By now, the tripartite confrontation between Wei (Cao Cao’s kingdom), Shu and Wu is formed. Both Liu Bei and Cao Cao’s son Cao Pi had declared themselves emperors of the whole China and both wanted to eliminate each other. After Liu Bei’s death, Zhuge Liang, feared that long waiting could undermine the strength of Shu for it occupied much smaller lands than that of Wei, and its population was not enough to compare to Wei, so he decided to attack Wei as soon as possible so that he could have better chance to defeat Wei. In 228 AD, after settling the domestic affairs, Zhuge Liang launched his first northern attack against Wei in order to recapture the capital and restore the Han Dynasty.

The first war of northern expedition was successful at the beginning, while Shu captured several counties and cities of Wei which are located in Gansu and Shaanxi province of China today. But during the battle, Ma Su, a general of Shu, lost the very important city of Jieting, which made the Shu army in the dilemma of defeat. Zhuge Liang had to give up the first northern expedition and returned to Chengdu, the capital of Shu to prepare for the next battle. But it proved to be the last chance of Shu: in the next four northern expeditions, Shu did not succeed in taking any more of Wei territory in western China and was exhausted during the fifth expedition. Zhuge Liang later passed away in Wuzhangyuan, a place located in the battlefield between Shu and Wei of Shaanxi province. After his death, several Shu generals, including Zhuge Liang’s disciple, Jiang Wei, tried to carry on with his expedition, but all failed due to the weakness of the country and the Shu emperor. The northern expedition of Shu was one of the most remembered incidents in Chinese history, and Zhuge Liang was depicted as the symbol of loyalty and valor of Chinese, who was remembered by generations of Chinese people, including those of today.

Unlike Shu, Wei, having taken control of the whole northern China, awaited its opportunity to come to reunify China without much effort. For Wei, the location of both Shu and Wu were too much to take by only infantry army: Shu, located in the mountainous area of southwestern China, was extremely hard for large scales of troops to march into. It is much easier for Shu to defend itself in terms of coming war. While Wu, occupying one side of the Yangtze River, was able to hold the line by the natural barrier of the river. Besides, Cao Cao had already suffered from the defeat of Red Cliff before, and it had become a thorn of Wei to attack Wu without full preparation. Despite all these disadvantages, Wei’s advantage was also very obvious: it captured the center of China and the old capital, which were the richest regions of the whole China by that time; Wei’s population was also much higher than that of Shu and Wu, which made its mobilization capability the greatest of all three states. Also, Wei succeeded in defeating the northern nomadic tribes, including Modu and Wuhuan, who were originally strong cavalry tribes and later formed a formidable force of the Wei army. Having possessed all these strategic advantages, Wei took a slow process to wait for Shu and Wu to exhaust their strengths so that it could take the two countries once and for all. In 249 AD, Sima Yi, the most powerful minister of Wei, took control of the state and named his two sons to be the supreme commander of the Wei army. After which, Sima Yan, the grandson of Sima Yi, overthrew the Wei emperor and declared himself the monarch, changing the state name from “Wei” to “Jin” and destroyed both Shu and Wu in his later time of reign. Eventually, it was Wei who reunify China again in its time.

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