As we all know, Zhugeliang’s “empty city plan” was just a fiction in the drama. At that time, Zhugeliang did not use this plan skillfully.
In fact, in the Three Kingdoms period when Zhugeliang lived, there was a real “empty city plan”——
Wei Lue, cited in peisongzhi’s notes to the annals of the Three Kingdoms, said that when Cao Pi was in power, the great general was hired to guard Jiangxia. Sun Quan surrounded Wen pin in Shiyang (now in Xiaogan, Hubei Province) with 50000 troops. The Wu army suddenly attacked. The number of Wei troops in Shiyang city was small and it was difficult to resist. After thinking hard, wenpin suddenly got a trick: the army and people in the city were all hiding, and he himself was hiding in the government office and would not appear again. Sun Quan felt very suspicious, so he said to the Ministry, “Wen pin is a senior general of Cao Ying. He is not an ordinary person. Now he knows that I am coming to attack, but he is unprepared. There is a lot of guile in it. It is better to retreat.” So he led the troops away.
Wei Lue was written by Yu Huan, a doctor in the state of Wei. It should be more believable for him to record the deeds of his contemporaries.
As for Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms, instead of using the real version of “empty city plan” of Wen pin, he invented a “empty city plan” of Zhugeliang, which should be caused by the thought of “respecting Liu and suppressing Cao”, and deify Zhuge Kongming infinitely.