The name Meng Huo is not in Chen Shou’s text. Zhuge Liang’s campaign and the settlement of Nanzhong are. Meng Huo, as a local leader trusted by Yi and Han, appears in Chang Qu’s fourth-century Huayang guo zhi and similar later works. The full plot of seven captures ripens in the pinghua and the novel.
The novel wants a named opponent so that “hearts first” can be played as seven rounds. As literature it is enormous. As a count of battles in 225 it has no source. This site leaves the administration on Zhuge Liang’s page and on Hearts before Cities, and marks the seven captures as romance.