Empty Fort Strategy

Another war term from Dr. Kenneth J. Hammonds accounts of the Three Kingdoms period in China.  General Zhuge Liang, our hero from Straw Boats Borrow Arrows, was trapped in a city without his main army.  Rather than surrendering to his enemy, or fortifying for attack, he threw open the gates and played chess on the wall (another account has him playing the zither).  His enemy, Sima Yi, known to be a shrewd strategist, approached the fort and noticed the calm confidence of Zhuge Liang and the townspeople.  He assumed that the fort must be formidably defended for its inhabitants to be so nonchalant, and Sima Yi pulled his men back in concern.

According to Wikipedia, the Empty Fort strategy is the thirty-second of the thirty-six stratagems of war.  This is an essay found in the Book of Qi written by Xiao Zixian during the Liang Dynasty.

Straw Boats Borrow Arrows

This phrase comes from the Chinese Three Kingdoms period.  According to historian Kenneth Hammond, during this time period, the model of the Chinese hero changed from one who wins by brute force to one who wins through cunning and strategy.  The paradigm of this was the general Zhuge Liang.

In one of the great stories about him, Zhuge Liang’s army had exhausted their supply of arrows as they lay seige to a city.  That evening, as a heavy fog rolled in, he sent boats out into the river manned by straw dummies.  His enemies took the bait and fired on the straw “attackers.”  Zhuge Liang’s army pulled the boats back in and used the arrows riddling the dummies to replenish their supplies.  This story serves as the archetype of the general’s strategy.

The saying “straw boats borrow arrows” has become used in Chinese to signify that sometimes you can use someone’s one strengths against him.