The Chinese are well known for their ancient military tactics and interest in strategy and logic. If you have ever tried to play “Go”, the board game with black and white counters, then you will be familiar with some of the strategies and ideas used to win, or to disable your opponent. Even chess is considered to be a war game – the perfect war game as there are no outside influences on the outcome: each piece has a set power and this cannot be changed by weather, equipment, political influences or any of the things which affect modern day warfare.

Take Away The Ladders

One of the famous Sun Tzu’s stratagems is ‘lure your enemy onto the roof, then take away the ladder’. Now this sounds like a dangerous thing to do, as surely then both sides are trapped on the roof with no way of getting down and fight on their hands. However, it is a simple and common tactic. The idea behind it is to make it seem like you are helping the enemy and then take that help away, or turn it into a hindrance. It takes a story from the Han period of government to explain the mindset behind this tactic.

The Han general, Han Xin, had been sent out with his army to quell uprisings in the kingdoms of Qi and Chu. On his way to Qi, the general Long Chu met with the Han army, having been set out to intercept their attack. They had met at the Wei river, with one army on either side, and no way of crossing the fast flowing river. General Han ordered his men to fill up sandbags and place them upstream to dam the river and make it easier to cross. He left some troops manning the sandbags and the next morning led his remaining troops over the lower river to engage with Long Chu and his army. After a short battle, Han led his troops back over the river, as if in retreat. General Chu saw this as a sign of weakness and decided to capitalise on this, and attack the retreating Han army. General Han, however, had counted on this act of bravado from Chu, and signaled to his men to break the dam when his army and half of the Chu army had crossed over. The Chu troops caught in the floodwaters drowned, and the others were stuck across the river. General Han and his men turned and captured the Chu who had made it across the river, killing Long Chu in the process.

A Ladder to Cross A River

What Han had done, was to offer Chu and his army a ladder across the river. By damming the river and making it easy to cross and attack Chu, Han had presented his enemy with a good route of attack, but one that was essentially controlled by Han himself. At any time he could release the pent up waters and unleash chaos on the attacking enemy; he had lured his enemy over the river, then taken away their only way back across, leaving them defenseless and very much in his control.

The premise of this strategy is similar to the modern idea ‘if you give a man enough rope, he will hang himself’, meaning that if you cause someone to get into a difficult situation, they will often create their own defeat. In Long Chu’s case, it was his machismo that made him oblivious to the fact that overnight, the river had dropped, and he was able to cross. Chu did not think about how or why this had happened, or the fact that it might be a trap, and when the “ladder” was taken away from him, he was trapped, completely at Han’s command. Wise man, that Sun Tzu!

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