Jiang Wei's Northern Expeditions

Jiang Wei's Northern Expeditions
Part of the wars of the Three Kingdoms period
Date 240–262 CE Location Northwestern China (primarily within modern Gansu and Shaanxi provinces) Result Cao Wei victory; Shu Han retreat
Belligerents
Shu Han Di and Qiang tribes	Cao Wei
Commanders and leaders
Jiang Wei Zhang Yi Wang Ping Liao Hua Ma Zhong Zhang Ni † Xiahou Ba (after 249) Hu Ji	Guo Huai Xiahou Ba (before 249) Chen Tai Xu Zhi † Li Jian  Deng Ai Wang Jing  Sima Fu Sima Wang

Jiang Wei's Northern Expeditions refer to a series of eleven military campaigns launched by the state of Shu Han against its rival state, Cao Wei, between 240 and 262 CE during the Three Kingdoms period in China. The campaigns were led by Jiang Wei, a prominent Shu general. Unlike the previous Northern campaigns led by Zhuge Liang, which added Wudu and Yinping commanderies to Shu Han state territories, Jiang Wei's campaigns ended up being unpopular in both the military and civil circles in Shu. Also unlike Zhuge Liang's campaigns which often featured 60,000 to sometimes even 100,000 Shu Troops, Jiang Wei's were often much smaller rarely exceeding 30,000 even after the death of Fei Yi, where Jiang Wei assumed control of the military. The Zhuge Liang campaigns did suffer from logistical and supply issues for their large army. Zhuge's successor Jiang Wan, believed that it was the Hanzhong's mountainous terrain itself that were to blame for the campaigns failures and attempted to switch the route through the Han river. Fei Yi, who succeeded Jiang Wan, agreed, and never allowed any large campaigns to be launched by Hanzhong. Jiang Wei however overlooked these concerns and used Hanzhong as his home base as Zhuge Liang did.

Each campaign was ultimately aborted due to inadequate food supplies, heavy losses on the battlefield, or other reasons. The campaigns drained Shu's already limited resources and preceded the eventual fall of Shu in 263.

In popular culture and the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the campaigns were erroneously referred to as the "nine campaigns on the Central Plains" (九伐中原). This description is inaccurate because there were actually eleven campaigns instead of nine, and the battles were fought in locations far from the Central Plains.