 'You know.' Draws the chariots onto the concealed pits by offering battle and retiring before them, past an empty camp full of flags, and is the bait the whole pursuit follows through the snow.

Made Leader of the Van for the main march through the Xie Valley, then rear guard with Ma Dai on the retreat, lying in ambush in the valleys until the army is past and helping break Cao Zhen's pursuit. His aged mother is moved to safety in Hanzhong on Zhuge Liang's order amid the collapse — the debt that holds him to Shu for the rest of the novel.

Named once, and only as a thing Fei Yi thinks worth congratulating Zhuge Liang on — and is snapped at for: 'What injury to Wei was the loss of Jiang Wei?'

Supplies both the strategy and the weapon. Proposes abandoning Chencang as unbreakable while Hao Zhao holds it and Wang Shuang supports it — leave a general to pin it, hold the Jieting roads, and take a strong force to Qishan instead — and promises 'I can do something which will capture Cao Zhen'. That something is the false-surrender letter: a hundred prostrations, the claim of never forgetting his old allegiance, and an offer to fire the Shu stores as a signal. Cao Zhen swallows it whole. Jiang Wei's regret at the end is that it caught the wrong man: 'My regret is that I did not slay Cao Zhen.'

Takes Wudu: 'Jiang Wei and Wang Ping offered themselves. The former was sent with ten thousand troops to capture Wudu; the latter, with an equal force, went to Yinping.' Earlier he is the officer Zhuge Liang consults when the grain runs short — 'I reckon the grain we brought with us will not last a month. What must we do?' — and he rides with Wei Yan to take Chencang the moment Hao Zhao dies, then straight on to storm San Pass without unarming.

Confirmed here as the captor of Wudu ('Wudu is in possession of Jiang Wei'). Smites Guo Huai and Sun Li in the rear at the ambush. Then given the silken bag with Liao Hua and posted in the mountains to watch: when Wang Ping and Zhang Yi are hard pressed he opens it - 'Now surely is the moment to open the bag' - and the order inside sends the two of them against Sima Yi's camp instead of into the battle, which is what breaks the pursuit.

Takes secret orders by night after Zhuge Liang guesses from the declaration of war that Cao Zhen is dead, and comes up silently on the third side of the array battle, the attack that finally breaks the Wei line. Also the one who states the problem with the recall - 'If the army retire, Sima Yi will attack' - and so draws out the cooking-stove plan.

Drives one of the three decoy chariots - a thousand troops and five hundred drummers apiece - that appear one after another out of the drums and the mist until Sima Yi's army breaks and runs for Shanggui. One of the four corner ambushes at Lucheng. Then sent with Ma Dai and ten thousand men each to garrison the approaches visibly, so that the Wei command can see Shu is not starving and gives up the Saber Pass plan.

Middle division of the River Wei crossing with Ma Zheng, and in the van of the whole march with Wei Yan. One of the two who catch Sima Yi's reserve on the flank on the night of the false letter. Then sent with Wei Yan and ten thousand men to the Beiyuan border to take delivery of the stolen convoy and hold it against Guo Huai.

Picks Liao Hua up when the pursuit of Sima Yi has gone astray and rides back to camp with him. Later questions how Zhuge Liang can be sure the imperial edict is a device ('How do you know, O Prime Minister?'), suggests the prayer when the star aspect is read, and prepares the forty-nine black-clad guards and the lamps. It is Jiang Wei who is in the tent watching the rite when Wei Yan bursts in, and who draws his sword on him for it.

Puts up his sword at the dying man's word in the first line, and inherits everything that matters: the twenty-four-chapter treatise, the repeating-crossbow drawings, and the warning about the Yinping Mountains that will be made good in ch117. Named in the death orders as the man to guard the retreat - 'My friend Jiang Wei is wise and brave' - and takes the rearguard when Wei Yan refuses it. It is Jiang Wei who turns the retreating column round on Sima Yi, shows the wooden image under the Lord of Wuxiang banner, and shouts 'Do not try to run away, O rebel! You have fallen into one of the Prime Minister's traps and had better stay!'

