Chapter 116: My Life's Work Didn't Matter All That Much, Anyway
Sima Zhao orders Deng Ai to advance on Shu from the north, effectively pinning down Jiang Wei's force of soldier-farmers. He also assigns a man named Zhong Hui to command a second army and invade from the northeast, through the Hanzhong mountains. Zhong Hui immediately starts building boats.
"Hey, uh, buddy?" Sima Zhao says. "I know you're new at this and all, but there's not a lot of water on the way to Shu. Not really inspiring confidence in my decision to promote you." But Zhong Hui explains that he wants Shu to believe he's not a threat, and the boats imply that Wu is actually his intended target.
So between Deng Ai and Zhong Hui, Wei has a couple of clever little thinkers leading their troops. However, as the Wei officials watch the armies march out, one of them remarks "Shu is done for, but neither Deng Ai or Zhong Hui are coming back." He doesn't elaborate on this. This is what the book considers "foreshadowing".
Jiang Wei learns of the invasion and petitions Liu Shan to send some troops to defend Hanzhong, and heck, it might be time to get Wu involved and actually make use of this alliance for once. But once again, the eunuch Huang Hao interferes, telling Liu Shan, "Jiang Wei just wants to go seek glory, we need an unbiased opinion on this. Thankfully, I know a sorceress we can consult!"
The sorceress performs a ritual, and then announces that she's channeling a god local to the area. Which god in particular apparently isn't important. Anyway, the god announces that the lands of Wei are going to belong to Shu in a couple years (glossing over any sort of detail on this point), so Liu Shan totally doesn't need to do anything right now, it's going to be fine. Liu Shan says, great, doing nothing is my favorite thing!
Of course, this means that Zhong Hui gets to march along unimpeded. Well, mostly. I guess there is this part where he has to execute the son of Wei champion Xu Chu after his first run-in with Shu (Zhong Hui falls off his horse running from a Shu ambush and that's apparently the kid's fault I guess).
Oh, and he also gets held up a bit at the same mountain where Huang Zhong killed Xiahou Yuan, because a bunch of winds and storms spring up when he begins to approach. He eventually finds out this is probably because Zhuge Liang happens to be buried here (this is true but I can't for the life of me figure out why this place in particular). Zhong Hui offers a sacrifice to the shrine, and not only do the storms die down, but the spirit of Zhuge Liang even comes to visit him at night and basically tells him "yeah I guess it's cool if Wei wins after all, just don't kill all our peasants and shit."
Well, Zhong Hui does tell his army "hey, let's not kill all the peasants and shit", and the citizens are all so grateful for not dying they basically hand Hanzhong over to him. Feels like the kind of strategy that could have been helpful a hundred chapters ago.
As the armies of Zhong Hui and Deng Ai move in, Jiang Wei basically spends a third of the chapter running around like a chicken with its head cut off, alternating between trying to find an angle of attack to retake Hanzhong and stationing his troops somewhere that isn't going to be surrounded. The sense of chaos is not all helped by the fact that the book never explains where any of these locations are in relation to one another—an issue that has plagued most of the northern campaigns, but is especially prevalent here, as it seems like Jiang Wei is always just picking directions at random bumping into new contingents of Wei soldiers no matter where he ends up.
After juking one Wei unit to make it across the bridge they were defending, Jiang Wei falls back to a gateway deeper in Shu territory—his best chance at halting the Wei advance. And wouldn't you know it, there are some Shu reinforcements conveniently waiting for him here.
(Don't ask where they came from. Liu Shan obviously didn't send them.)