Jiang Wei
Qing Dynasty illustration of Jiang Wei
Regent of Shu Han
Born	202
Died	264 (aged 62)
Names
Simplified Chinese	姜维
Traditional Chinese	姜維
Pinyin	Jiāng Wéi
Wade-Giles	Chiang Wei
Style name	Boyue (伯約)

Jiang Wei (202–264) was a military general and regent of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history. He originally served Shu's rival state, Cao Wei, as a middle-level military officer, but defected to the Shu strategist Zhuge Liang,^[1] leaving his mother in Wei. After that, Jiang Wei took part in military campaigns against his native state. He joined Zhuge's first Northern Expedition against Wei in 228, and was made an army commander. Zhuge Liang had always considered Jiang Wei a resourceful and capable general, and Jiang received light-speed promotions during the regencie of Zhuge Liang and of Zhuge Liang's successors Jiang Wan and Fei Yi to eventually become Fei Yi's chief assistant. After Fei Yi's death in 253, he succeeded to Fei Yi's position, but did not have the full power that Fei Yi had, as he was only charged with military matters—and therefore was arguably a regent.

Reviving Zhuge Liang's campaigns against Wei (which Jiang Wan and Fei Yi had largely abandoned), Jiang Wei made a number of incursions against Wei — one in coordination with Eastern Wu's regent Zhuge Ke -- but each had to be abandoned due to the inadequate food supplies or due to battlefield losses, and these campaigns greatly drained Shu's resources. In 263, a Wei army, led by Deng Ai and Zhong Hui, conquered Shu. Jiang Wei tried to restore Shu by persuading Zhong Hui to declare a rebellion against the de facto Wei ruler Sima Zhao, Zhong Hui agreed but after he did so, Zhong's own soldiers rebelled against him. Both Zhong and Jiang were killed in battle.

Biography[link]

Early life in Wei[link]

Jiang Wei was born during the late Han Dynasty and was from Tianshui Commandery in Gansu.^[2][3] His father Jiang Jiong (姜冏) was a military officer who was killed in battle during a Qiang rebellion, early in Jiang Wei's life. Because of what happened to his father, Jiang Wei became a military officer himself for the state of Cao Wei.

As a general of Shu[link]

When Liu Shan's regent Zhuge Liang had his first northern expedition in 228, Jiang Wei's commanding officer suspected him of secretly wishing to join Zhuge Liang, and once, when Jiang Wei was outside the city walls with his troops, they closed the city gates and would not allow Jiang Wei to re-enter. Jiang Wei was forced to indeed defect to Zhuge's army, leaving his mother in Wei territory. Even though Jiang Wei had not shown his military skills on the battlefield, he had already been praised by Zhuge Liang as a capable officer, and was quickly made Zhuge's leading officer at the age of 27, probably out of political consideration.

After Zhuge Liang's death in 234, Jiang Wan succeeded him as regent. He continued to value Jiang Wei's understanding of, and connections in Liang Province, and he commissioned Jiang Wei with the title of the governor of Liang Province (涼州; present-day Gansu), which Shu did not control, but effectively giving Jiang Wei the authority over the northwestern border. After Jiang Wan's death in 245, Fei Yi succeeded him and made Jiang Wei his chief assistant.

Jiang Wei had constantly desired to revive Zhuge Liang's strategy of actively waging wars against Wei, but Fei disagreed, because the resources put into large-scaled wars had already been too much. Instead, Fei Yi kept Jiang Wei on a short leash, and authorized the latter to lead a detachment of 10,000 troops to harass Wei's border. Jiang Wei appeared to be fairly effective under Fei Yi's command, and was successful in persuading a number of non-Han tribes to resist Wei.

As a paramountcy of military[link]

After Fei Yi's assassination in 253, Jiang Wei took over Fei's position, making him the head of the army — but unlike his deceased supervisor, his influence on domestic matters was limited, as those matters appeared to be dominated by Liu Shan's trusted eunuch Huang Hao, and Zhuge Liang's son, Zhuge Zhan. Jiang Wei, however, was the supreme authority in military matters. Jiang Wei attempted to weaken Wei, however, there was dissension within the highest ranked officials, because both Zhuge Zhan and Huang Hao feared Jiang Wei would use the military campaigns as a mean to increase his personal influence. Besides the political hinder, several generals also pointed out the strategic shortcomings of waging wars against a stronger state. Thus, Jiang Wei's northern expeditions faced opposition from within Shu.

