The Western world is quite familiar with the Art of War as a
book on military warfare. Thanks to the trainers who popularised this manual of
warfare by applying the tactics and strategies in modern management practices.
An equivalent and more powerful book, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, is less
well known outside the Middle Kingdom but is stacked with many military
strategies and tactics of psychological warfare.
In one of the stories, the famous strategist, Zhu Ge Liang,
was pitted against the warlord Cao Cao. The game plan was about luring Cao Cao
into a trap, allowing him to be victorious and became complacent. The finale
was for Cao Cao to paint himself into a corner and defeating himself in a game
of crafty deceit.
Zhu Ge Liang knew that Cao Cao had a weakness for women. Without
disclosing this knowledge, he used it to plot Cao Cao’s embarrassing defeat by
setting up one of his general, General Yao, with another woman in an improper
affair. Of course this was leaked to Cao Cao who happily exposed the details of
the relationship to the public. Zhu Ge
Liang’s Cukong Liu was greatly embarrassed and summarily dismissed General Yao
who then left the state.
Tasting success, Cao Cao seized on the opportunity to
embarrass Liu by ridiculing him, demanding that Liu tell the whole truth and be
transparent, not to hide any material fact. Cao Cao’s ministers added fuel and
fire, telling Liu’s people that Liu had let them down, and failed to carefully
select his officers. They ran circus around Liu, accusing him of being inept in
choosing his generals, lack of integrity and that Cao Cao’s camp was better in
serving the people’s interest.
After a year, when things quiet down, when there was
apparent peace under heaven, with Cao Cao smarting over his moral victory, Liu exposed
Cao Cao’s affair to the world. What Cao Cao did was an exact replica of what Yao
had done, the same affair with the wives of another officer in the same camp.
Cao Cao was forced to face the same barrage of accusations and flaming and was
helpless. Every word spoken by Cao Cao and his ministers were carefully
recorded and read back to Cao Cao and his men. It was a taste of his own
medicine. There were no buts, no running away from a similar and grave mistake.
Cao Cao and his ministers who acted high and mighty, as the righteous ones,
beyond reproach, had to swallow every word they said, heads bent low, some went
into hiding. Cao Cao was defeated in his own game of moral superiority.
The Three Kingdom
was a timeless classic, and the tactics and strategies have been thoroughly
read and discussed and mastered by many modern military commanders and
politicians. Some were able to use them so effectively in defeating their
enemies through deceptions, schemes, plots and strategies that often caught the
enemies totally unguarded and with their pants down. Zhu Ge Liang was a living
legend of his time.