Sima Wang

The man Changcheng depends on. Sima Zhao's cousin and Commander of Changcheng, holding 'huge stores of grain' behind weak defences, he camps seven miles out with Wang Zhen and Li Peng to keep the attack at a distance, loses both of them in one exchange with Fu Qian, and is burned back behind his walls — fire-arrows, firebombs, and brushwood piled against the rampart — until Deng Ai's relief column appears. Deng Ai then writes to him to sit still and wait for reinforcements, and sends Deng Zhong in to help hold the place.

Rescues Deng Ai out of the Serpent Coil by knowing where its head is, and explains how: 'In my youth I went to study in Jingzhou and was friendly with Shi Guangyuan and Cui Zhouping. They explained that formation to me… the only way to break it is to attack the head, which I saw was in the northwest.' Then fights the formation contest as the deliberate diversion, bluffs about knowing all eighty-one variations, is caught out by Jiang Wei's 'I suppose you mean a plan to keep me here while he tries a surprise attack in the rear', and is routed. And it is Sima Wang who proposes the plan that actually wins: buy Huang Hao and have Jiang Wei recalled.

At Qishan with Deng Ai, and the two of them draw the conclusion that shapes the rest of the book: 'In the River Lands, trouble is not far off when the ruler and his servants do not live in harmony.' It is on that reading that Dang Jun is sent to Luoyang.

In the field with Deng Ai, and he springs the chapter's decisive trap. Reads the Taoyang march as a decoy for Qishan and is overruled. Then given the harder half of Deng Ai's plan: take Taoyang, hide the garrison, leave the gates standing open, and wait. Xiahou Ba walks in and dies under the arrows and stones; the sortie that follows breaks the whole Shu van, and it takes Jiang Wei's arrival to drive Sima Wang back inside.

Detached from the main effort for the job that makes it safe: 'as soon as Deng Ai received his orders to attack Shu, he sent Sima Wang to keep the Qiangs in check' - the western tribes who have swung two of Jiang Wei's earlier campaigns.

Made Minister of the Interior by Sima Yan in the first distribution of offices of the new reign.