Finds the way round the burnt Plank Trail - 'I know a by-way hereabout that will lead us round to the rear of these covered roads. True it is precipitous and dangerous... It is called the Chashan Mountain Path' - which is what puts Yang Yi's army behind Wei Yan instead of in front of him. Holds Nanzheng with the drawbridge up when Wei Yan and Ma Dai arrive demanding surrender, then rides out with three thousand men to draw Wei Yan's line so that Yang Yi can open the bag at the moment its cover names. Ends the chapter as General Who Upholds the Han, Lord of Pingxiang, Commander-in-Chief and Commander of Hanzhong.

Takes up Zhuge Liang's project and loses his first campaign with it. Vets Xiahou Ba, welcomes him with the Wei Zi comparison, and takes him to Chengdu to argue for the expedition: the Simas are absorbed at home, Cao Fang is a weakling, Hanzhong's troops are trained and its depots full. Answers Fei Yi's caution with 'Life is short. Our days flash by as the glint of a white horse across a chink in the door. We are waiting and waiting. Are we never to try to restore Han to its old glory?' and stakes the plan on a Qiang alliance he knows from living in Longshang. The Qiangs never come. Builds the two Qushan ramparts, cannot relieve them, tries the Ox Head Hills swing at Yongzhou and finds Chen Tai already there, loses River Yao and his supply road to Guo Huai, is surrounded, and gets out having 'suffered more than half of his force' - then has to cut through Sima Shi to reach Yangping Pass.

The chapter opens on the end of his ch107 campaign: the poisoned ten-bolt crossbows on the Yangping Pass roads cut Sima Shi's fifty thousand to pieces, Gou Ai finally surrenders Qushan, and Jiang Wei marches back into Hanzhong having lost twenty to thirty thousand men. It closes on him too — Zhuge Ke's letter asking for a joint attack reaches Chengdu, and Jiang Wei goes to the Latter Ruler to ask for authority to raise another army against the north.

Takes Xiahou Ba's plan (Nanan as the base, the Qiangs at Longyou, out by Shiying and Dongting), buys King Mi Dang with gold, pearls and silk, and after losing the first engagement to Xu Zhi refuses the obvious ambush — 'But remember whose son this Sima Zhao is. Sima Zhao cannot be a novice in war' — and baits the supply road instead. Kills Xu Zhi himself: 'Before he could make any resistance, Jiang Wei's spear thrust him down, and as Xu Zhi lay on the ground he was cut to pieces.' Boxes Sima Zhao on the Iron Cage Mountain with one road and one spring, and says what it means to him: 'I have always regretted that our great Prime Minister was unable to capture Sima Yi in the Gourd Valley, but now I think his son is doomed to fall into our hands!' Then Guo Huai turns the Qiangs, the camp is stormed, and he is riding for the hills with an empty quiver — and produces the most famous shot in the late novel: he draws an empty bow to make Guo Huai flinch, and when Guo Huai shoots at him instead, 'Jiang Wei caught the arrow as it flew by and fitted it to his bowstring… and sent the arrow flying straight at Guo Huai's face.' Loses the campaign heavily and goes helter-skelter into Hanzhong, but 'they had killed Xu Zhi and Guo Huai on the other side and had damaged the prestige of Wei. Thus Jiang Wei's achievement made up for his offense.'

Takes Sima Shi's death as the opening, argues down Zhang Yi's objection with the clearest statement of his own purpose in the book — 'Six times he led armies to try to gain the northern portion of the empire, but failed to attain his desire… he bequeathed to me the legacy of his intention, and I must be a loyal and worthy executor. If I die in the attempt, I will perish without regret' — and marches fifty thousand out by Baohan. Beats Wang Jing's seventy thousand by deliberately drawing up with the river at his back and then rallying at the water's edge ('Danger, O Generals! Now do your utmost!'), so that 'dead bodies lay about over several miles'. Then overrules Zhang Yi's warning about adding legs to a serpent, besieges Didao, and is driven all the way back to Saber Pass by an army of a thousand men with a great many flags. Made Regent Marshal for River Yao, and starts planning the next expedition before the ceremony is over.

