Zhuge Liang

Zhuge Liang the Chinese statesman, strategist and inventor of the Three Kingdoms period (181-234 AD), chancellor of the state of Shu Han and the trusted adviser of its founder Liu Bei. He is revered in Chinese culture as the ideal of the wise and loyal minister and as one of the most celebrated military strategists in history.

Early Life and the Three Visits

Zhuge Liang was born in 181 AD in Yangdu, in the region of present-day Shandong, into a family of officials. Orphaned young, he was raised by relatives and settled at Longzhong in the countryside of Jing Province, where he lived as a recluse, farmed his land and studied the affairs of the world. He was known among local scholars for his learning and his unusual ability.

The warlord Liu Bei, then a minor contender without a secure base, sought out talented advisers. Tradition records that he visited Zhuge Liang three times before the young scholar agreed to meet him, an episode that became famous as the Three Visits and as a model of the ruler who humbly seeks good counsel. Their meeting produced the plan that shaped the rest of Zhuge Liang's life.

In the conversation known as the Longzhong Plan, Zhuge Liang analysed the balance of power and advised Liu Bei to seize the strategically vital provinces of Jing and Yi, to ally with the rising power of Sun Quan in the south, and to resist the northern warlord Cao Cao. This grand strategy gave Liu Bei, for the first time, a coherent design for building a state.

The Rise of Shu Han

Zhuge Liang became Liu Bei's chief adviser and served him with unwavering loyalty. He negotiated the alliance with Sun Quan that made possible the resistance to Cao Cao, and he helped to administer the territories that Liu Bei acquired. When Liu Bei took the title of emperor and founded the state of Shu Han in 221 AD, he appointed Zhuge Liang as his chancellor.

On his deathbed Liu Bei entrusted his son and heir, Liu Shan, to Zhuge Liang's care, telling him that if the young man proved incapable he might take the throne himself. Zhuge Liang refused any such ambition and devoted himself to serving the heir, an act of loyalty that became one of the most admired gestures in Chinese history and that fixed his reputation as the faithful minister.

As chancellor he took effective control of the government of Shu Han. He reformed the administration, maintained strict and impartial justice, developed agriculture and the production of salt and iron, and kept the economy of the mountain state on a sound footing. His rule was severe but fair, and he was respected even by those whom he disciplined.

The Southern Campaign and the Northern Expeditions

In 225 AD Zhuge Liang led a campaign into the south of the Shu territories, where local leaders had risen in revolt. Rather than merely crushing the rebellion, he sought to win the allegiance of the southern peoples, and by a mixture of force and conciliation he restored order. The campaign is remembered for the story of his repeated capture and release of the rebel leader Meng Huo, which was said to have won his willing submission.

His central ambition was the restoration of the Han dynasty, which he believed to be the legitimate house of China, and the defeat of the northern state of Wei. From 228 AD he launched a series of northern expeditions across the difficult mountain routes of the Qinling, seeking a way into the heartland of Wei. The campaigns were hampered by the terrain, by the difficulty of supply and by the failure of some of his subordinates.

The expeditions achieved some local successes, including the capture of the border districts, but they could not break the power of Wei. Zhuge Liang's campaigns are studied for their careful planning, their use of fortification and their attention to logistics, and his opponent Sima Yi respected him as a formidable commander. In the end the superior resources of the north proved decisive.

He died in 234 AD at Wuzhang Plains, during his last campaign, worn out by the exertions of the war and by illness. His death ended the expeditions, and the army withdrew in good order. His passing was regarded as a national misfortune, and the memory of the loyal chancellor who laboured to the last for his lord became one of the most enduring images in Chinese culture.

Inventions and Writings

Zhuge Liang is associated with several inventions and improvements. He is credited with the improvement of the repeating crossbow, a weapon capable of firing several bolts in quick succession, and with the development of a type of wheeled transport, sometimes described as a wooden ox or a flowing horse, designed to carry supplies over the difficult mountain roads of the campaigns.

He is also linked to the use of signal lamps and of the flying lantern, and to improvements in military organisation and encampment. Some of these attributions are legendary, and the details are uncertain, but they reflect his reputation as a man of practical ingenuity as well as of strategic vision. The army that he commanded was noted for its discipline and its orderliness.

He wrote a number of works on statecraft and military affairs, most notably the memorials in which he set out his advice to his ruler and his account of his own labours. The memorial on sending out the army is among the most quoted pieces of Chinese prose, valued for the sincerity of its expression and its portrait of a minister wholly devoted to his duty.

Influence and Legacy

Zhuge Liang became, over the centuries, the most famous of all Chinese ministers and the ideal of the loyal and wise counselor. He is honoured as a model of integrity, diligence and devotion, the servant who never wavered in his loyalty and who worked himself to death in the service of his state. Temples were raised to him in many parts of China, and his shrine at Chengdu remains a place of veneration.

He is celebrated in literature and drama. The novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written many centuries later, made him the central figure of a vast epic and attributed to him feats of strategy that exceed the historical record. Stories such as the borrowing of arrows with straw boats and the empty fort stratagem became proverbial, and the phrase three smelly cobblers, or three heads, is one of many sayings associated with him.

His reputation rests finally on a combination of qualities rarely found together: intellectual brilliance, practical skill, personal integrity and absolute loyalty. In a period of war and shifting loyalties, he remained constant, and it is for this constancy, as much as for his genius, that he is remembered as one of the great figures of Chinese history.

See also

• Three Kingdoms
• Liu Bei
• Shu Han
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms