Wang Guan

Supervisor of the Palace, appointed to replace Cao Xi as Commander of the Center Army and to occupy his camp - the other half of the seizure of the capital's garrisons that Sima Yi carries out in his first hour.

The second half of this chapter. He writes his plan down rather than say it aloud, stakes his life on it — 'I am willing to stake my life on it, and I will lead the way' — and rides into the Shu lines with five thousand men claiming to be Wang Jing's nephew, out for revenge on Sima Zhao for his uncle's family. Jiang Wei disbelieves him on the spot and dismantles the scheme around him. When the letter comes back that his own ruse has been discovered and Deng Ai beaten, he fires his own convoy — 'The case is desperate. It is a fight to the death!' — and then does the one thing Jiang Wei did not expect, turning not for home but for Hanzhong, burning every military station and the Plank Trail as he goes. Surrounded at last, 'Wang Guan jumped into the Black Dragon River and so died.'