Campaigns against Wei[link]

A statue of Jiang Wei in Zhuge Liang's temple in Chengdu. It was made in 1672.

Ignoring the oppositions, Jiang Wei immediately revived Zhuge Liang's northern strategy after he gained full control of the army, and in 253 he set up a coordinated effort with Wu's regent Zhuge Ke to attack Wei on two fronts — Shu on the west and Wu on the east. Jiang Wei attacked the border city of Didao (狄道; in present-day Dingxi, Gansu) as Zhuge Ke launched a massive attack on Hefei. Wei's regent Sima Shi correctly judged the Wu force to be the more serious threat and personally led the main Wei force to the eastern front while sending a smaller detachment to relieve Didao. As the first sign of what would eventually recur, Jiang, while sieging Didao, ran out of food supplies and had to withdraw. Eventually, Zhuge Ke's army suffered a great loss due to an unsuccessful long-term siege and plagues, leading to Zhuge Ke's downfall later that year.

In 254, Jiang Wei, after Li Jian (李簡), the county magistrate of Didao secretly declared that he would defect, again advanced on Didao and took the city, but was hindered from a local resistance force led by Xu Zhi (徐質). Jiang Wei kidnapped some local residents and returned to a stronghold in Longxi, before Guo Huai arrived the battlefield.

In the summer of 255, despite the opposition from Zhang Yi (under the rationale that Shu could not sustain continuous campaigns against Wei), Jiang Wei again attacked Didao, and was highly successful in his initial battles against Wei's Yong Province (雍州; present-day Shaanxi) governor Wang Jing (王經), nearly annihilating Wang's troops. Zhang Yi again tried to persuade Jiang Wei to stop his campaign at this point, but Jiang refused. Instead, he sieged Didao again and eventually was forced to lift the siege when additional Wei forces arrived under the command of Chen Tai. Jiang and Chen's forces remained in a stalemate throughout the entire winter. In the summer of 256, as Jiang Wei shifted his strategy to advance instead on Shanggui (上邽; in present-day Tianshui, Gansu), his move was anticipated by the Wei general Deng Ai, who intercepted him and dealt him a major loss—a loss that would cause the people of Shu to begin to resent Jiang.

In 257, when Cao Wei was dealing with the rebellion of Zhuge Dan (who had anticipated an usurpation by Sima Shi's brother and successor Sima Zhao and wanted to resist it), Jiang Wei again attacked, this time advancing all the way to Mangshui (芒水; in present-day Xi'an, Shaanxi), but could not induce Wei's forces, commanded by Deng Ai and Sima Wang, to engage him in battle. After Zhuge was defeated in 258, Jiang withdrew.

In 262, Jiang Wei, despite Liao Hua's opposition, again attacked Wei, targeting Taoyang (洮陽; in present-day Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (Hezuo), Gansu), but was defeated by Deng Ai. He withdrew to Tazhong (沓中; also in present-day Gannan), and, apprehensive that Huang Hao might take this opportunity to damage him politically, did not dare to return to the Shu Han capital Chengdu, but remained at Tazhong, perhaps to carry out one strategy that Zhuge considered late in his campaigns — have soldiers grow wheat to use as next year's food supply. Why Jiang was particularly apprehensive of Huang at this point was that he had unsuccessfully tried to persuade Liu Shan to execute Huang Hao earlier that year, and Huang was trying to find an opportunity to replace Jiang Wei with his friend Yan Yu (閻宇).

Fall of Shu[link]

In 258, Jiang Wei had suggested the following strategic plan be drawn up in case of a major Wei attack — that the border cities do not try to resist, but instead have the main forces to withdraw to the mountain passes to wait for Wei forces to be worn out, and then close up their path of withdrawal. Liu Shan approved the strategy and made it the official plan to follow in case Wei attacked.

Late in 262, aggravated by Jiang's constant attacks, Sima Zhao considered hiring assassins to kill Jiang Wei. At his strategists' suggestion, he decided instead to try to wipe out Shu once and for all, and commissioned Deng Ai and Zhong Hui to lead the Wei forces against Shu. Jiang Wei quickly realized that Wei was about to attack and petitioned Liu Shan to send forces to block off the key passes, but Huang Hao, believing in fortunetellers, disagreed and persuaded Liu Shan to take no actions on Jiang Wei's petition.