Comprehensively beaten by Deng Ai. He overrules Fan Jian and Xiahou Ba with his own five reasons for victory, marches on Qishan, finds nine Wei camps already laid out 'like a huge serpent' and admits what that means ('only our Zhuge Liang could have laid them out with equal skill'), then tries a feint — daily patrols under his own banner with the flag colours rotated blue, yellow, red, white and black — which Deng Ai reads in a single look from a hilltop. Loses the race to the Wucheng Mountain, cannot storm it in three attempts, is burned out of his wagon-camp, and then walks toward Shanggui into Block Valley, whose name he distrusts a moment too late. Caught on three sides and pulled out by Xiahou Ba; caught again on the retreat and pulled out by Zhang Ni, who dies doing it. Loses Bao Su's covering force to Chen Tai. Back in Hanzhong he takes the Jieting precedent on himself and asks to be demoted, and is put back to General of the Rear Army — the first time the Shu public blames him by name for their dead.

Stalled, and then checkmated by news. Takes Zhuge Dan's rebellion as 'The great opportunity at last', throws Qiao Zhou's essay on the ground — 'An effusion from the pen of a rotten pedant?' — and marches by the Luo Valley and the Shen Ridge on Fu Qian's plan. Nearly takes Changcheng, then is fought to a draw over fifty bouts by a boy he assumes is Deng Ai, misses him with an arrow, disarms him, and discovers it was the son. Waits five days for a battle that never comes, and is still waiting when the scouts arrive: Shouchun has fallen, Zhuge Dan is dead, the Wu army has gone over. 'So our attack on Wei is but a sham! It is only a picture of a cake.'

Withdraws from Changcheng with fire-traps laid in the Luo Valley that make Deng Ai call off the pursuit; marches again to Qishan on Xiahou Ba's advice; loses his left camp to a tunnel dug under it before he arrived, and holds the centre by standing absolutely still — 'Let no one move on pain of death! Stand still. When the enemy approaches, shoot!' — through a dozen Wei charges, which draws from Deng Ai the admission 'Jiang Wei has indeed learned of Zhuge Liang.' Takes the blame for the lost camp himself rather than punish Wang Han and Jiang Bin. Then wins the Eight Formations duel outright: matches Deng Ai's sixty-four gates, folds the array into the Serpent Coil with Deng Ai inside it, and takes all nine of his camps. Reads the second challenge as a diversion before it is made, ambushes the flanking column, and is winning when the recall arrives — 'Although ignorant of the reason, he could not disobey.'

Beats Deng Ai in the Yunshan Valley by turning Wang Guan's false defection inside out. First he accepts the recall on Zhang Yi's argument rather than Liao Hua's, retires in such perfect order that Deng Ai will not pursue, and gets nothing at the audience but 'I do not distrust you' after a long pause. Then, when Cao Mao's murder gives him a pretext, he marches a hundred fifty thousand in three columns. Sees through Wang Guan at once — 'Sima Zhao is as crafty as Cao Cao. If he slew all Wang Jing's family, would he have left a nephew and sent that nephew to the pass beyond his own reach with soldiers?' — keeps two thousand of his men as hostages, intercepts his courier, alters the date on the letter from the twentieth to the fifteenth, and fills the grain wagons with combustibles under green cloth. Deng Ai walks into it and escapes on foot. The victory still costs him: the wagons, the grain, and the Plank Trail, which Wang Guan burns behind him.

