Novel scene
Jiang Wei Defeats Deng Ai in Battle Formation 姜維鬥陣破鄧艾
About this event
This scene is the episode named in the chapter title of Chapter 113 of the Romance, "Jiang Wei matches battle formations and defeats Deng Ai," the passage in Jiang Wei's Northern Expeditions in which Jiang Wei and Deng Ai face each other at Mount Qi with a tunnel raid and battle formations, and Deng Ai, trapped in the Long Snake Coiling the Ground formation, loses all nine of his camps at Mount Qi. The Romance sets this in the winter of the 1st year of Jingyao of Shu-Han, and it ends with Jiang Wei recalled to court because of rumors spread by Deng Ai. Romance, Ch. 113 §23 · 32–33 · 42–43
Chen Shou's text has no such battle of formations. The Biography of Jiang Wei, Records of Shu 14, says that in the 1st year of Jingyao (258) Jiang Wei returned to Chengdu and was again made General-in-Chief, and records that later, in the 5th year of Jingyao (262), he went out to Houhe, was defeated by Deng Ai, and stayed at Tazhong. Records, Shu 14 §40 · 43
In the Romance
In Chapter 113 of the Romance, when Sun Xiu, the Lord of Wu, sends a state letter warning that Sima Zhao will soon usurp Wei and attack Wu and Shu and that they should prepare, Jiang Wei, in the winter of the 1st year of Jingyao, raises two hundred thousand men with Liao Hua and Zhang Yi as the vanguard and sets up three camps at the mouth of the Mount Qi valley. Deng Ai, who had dug a tunnel in advance to the very spot he had deliberately left open, attacks the left camp of Wang Han and Jiang Bin from inside and outside at night with Zheng Lun's tunneling troops and the forces of Deng Zhong and Shi Zuan. Jiang Wei forbids any rash movement and has his men only shoot bows and crossbows, so the Wei army charges more than ten times without getting in, and Deng Ai sighs that Jiang Wei has thoroughly mastered Kongming's methods. Romance, Ch. 113 §23–28
The next day, when Jiang Wei draws up his army in the Marquis Wu's Eight Formations, Deng Ai deploys the same and shows it transformed into sixty-four gates. As they encircle each other's formations, Jiang Wei waves his flag once, changes to the Long Snake Coiling the Ground formation and traps Deng Ai; Sima Wang, striking the northwest corner, gets him out, but in the meantime all nine camps at Mount Qi are taken. Sima Wang says that when he went to study in southern Jing as a young man, he discussed this formation with Cui Zhouping and Shi Guangyuan. Romance, Ch. 113 §29–34
Deng Ai has Sima Wang contest formations with Jiang Wei in front of the lines while he himself plans to strike behind Mount Qi, but Jiang Wei, foreseeing this, hides Zhang Yi and Liao Hua behind the mountain; when Liao Hua cuts down the vanguard Zheng Lun with a single stroke, Deng Ai flees with four arrows in him. On Sima Wang's advice, Deng Ai gives gold and treasure to Dang Jun of Xiangyang to collude with Huang Hao in Chengdu and spread rumors that Jiang Wei resents the Son of Heaven and means to defect to Wei, and when the Later Sovereign recalls Jiang Wei, Jiang Wei turns his army back without knowing why. Romance, Ch. 113 §35–43
Written by 3KDEX (not yet reviewed) — The tags at the end of each paragraph link to the exact passage in the Records volume or Romance chapter it is based on.