In 263, while Jiang was still at Tazhong, the Wei attack was launched. Liu Shan ordered that Jiang Wei's plan from 258 be carried out — but much to Liu Shan's surprise, the Wei forces took no heed of Shu border cities at all and headed directly for the key passes. Jiang Wei quickly withdrew his forces to try to defend against the attack, and after some initial failures, was finally able to block off Zhong Hui's forces at Jiange (劍閣; in present-day Guangyuan, Sichuan). Zhong Hui considered retreating, but Deng Ai led a smaller detachment through a treacherous mountain pass descending on Jiangyou (江油; in present-day Mianyang, Sichuan), defeating Zhuge Liang's son Zhuge Zhan and heading directly for the Shu capital Chengdu. Surprised and believing that Chengdu was defenseless, Liu Shan surrendered and ordered Jiang Wei to surrender to Zhong Hui, even though Chengdu was still manned by hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Zhong Hui treated Jiang Wei with respect and quickly made him a key advisor.

Efforts to reestablish Shu and death[link]

Jiang Wei quickly saw that Zhong Hui had other ideas — Zhong considered his abilities superior to all Wei generals, even Sima Zhao, and wanted to overthrow Sima. Jiang Wei encouraged Zhong to rebel against Sima Zhao, and Zhong agreed. Zhong Hui first falsely reported to Sima Zhao that Deng Ai was planning a rebellion, and forged letters to and from Deng to increase the tension between Sima Zhao and Deng Ai. In early 264, Sima ordered that Zhong arrest Deng and seize his troops — but at the same time led a force personally, heading toward Chengdu from the Wei capital Luoyang. Zhong Hui, after seizing Deng Ai's troops, realized that Sima Zhao had seen through his intentions, and declared a rebellion.

Jiang Wei had other plans, however. He tried to persuade Zhong Hui to kill all of the high level Wei officers, with his own plan that after Zhong did so, he would kill Zhong Hui and then all of the Wei soldiers and redeclare Shu's independence. He wrote letters to Liu Shan explaining his actions. Zhong Hui tentatively agreed with Jiang Wei's suggestion to kill all of the key officers, but hesitated in carrying the plan out. The plan leaked, however, and Zhong's soldiers turned against him. Jiang Wei led Zhong's personal guards against the rebelling soldiers, but eventually Jiang, and then Zhong, were killed.

Appraisal[link]

Jiang Wei was one of the most controversial figures in Chinese history. In Bo Yang's Modern Chinese Edition of Sima Guang's Zizhi Tongjian, for example, Bo cited seven different and discordant views of Jiang's career — ranging from ringing endorsements of his recklessness and loyalty for the sake of Shu (Pei Songzhi (裴松之), commentator to the Records of Three Kingdoms) to criticism of his constant draining campaigns (Chen Shou, author of Records of Three Kingdoms) to outright condemnation (Sun Sheng (孫盛), author of the Spring and Autumn Annals of Jin), each of which could be considered a potentially valid view of his complicated character. (Bo himself declined comment, but later in an open letter to a reader suggested that all of the views were, indeed, correct — that Jiang's fatal errors were to drain the energy of his people, but that he was indeed a loyal man, willing to lay down his life in a futile attempt to reestablish Shu.)

Appointments and titles held[link]

The following appointments were held by Jiang Wei when he served the state of Wei in Tianshui Commandery

• Household Officer (中郎)
• Army Adviser (參軍事)

The following appointments and titles were held by Jiang Wei when he served the state of Shu

• Assistant Logistics Officer (倉曹掾)
• Central Army Inspector (中監軍)
• General Who Attacks the West (征西將軍)
• Right Inspector of the Army (右監軍)
• General Who Assists Han (輔漢將軍)
• Marquis of Pingxiang (平襄侯)
• Senior General Who Guards the West (鎮西大將軍)
• General of the Guards (衛將軍)
• Imperial Secretary (錄尚書事)
• General-in-Chief (大將軍)

Modern references[link]

Jiang Wei appears as a playable character in Koei's Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi video game series, where he is portrayed as a handsome young man who is fiercely devoted to his mentor Zhuge Liang. He also appears in Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms series.

See also[link]

• List of people of the Three Kingdoms
• List of Dynasty Warriors characters

References[link]

• Chen Shou. Records of Three Kingdoms, Volume 44, Biographies of Jiang Wan, Fei Yi, and Jiang Wei.
• Chen Shou. Records of Three Kingdoms, Volume 26, Biographies of Man, Tian, Qian, and Guo.
• Chen Shou. Records of Three Kingdoms, Volume 28, Biographies of Wang, Guanqiu, Zhuge, Deng and Zhong.