Wang Ping (Three Kingdoms) - in Fiction

In Fiction

In Luo Guanzhong's historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Wang Ping was given a fictionalized and more prominent role in the Hanzhong Campaign, opposing Xu Huang's tactics and defecting. Xu Huang wanted his army to cross the Han river and battle Liu Bei's forces on the other side. Wang warned that it would be impossible to retreat once they cross the river, as the river would significantly slow down the retreat and will be vulnerable to enemy fire. Xu claimed that the soldiers will fight to the death and have no need to retreat if they are in a dire situation (in conjunction with the tactic by legendary Western Han general Han Xin, where he purposely placed his army near a river in order to unleash their full potential). Wang then claimed that Han only used that tactic because the opposition had no strategist to see through it, but Liu's army had the support of Zhuge Liang, who would be able to easily see through this tactic. Xu refused to listen and, as expected, suffered great defeat. He asked why Wang didn't come to his rescue, and Wang replied, "if I come to rescue you with my portion of the army, then our main camp would have no protection; I warned you multiple times against crossing the river, but you did not listen, which resulted in this defeat." Xu was greatly angered by this and planned to kill Wang that night, however the plan was leaked out and Wang set the camp on fire and defected to Shu.

Right before Zhuge Liang died, he named Wang Ping, along with Liao Hua, Ma Dai, Zhang Ni and Zhang Yi, as the loyal generals of Shu who should be retained.