Chapter 117: Extreme Sports
When discussing the situation with his reinforcements, one of Jiang Wei's officers says, oh, we can hold them off here at the gateway no problem, but the capital is screwed if anybody happens to sneak around us. Jiang Wei replies, that's true, but the terrain around the capital is so rough that nobody taking an alternate route could possibly reach it.
Hey, the book's getting better at foreshadowing.
The general that Jiang Wei deked last chapter shows up to attack the pass, but the Shu army drives him back to Zhong Hui's position. Zhong Hui gets angry at the repeated failures and orders the man's execution, despite the fact that this guy was broken off from Deng Ai's army and technically falls under his command. Still, Zhong Hui figures he's in charge of the whole stupid operation so he has the right to execute anybody he wants, and so the failed general is... sent back to the capital as a prisoner. And not executed. Well okay then.
Regardless of what the punishment ultimately was, Deng Ai hears about it and says, hold on, Zhong Hui doesn't outrank me here, and he definitely can't lay a finger on my men. Where's he get off acting all high-and-mighty like that? And he takes a couple soldiers over to "have a chat" with Zhong Hui.
Except Zhong Hui shows up to the meeting with more guys, so an intimidated Deng Ai switches to Plan B and goes, oh, I actually came by to talk strategy! Yep! Totally not here to put you in your place or anything!
When Zhong Hui humors him and asks what sort of strategy he has in mind, Deng Ai says he'll sneak around Jiang Wei's position with a small group of special forces and attack the capital, and Jiang Wei will have to withdraw to defend it. Zhong Hui will have no trouble with the gateway after that.
Zhong Hui agrees it's a good idea and approves the plan. But after Deng Ai leaves, Zhong Hui goes, Shu would only need a hundred men stationed in those mountains to hold him off forever; he's nothing but an idiot. Still, he figures capturing the gate and taking the capital while Deng Ai is off dicking around in the mountains will make him look good, so he begins to ready his siege weapons to attack the gate.
Meanwhile, as he prepares to set out on his mission, Deng Ai goes, I bet Zhong Hui thinks I'm nothing but an idiot. But I'll show him.
He spends days trudging his soldiers through the mountainous terrain, requiring an engineering team to build bridges and carve stone every step of the way, all the while selecting fewer and fewer troops to continue the arduous journey with him. Until, at last... they reach the edge of a sheer cliff face that they have no way to traverse.
Deng Ai shrugs and says, well, it's do or die time. Then he wraps himself up in a thick layer of felt and rolls down the mountain. His men soon follow suit, and not only is the last major hurdle cleared, but Deng Ai basically invents zorbing in the process.
As Deng Ai continues on, he finds a signpost with some poetry that may as well say "Deng Ai will come through this way some day, signed Zhuge Liang." He remarks that Zhuge Liang was godlike in his foresight, but Skep remarks that this author was full of shit.
Anyway, after a nearby town surrenders to Deng Ai, the book notes that the rest of his troops he had to leave behind caught up to him using other side passages. Bet you feel pretty silly throwing yourself down a cliff then.
Liu Shan finally starts to realize how serious things are getting as the reports of towns giving themselves up to Deng Ai flood in. Desperate for options, he remembers, hey, Zhuge Liang had a son! Sure, the book never mentioned him before, but maybe he's as good as his dad! Bring him in!
So Zhuge Zhan is given command of whatever constitutes the Shu army at this point and is sent against Deng Ai as the last line of defense.
Zhuge Zhan has one good trick, which is to pull one of those cardboard cutouts of Zhuge Liang out of storage, which makes the Wei troops fear that the master tactician is still alive. Getting a lot of mileage out of those things. Deng Ai orders the two officers who fell for this ruse to go back out and attack again; but through a combination of good discipline and the martial prowess of Zhan's own son, Zhuge Shang, the Wei troops are sent packing again. Zhuge Zhan sure seems like he knows what he's doing.
That's when Deng Ai steps in to take charge directly, and decides to employ the oldest trick in the book: using a fake retreat to lure his enemy into an ambush. Surely Zhuge Liang's own flesh-and-blood wouldn't be so foolish as to—oh. I guess he would fall for that after all.
After this major setback, his remaining troops are forced to occupy a nearby town, which Deng Ai besieges. Zhuge Zhan manages to slip an envoy to Wu out past the blockade, and seeing that Shu is in dire straits, they actually honor their alliance for once and send over Ding Feng (as well as his lieutenant, also named Ding Feng, no relation. Over the past few chapters we've seen Zhuo Tai, Lu Xun, and Yuan Shao be added to the list of characters with re-used names, but apparently we're running so slim on aliases now that we're straight pulling them from characters who are still alive).
I have to assume that the Wu army keeps getting held up on the way over trying to sort out which Ding Feng anybody is talking about, because eventually Zhuge Zhan loses hope that anybody is coming and orders a last-ditch attack. The book implies this was not the smartest decision he could have made, but when Zhuge Dan was faced with the same situation a few chapters ago and opted to remain on defense, the book was clear that attacking would have been the right call. There is just no pleasing some authors I suppose.
Once again, we see that Zhuge Zhan can't live up to his father's reputation as he over-extends by chasing a retreating force, and ends up surrounded. He and Zhuge Shang are slain in the fighting, and Deng Ai now has a clear run at the capital. Meanwhile, Ding Feng and the Wu reinforcements are conveniently forgotten about.