Battle of Jieting - in Fiction

In Fiction

In Luo Guanzhong's historical novel Romance of Three Kingdoms, Ma Su was executed on the order of a tearful Zhuge Liang, whose continued high appraisal for Ma's intelligence made that a very reluctant decision. The scene has also been reenacted in Chinese opera. A Japanese proverb, "executing Ma Su with tears" (泣いて馬謖を斬る, naite Bashoku wo kiru?), refers specifically to this incident, meaning "punishing a person for his wrongdoings regardless of relations or his abilities." The equivalent in Chinese is hui lei zhan Ma Su (simplified Chinese: 挥泪斩马谡; traditional Chinese: 揮淚斬馬謖; pinyin: Huī Lèi Zhán Mǎ Sù; literally "wiping away tears and executing Ma Su").

In the novel, the loss of Jieting exposed Zhuge Liang's current location, the defenseless Xicheng (西城). Zhuge Liang used the Empty Fort Strategy to ward off the enemy before retreating.

In many stories, including the novel, the battle includes Sima Yi on the Wei side, but this event is impossible according to his biography in the Records of the Three Kingdoms. Moss Roberts comments on this in his fourth volume of his English translation of Luo Guanzhong's novel on (page 2179 under Chapter 95 Notes, fourth and last paragraph of the chapter notes):

The historical Sima Yi was not at the western front for the "vacant city ruse" but at the more important southern front with the Southland . Sima Yi did not come to the western front until Kongming's fourth offensive . The fictional tradition tends to attach more importance to the Wei-Shu conflict than the Wei-Wu conflict, and Three Kingdoms accordingly builds up the Kongming-Sima Yi rivalry and the events of A.D.228.

In the abstract above from Moss Roberts's novel, Roberts explains and compares historic history with fictional tales and the most likely reason Sima Yi was included before the Battle of Mount Qi. Some notable texts in the abstract include the western front; the area where Kongming targeted in his expeditions, the "vacant city ruse"; referring to the tale of Zhuge Liang's "Empty Fort Strategy, and the southern front, being the areas of Wei including Fancheng, Hefei, Xiapi, and Shouchun. This means that the Empty Fort Strategy could not have occurred because Sima Yi was never there to fall for it and the southern front was where Sima Yi was stationed during the expeditions before Kongming targeted Mount Qi and the Wuzhang Plains.