First Northern Expedition of Shu

The First Northern Expedition of Shu is Kong Ming’s first major attempt, in AD 227, to carry the cause of restoring the Han into Wei. Launched after Sima Yi is removed from command, it opens with Shu forces crossing the frontier and winning ground, but the loss of Jieting overturns the campaign’s momentum. Its course sets imperial legitimacy against military necessity: Kong Ming urges war as the continuation of Xuande’s unfinished purpose, while the expedition’s fate turns on command decisions, access to roads and supplies, and the defense of a single strategic city.

Background and political purpose

The campaign takes shape within a divided empire. The Han has collapsed, and three rival leaders—Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and Sun Quan—have each established a kingdom from its former territory. Kong Ming’s strategic assessment distinguishes the powers by their positions: Cao Cao holds the emperor and commands a vast northern force, while Sun Quan’s southern rule has local support. Liu Bei’s earlier position in Jingzhou, Kong Ming argues, offered the opening from which to build a competing power. The northern expedition carries forward that larger contest rather than presenting itself as an isolated military venture.

The immediate opportunity comes from a shift at the Wei court. Sima Yi has been summoned to meet Cao Rui at Anyi and, accused of rebellion, is stripped of his post and ordered back to his ancestral village. Kong Ming welcomes the news: he fears facing Wei while Sima Yi commands its army. With that obstacle temporarily removed, he persuades Liu Shan to authorize a new campaign. His formal petition asks the second ruler to continue the work of reunifying the empire that his father had intended, binding the invasion to dynastic inheritance as well as military opportunity.

Liu Shan worries that Kong Ming is undertaking another arduous war so soon after the southern campaign. Astrological warnings are raised, but Kong Ming answers that Heaven changes and that the present moment is right for action. He consults the charts, selects an auspicious spring day in AD 227, and takes the role of supreme commander. The exchange places prophecy beside calculation: celestial signs matter to the decision, but they do not replace Kong Ming’s judgment about when to strike.

The advance and its early successes

As the army prepares to depart, Zhao Zilong insists on joining the expedition despite Kong Ming’s attempts to dissuade the elderly general. He secures a place in the vanguard alongside Deng Zhi. Kong Ming assigns them five thousand of the best troops and ten officers to protect them. Wei learns that the invasion force numbers three hundred thousand and that Zhao Zilong’s vanguard has crossed the border. Cao Rui gives Xiahou Mao command of the defense; Xiahou Mao seeks revenge for his father, Xiahou Yuan, who died during Liu Bei’s capture of Hanzhong. Although ministers question his lack of experience against Kong Ming, Xiahou Mao silences their objections by accusing a critic of siding with Shu.

Kong Ming’s forces first stop at Mianyang, where Wei Yan proposes plans that Kong Ming rejects, to Wei Yan’s annoyance. Meanwhile Xiahou Mao gathers troops at Chang’an, joined by a force from the Qiang tribes led by Han De and his four sons. When Han De’s party challenges the Shu army, Zhao Zilong fights the brothers: he kills the eldest, kills another, wounds one, and captures Han Yao. Han De retreats, and his troops withdraw with heavy losses. The encounter gives Shu an early victory and establishes Zhao Zilong’s effectiveness at the head of the advance.

The advance brings a political as well as military gain when Jiang Wei surrenders to Kong Ming. Jiang Wei then helps Shu take Tianshui. Xiahou Mao and Ma Zun flee to safety in Qianghu, and Shanggui falls after its commander concludes that resistance is no longer the better course. Reinforced by men joining the victorious army, Kong Ming continues toward the next stage of the invasion and camps beside the Wei River. These gains extend Shu’s reach, but the army’s position also makes the protection of its routes and supporting strongholds increasingly important.

Jieting and the reversal

The danger emerges after the death of Meng Da changes the balance of the campaign. Kong Ming sends troops to Jieting to hold the position against Sima Yi, who has returned to command alongside Zhang He. Ma Su volunteers for the assignment. Though his knowledge of war comes chiefly from books, Kong Ming accepts him for the task and appoints Wang Ping to oversee the defense. Other troops are sent to guard key passes and prepare support in case Jieting falls; Jiang Wei leads the vanguard as the main force moves onward.

At Jieting, Ma Su rejects Wang Ping’s practical advice to defend the road and instead occupies a hill, believing it gives him a better view of the approaching enemy. He invokes military theory to justify his choice and dismisses Wang Ping’s objections. As Wei closes in, Ma Su eventually allows Wang Ping to take a small force to guard the road, while remaining on the hill himself. Wang Ping sends Kong Ming an express report describing their separate positions, an early warning of the command disagreement that will shape the defeat.

Sima Yi attacks after learning that the inexperienced Ma Su is in charge. His forces cut Ma Su’s troops off on the hill, where they have no water. As men desert, Ma Su leads them down in an attempt to fight clear; Zhang He pursues them, and Wei Yan arrives with a rescue force. Wei Yan is drawn into an ambush and rescued by Wang Ping, but Shu suffers severe losses and Sima Yi captures Jieting. A night attempt to retake the position also fails: Shu troops enter what appears to be an empty town and are then surprised. Meanwhile, Guo Huai and Cao Zhen advance against Lieliu while seeking to check Sima Yi’s authority. Fighting there goes badly for Shu, and Wang Ping, Wei Yan, and Ma Su retreat toward Yangping Pass.

Kong Ming’s withdrawal and the campaign’s significance

Kong Ming receives Wang Ping’s map and recognizes the gravity of Ma Su’s decision. When reports arrive that both Jieting and Lieliu have fallen, he hurries to Xicheng, where Shu’s supplies are stored. He has only five thousand men when he learns that a Wei army of one hundred and fifty thousand, led by Sima Yi, is approaching. Rather than attempt to meet that force in the field, Kong Ming orders that signs of occupation be removed and that the people stay out of sight and make no sound. He then sits on the city wall in his customary Daoist robes, accompanied by two boys, and plays a lute.

Sima Yi sees the open gates and the calm figure on the wall but interprets the scene as a possible ambush. He orders his much larger army to turn aside, and it leaves Xicheng without attacking. The stratagem does not undo the losses at Jieting, but it prevents the sudden approach of Wei’s army from becoming an immediate disaster for Kong Ming’s small force and supply base. The campaign’s movement—from the rapid taking of cities to the retreat caused by one misjudged position—shows how expansion depends on the defense of routes and strongpoints, not simply on the size of an invading army.

The expedition also makes the dispute over legitimate rule explicit. When Wang Lang meets Kong Ming for a parley, he argues that Cao Cao rescued the dynasty and that Heaven’s Mandate passed from him to Cao Pi. Kong Ming counters that the Han’s task of suppressing rebels has fallen to Xuande and, after Xuande, to his son. The argument turns the battlefront into a contest over dynastic continuity: each side invokes Heaven’s authority, but the expedition’s stated purpose is to complete the restoration that Kong Ming presents as Xuande’s unfinished charge. Its first advance is therefore both an attempt to regain territory and a public claim about who is entitled to reunify the empire.