Dragon’s Mind: The Chinese

Strategic View continues....

To these traditional military classics must be added one more, a fairly modern ‘classic’. Some 300 years ago, towards the end of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 CE) an unknown writer published ‘Secret

Art of War: The 36 Stratagems’ writing down for the first time war stratagems which first appeared in the official history of Southern Qi about 1500 years ago. It has its emphasis on deception as a military art.

Actually an anonymous collection of folksy, proverb-style sayings, it

is also called ‘The Art of War’, but is not to be confused with Sun Tzu's

ancient classic. This ‘Art of War’ is qualified with a sub-title, by which it

is more popularly known:

‘The 36 Stratagems’. Since these ‘36

stratagems’ are known by practically everyone with any interest in

matters martial, it is almost axiomatic that the ‘stratagems’ advised will

be known to most military minds in China, and are likely to be used

where applicable. Some of the stratagems are actually simplified versions

of the solutions advocated by Sun Tzu and others. Divided into six

groups of six ‘stratagems’, divided by situation, a representative sample

of two groups from ‘The Art of War: The 36 Stratagems’ is given below:

Stratagems when in a superior position:

l Cross the sea under camouflage

l Besiege Wei to rescue Zhao

l Kill with a borrowed knife

l Wait at ease for the fatigued enemy

l Loot a burning house

l Make a feint to the east while attacking in the west

Stratagems for attack:

l Beat the grass to startle the snake

l Raise a corpse from the dead

l Lure the tiger out of the mountain

l Let the enemy off in order to snare him

l Cast a brick to attract a gem

l To catch rebels nab their leader first

To be continued......