His ninth attempt by his own count — 'The late Prime Minister made six attempts, all for the state. I have attacked eight times' — and he snaps at Liao Hua for doubting it: 'This time I go to attack Taoyang, and no one shall say me nay. I will punish opposition with death.' Loses Xiahou Ba to the empty-city trap, is beaten twice in two days, rallies the army with 'Loss or gain is the platitude of war', fights Deng Ai thirty bouts without a decision, reads the night demonstration correctly as a feint covering a march to Qishan, and is winning there when three successive edicts recall him. At Chengdu he waits ten days for a court that is never held, learns from Xi Zheng that Huang Hao engineered it to make room for Yan Yun, and asks the Emperor to his face to have the eunuch killed — and is told 'Can you not bear with my one poor eunuch?' He goes to Tazhong on Xi Zheng's advice and with the Emperor's consent: eighty thousand men growing wheat and corn, Hanzhong left garrisoned in depth, and the plan to let Wei wear itself out dragging grain over the mountains.

Fights the whole western campaign at a disadvantage and gets his army out anyway. Sends the memorial that names the two points Shu cannot lose - Yangping Pass and the Yinping Bridge - and asks for Wu's help; it is intercepted by Huang Hao and never answered. Then rides through Wang Qi in three bouts and Qian Hong without stopping, fights Deng Ai twenty bouts to a standstill, loses Gansong behind him, is turned back by boulders under a precipice, and is surrounded and cuts his way out. Loses his horse under him at the Frontier River Pass and kills Yang Xin's horse from the ground. Finds the Yinping Bridge held, takes Ning Sui's feint, crosses, and burns the guard's camp. Argues twice against retreating to Saber Pass and gives way twice to Liao Hua - and reaches it to find drums rolling and flags flying on a pass that should be his.

Holds Saber Pass and wins the only Shu victory of the chapter - five thousand men down off the pass against Zhuge Xu, 'slaying many of the enemy and taking much spoil in horses and weapons' - and is still holding it when the war ends behind him. His one misjudgement is the chapter's hinge: told by Dong Jue that Chengdu is nearly empty of troops and would 'go crack' if attacked, he answers 'The natural defenses of Chengdu are excellent: It is hard to cross over the mountains and climb the steep roads. No one needs fear.' Deng Ai crosses them nine pages later.

Surrenders without surrendering, and the chapter gives him the best line in it. Dumb with amazement at the order, with his officers hacking at stones in their rage and the sound of their lamentation carrying for miles, he quiets them with 'Generals, grieve not. Even yet I can restore the House of Han!' - 'And he whispered low in their ears.' Rides to Zhong Hui, is asked why he took so long, and answers through falling tears without a tremor: 'The whole armies of the state are under me, and I am here far too soon!' Flatters him where it lands ('Had it been Deng Ai, I should have fought to the death'), swears brotherhood over a broken arrow, keeps command of his own army, and then talks him into destroying his colleague - Deng Ai was a farmer and cattle-breeder who owes everything to luck and to Saber Pass having held Jiang Wei in check, and 'The Duke of Jin suspects him, it is evident.' Finally produces from his sleeve the map Zhuge Liang gave the First Ruler before he left his cottage, and lets Zhong Hui look at Yizhou for a while.

Dies here at fifty-nine. He is the architect of the whole rebellion: he hands Zhong Hui the pretext ('Empress Guo of Wei has just died. You can pretend she left you a command to destroy Sima Zhao, the real murderer of the Emperor'), and before that he tries the opposite tack — the flattering warning about Han Xin at the Weiyang Palace and Wen Zhong in Yue, and whether Zhong Hui would not rather 'go to Emei Mountain and wander free with Master Red Pine' — which is bait, not advice. Reads Zhong Hui's dream of serpent bites as 'exceedingly auspicious'. Pushes for the mass execution of the imprisoned officers and is on his way to carry it out when a heart spasm drops him. Fights on after it until a second spasm, shrieks 'Failed! But it is the will of Heaven!' and 'put an end to his own life'. Afterwards the Wei soldiers hack his body to pieces 'burning for revenge of his many invasions', find his gall bladder 'as large as a hen's egg', and kill his whole family.

Named in passing only, and dead since ch119. The last inheritor of Zhuge Liang's project appears in the final chapter as a name in the reckoning.