Why is Zhuge Liang not a strategist?

Zhuge Liang always ignores the actual effect when fighting. Some battles seem to have won, but in fact they are making money at a loss. When Zhuge Liang attacked Cao Wei, there was no specific performance goal. Probably just fight if you can, but leave if you can't. He sent his troops for many years, but he always returned in vain. Zhuge Liang did not reflect, but still attacked blindly. When cutting Wei for the first time, Zhuge Liang lost his important pass street pavilion, so he had to return to Hanzhong, and by the way, he drove the soldiers and civilians of Wei Sancheng to Shu as compensation for the failure of the Northern Expedition. There are many people and few places in Shu, which will undoubtedly increase the living burden of the people in Shu. Zhuge Liang, on the other hand, regards plundering the enemy masses as his own performance, which shows that his concept of performance is very absurd.

When the two armies are at war, as long as you don't break through each other, it doesn't mean that you are the winner, even if it seems that you beat each other badly. Zhuge Liang may not have such a sense of performance. He traveled long distances to explore Cao Wei, and his military strength naturally surpassed that of Wei Jun. However, Zhuge Liang tirelessly launched such a war with no practical effect. So the final victory will never belong to Zhuge Liang.

Zhuge Liang's base areas are mainly established in big cities, such as Chengdu and Jingzhou. However, Zhuge Liang lacks strength in the construction of base areas. Take Jingzhou as an example. Zhuge Liang regarded Jingzhou as an important base as early as the "Longzhong Dui". Later, after Zhuge Liang got Jingzhou, he did not constantly expand his strength based on this base, but left Guan Yu alone in Jingzhou to defend, and simply explained Guan Yu's words "East with Sun Wu, North with Cao Cao". Under Zhuge Liang's eight-character policy, Guan Yu only defended passively and did not take the initiative to expand the base area when there was no strong enemy coming. But when Sun Bin and Cao Cao joined forces to attack Jingzhou, Guan Yu obeyed Zhuge Liang's orders and quickly captured Fancheng. As a result, Fancheng fell and Jingzhou fell.

Hanzhong base area is the base area where Zhuge Liang launched the Northern Expedition. Zhuge Liang also conquered the southern minorities through the "seven captures of Meng Huo" and strengthened the stability of the base areas. However, in the fierce competition among the three countries, this base is barely maintained for defense, which is far from enough to win the world. After the defeat of Jingzhou, Zhuge Liang did not develop other base areas, but only relied on Hanzhong base area to wage war, and could not play the linkage effect and scale advantage.