Deng Ai 鄧艾

Deng Ai lost his father as a child. When Cao Cao crushed Jing Province, he was moved to Runan, where he raised calves as a farmer. At twelve, having read the epitaph of Chen Shi in Yingchuan, he named himself Fan with the courtesy name Shize, but changed it because a member of his clan had the same name. Because he stammered he could not become an assistant clerk, and he became an official who guarded the grass of the rice paddies. Whenever he saw high mountains and great marshes, he would trace out sites for army camps with his fingers, and people of the time laughed at him. Records, Wei 28 §49–50

When he met the Grand Commandant Sima Yi as an accounts clerk (shangji li), Sima Yi thought him remarkable and made him a subordinate official. When the court wished to expand the military farms, Deng Ai surveyed the land from east of Chen and Xiang counties to Shouchun and wrote "On the Canals" (Jihe lun), proposing that if waterways were opened and 20,000 men stationed north of the Huai and 30,000 south of it to farm while standing guard, thirty million hu of grain could be stockpiled within six or seven years. Sima Yi put this into effect, and in the 2nd year of Zhengshi (241) the transport canals were widely opened; thereafter, when great armies went by boat to the Yangtze and the Huai, their provisions were ample and they suffered no floods. Records, Wei 28 §50–53

As Administrator of Nan'an, in the 1st year of Jiaping (249) he held off Jiang Wei together with Guo Huai. Even after Jiang Wei withdrew, Deng Ai remained north of the Bai River, and when three days later Liao Hua encamped south of the Bai River without building a bridge, Deng Ai reckoned that Jiang Wei meant to strike Taocheng from the east. He secretly marched sixty li by night and occupied Taocheng first, so he was not defeated, and he was made Marquis Within the Passes. Records, Wei 28 §54–55

When Liu Bao, Worthy King of the Right in Bing Province, merged several tribes into one, Deng Ai proposed dividing them in two to reduce their power, and the General-in-Chief Sima Shi adopted much of his advice. He became Administrator of Runan, and wherever Deng Ai went, wasteland was brought under cultivation. When Zhuge Ke withdrew from the New City of Hefei, Deng Ai said he would soon be condemned, and Zhuge Ke was indeed put to death. After becoming Inspector of Yan Province and General of Vigorous Might, he submitted a memorial saying that what the state needed most urgently was farming and war. Records, Wei 28 §56–60

When Guanqiu Jian rebelled, Deng Ai beheaded his messenger, hurried ahead to Lejia and built a pontoon bridge, and when Wen Qin was crushed by the main army, he pursued him as far as Qiutou. When Sun Jun and others of Wu were about to cross the Yangtze, he encamped at Futing and sent Zhuge Xu and others to resist them, putting them to flight. That year he became Colonel of the Changshui Garrison and was promoted to Marquis of Fangcheng District. Records, Wei 28 §62–63

After relieving Wang Jing, who was besieged at Didao, he became General Who Pacifies the West. Against the view that Jiang Wei's strength was exhausted, Deng Ai listed five reasons—among them that after the defeat at Taoxi the enemy rode the momentum of victory, while their own side had to divide into four to hold its ground—and said that the enemy would surely come. Jiang Wei did indeed turn from Qishan toward Nan'an, and Deng Ai faced him at Mount Wucheng and crushed him at Duangu. In the 1st year of Ganlu (256) he became General Who Guards the West and Commander of the armies of Longyou, and his son Deng Zhong was enfeoffed as a village marquis. Records, Wei 28 §63–66

In the 2nd year of Ganlu (257) he held off Jiang Wei at Changcheng and was transferred to General Who Conquers the West, and in the 3rd year of Jingyuan (262) he defeated Jiang Wei at Houhe. In the Shu campaign in the autumn of the 4th year (263), under Sima Zhao's direction, he was charged with pinning down Jiang Wei at Tazhong. Before this, he had dreamt that he was sitting on a mountain with water flowing, and Yuan Shao, Protector of the Army Who Exterminates Caitiffs, interpreted it by the hexagram Jian (Obstruction), saying that if he went he would conquer Shu but would not return. Records, Wei 28 §66–67 · 82

When Jiang Wei withdrew to Jiange and Zhong Hui could not overcome him, Deng Ai submitted a memorial proposing to strike at the heart of Chengdu by a byway from Yinping toward Fu County. In the 10th month, in winter, he marched more than seven hundred li through uninhabited country, cutting through mountains and building bridges and plank roads; their provisions were running low and they were in danger many times. Deng Ai wrapped himself in felt and rolled down the slope, while his officers and men clung to trees and climbed along the cliffs, advancing in single file. When they first reached Jiangyou, the Shu garrison commander Ma Miao surrendered. Records, Wei 28 §68–71

At Mianzhu, when Deng Zhong and the Major Shi Zuan came back after faring badly and said the enemy could not be attacked, Deng Ai declared that the division between survival and ruin lay in this single effort and was about to behead them. The two went back to fight again and beheaded Zhuge Zhan and the Imperial Secretary Zhang Zun. When he reached Chengdu, Liu Shan came out with his hands bound and a coffin carried on a cart; Deng Ai untied his bonds and burned the coffin, and he prevented plundering, so that the people of Shu praised him. Records, Wei 28 §71–73

Claiming to act on the emperor's authority, Deng Ai conferred offices on Liu Shan and those below him, and he boasted to the gentry of Shu that they owed their present state to having met him, so that men of discernment laughed at him. In the 12th month he became Grand Commandant. He proposed enfeoffing Liu Shan as King of Fufeng to win over Wu, and when told to await a reply, he insisted repeatedly, citing the Spring and Autumn Annals, that a grandee who has crossed the border may act on his own authority. Records, Wei 28 §73–80

Zhong Hui, Hu Lie, Shi Zuan and others reported that Deng Ai's conduct was rebellious, and an edict sent a prisoner's cart to summon him. The Army Supervisor Wei Guan, bearing a handwritten order from Sima Zhao, persuaded Deng Ai's troops to lay down their arms and put Deng Ai in the prisoner's cart. After Zhong Hui rebelled and was killed, the officers and men of Deng Ai's own camp set out to bring him back, and Tian Xu and others sent by Wei Guan beheaded Deng Ai west of Mianzhu. It was the 1st month of the 1st year of Xianxi (264). His son Deng Zhong died with him, his sons in Luoyang were also executed, and his wife, children and grandsons were banished to the Western Regions. Records, Wei 28 §80–81 · 121Records, Wei 4 §128

In the 1st year of Taishi (265), Jin allowed his line to be continued, noting that on the day he received the edict Deng Ai had disbanded his troops and submitted to punishment with his hands bound; and in the 3rd year (267) the Consultant Duan Zhuo submitted a memorial saying that Zhong Hui, jealous of Deng Ai's renown, had fabricated the affair. In his assessment, Chen Shou wrote that Deng Ai was upright and vigorous and achieved merit, but was blind to guarding against calamity; that he could foresee Zhuge Ke's fate from afar yet could not see himself close at hand, which was what the ancients called "the argument of the eye." Records, Wei 28 §83–84 · 87 · 140