Chapter 95: Hungry Hungry Shuppos
Now that he's directing the Wei forces, Sima Yi reasons that Zhuge Liang—though perfectly capable of taking the mountain pass that goes straight toward the capital—will opt for a longer, less riskier route, because Zhuge Liang does not like leaving things to chance, despite his reliance on multi-part plots that require each of his moving parts to go exactly to plan in order to avoid catastrophe.
A longer route means that Shu is going to need more grain, so Sima Yi's strategy is to attack Shu's western storehouse, where all the supplies are coming from. Zhuge Liang predicts this, but realizes he's in a bit of a pickle with Sima Yi at the helm, because no longer can he just press his attack without any consequences. He needs to figure something out.
He calls in his most trusted student Ma Su. Mind you, this is the person that Liu Bei specifically dissed on his deathbed, saying how this guy totally sucks.
Zhuge Liang tells him, okay, I'm sending you over to guard the district with the storehouses. Sima Yi will be coming over there, and that guy is goddamn smart. So you need to be extra extra EXTRA careful. You make the TINIEST slip-up, he's going to exploit it. But if you stick to good tactics, you should be okay.
Ma Su's like, sheeeeesh, okay dad, I think I can defend one little district.
So Ma Su goes over and surveys the area. Defense-wise... there's barely anything to work with. It's a little underwhelming. But there is one element that catches his eye.
Meanwhile, the general that went with him is like, okay, all we need to do is set up camp here on the road, cut down some trees, and set up walls. Since their army relies on the road, they'll have to force us out of our defenses just to get around this place. It won't be pretty, but I think we can make it work.
Ma Su replies, wow, okay, yeah, I guess that's a decent idea for somebody who hasn't read up on military strategy. But look, we have a hill over there! The textbooks and ill-conceived sci-fi prequels always say the high ground has the advantage!
But the general retorts, are you really that goddamn stupid? That's one single hill. What if they surround us? How the hell are we going to fetch water for our troops on top of a surrounded bloody hill?!
Ma Su tells him, haha, let them try! If my soldiers feel like they're doomed, they'll fight like they have nothing left to lose! They'll be unstoppable!
The general says, okay, well you go do that, and I'm going to go camp on the road with only a couple hundred guys because that is literally less suicidal. And then he sends Zhuge Liang a letter tattling on Ma Su.
Unfortunately, Sima Yi shows up first, and he immediately leads off by surrounding the hill without a second thought.
So Ma Su is trapped, and his men are going hungry because they can't get water to cook their rice. He orders them to charge down the hill and attack, but... they're hungry. They're not really in the mood to fight.
The ensuing battle goes incredibly, incredibly poorly, and Ma Su only makes it away because Zhuge Liang had the foresight to station Wei Yan nearby to help, and even then he still needs help from the general who camped on the road. So basically, the entire stupid district is lost, and Zhuge Liang's like, well great. Pack your bags everybody, we're going home.
He orders a large part of the army to head home, anyhow, since he can't really feed them; meanwhile, all of his commanders are spread out doing damage control. But then, while everybody's scurrying around trying to fix everything, Zhuge Liang receives word that Sima Yi is now marching on the city he's in with a hundred and fifty thousand men. Zhuge Liang, in contrast, has about five thousand, with zero generals to speak of. All of his advisors are civics guys, and to make matters worse, half of those five thousand troops are out helping to move supplies around.
The math doesn't add up on defending this city, but he isn't going to be able to outrun Sima Yi's cavalry, either. Fortunately, he does have one crazy, desperate plan.
Sima Yi rocks up to the city, and this is what he sees: all four gates are wide open. Nobody is around except for a couple civilians calmly sweeping the streets like there isn't a huge enemy army marching up the road. And on top of the wall, Zhuge Liang is sitting there strumming casually on his zither, sipping a piña colada through a curly straw and singing a little tune.
And so the mind games begin. Is there an army concealed within the city waiting to ambush Sima Yi? Or is this a huge bluff?
Sima Yi decides the only winning move is not to play, and high-tails it out of there. In his mind, Zhuge Liang would never take that huge a gamble; it's not his style, and so it must be a trick. He is very impressed to find out later that he was wrong.
But even with this final small victory, Zhuge Liang's first expedition against Wei is ultimately for nothing. With the storage site captured, he has no way of holding the cities he spent the last couple chapters winning, and he is ultimately forced to retreat and try again another day. I don't know who first said "hell is other people", but if you told me it was Zhuge Liang, I would believe you.