Zhuge Liang's Northern Expeditions

Northern Expeditions
Part of the wars of the Three Kingdoms period
Illustration from a Qing dynasty edition of Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Date Spring 228-August 234 Location Gansu and Shaanxi, China Result Cao Wei strategic victory
Belligerents
Cao Wei	Shu Han Qiang people Xianbei people
Commanders and leaders
Cao Zhen Sima Yi	Zhuge Liang Kebineng

Zhuge Liang's Northern Expeditions
Traditional Chinese	諸葛亮北伐
Simplified Chinese	诸葛亮北伐
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Zhūgě Liàng Běifá
Six campaigns from Mount Qi
Chinese	六出祁山
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin lìu chū Qíshān

Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Zhūgě Liàng Běifá

Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	lìu chū Qíshān

Zhuge Liang's Northern Expeditions were a series of five military campaigns launched by the state of Shu Han against the rival state of Cao Wei from 228 to 234 during the Three Kingdoms period. All five expeditions were led by the Shu chancellor-regent Zhuge Liang. Although they proved unsuccessful and ended up as a stalemate, the expeditions have become some of the most well-known conflicts of the Three Kingdoms period and one of the few battles during it where each side (Shu and Wei) fought against each other with hundreds of thousands of troops, as opposed to other battles where one side had a huge numerical advantage.

The expeditions are dramatised and romanticised in the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, where they are referred to as the "six campaigns from Mount Qi" (六出祁山). This term is inaccurate, since Zhuge Liang only launched two of his expeditions (the first and the fourth) from Mount Qi. The term also counts a defensive campaign against Wei as well as the five listed below.

In 227, China was divided into three competing regimes – Cao Wei, Shu Han and Eastern Wu – each with the purpose of reunifying the empire of the fallen Han Dynasty. In the state of Shu, the strategic thinking behind the Northern Expeditions can be traced back as early as 207, when the 27-year-old Zhuge Liang outlined his Longzhong Plan to his lord Liu Bei. In it, he explained in very general terms the need to gain a viable geographical base, and then went on to detail a two-pronged strike north for mastery of the north. One advance would be from Yi Province in the west (covering the Sichuan Basin), north through the Qin Mountains, debouching into the Wei River valley and achieving a strategic position at the great metropolis Chang'an from which to dominate the great bend of the Yellow River. The second advance would be from Jing Province (covering present-day Hubei and Hunan) north toward the political center of Luoyang.

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Wikipedia