Stratagem 2
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Besiege Wei to rescue Zhao. When the enemy is too strong to attack directly, attack something he holds dear, and he must turn back to defend it.
The Thirty-Six Stratagems
三十六計
Anonymous · Ming–Qing compilation
Thirty-six proverbs for winning by indirection.
From besieging Wei to rescue Zhao to the empty fort.
From besieging Wei to rescue Zhao to the empty fort.
The full essence, context, and modern translation arrive when the podcast reaches this text. Until then, the passages below are part of the corpus that the knowledge engine and the masters draw on.
Read it in the original
Each passage is cited and credited. Classical lines open character by character: the reading, the sense, and what is hiding inside a single character. Paraphrases are marked where the best translations are still under copyright.
01 02 Stratagem 6
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Make a sound in the east, then strike in the west. Draw the enemy's attention to one place and act in another.
03 Stratagem 32
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The empty fort. When you are weakest, display that weakness openly and calmly; a suspicious enemy will read it as a trap.
04 Stratagem 35
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Chain stratagems. Never rely on a single plan; link several so that each sets up the next and the enemy is bound by his own moves.
05 Stratagem 36
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If all else fails, retreat. Withdrawal preserves the strength to fight another day; it is not defeat.
