After sending people to sweep the streets he sat up in the city gate tower accompanied by two boys playing music instrument. It was reported to Sima Yi. Sima Yi came to see in person. Sima Yi was also a strategist. As far as tactics is concerned, Zhuge Liang was slightly superior to Sima Yi, but their competence was horse and horse. Zhuge Liang attacked Wei six times and died in the end, and the northern expedition also failed. Sima Yi knew Zhuge Liang very well. Zhuge Liang was prudent and would never take a risk. So when he saw the empty town, he was puzzled. Why? Because Zhuge Liang today was not the one in the past. Zhuge Liang had to adopt the scheme of empery city. With the military strength much superior to the enemy, someone else would have attacked and destroyed the town instantly. But just because Sima Yi knew Zhuge Liang very well, he dared not rashly attack it. As Zhuge Liang always strived for surefire plans and was prudent. he judged the empty town must be a smoke screen, and there must be ambush nearby. Sima Yi had to retreat. After Sima Yi retreated, Zhuge Liang’s subordinates asked him how he came up with such a wonderful foresight. Zhuge Liang said “I’m sure that Sima Yi will believe that I am always prudent and never take risks. I take risks this time only because I have no choice.” In other word, under the circumstance of no generals and soldiers available, he was at the end of his wits and had to break through his consistent prudence, and adopted the scheme of empery city. Zhuge Liang was resourceful, but he could only adopt such wonderful scheme occasionally, so it is very hard for an ordinary man to break through himself and adopt wonderful schemes all the time. That Sun Zi’s The Art of War is extensive and profound is that Sun Zi raised many aspects of warfare to an optimal level. The next problem is that in practice, which level a commander can reach based on his disposition. No one can reach the optimal level from ancient times to the present. This is the direct and indirect tactics dealt with in chapter five. Next, I’ll talk about chapter six. In this chapter, he dealt with the pair of contradictory and dialectical problems. Finally I’ll summarize his whole tactical thoughts by adopting a metaphor he used in chapter six. Here is the summary. The metaphor is about water. Many saints in China liked to use water in metaphors. Sun Tzu also used water to explain tactical dispositions. He explained that tactical disposition was just like water avoiding high places and flowing downward. That is, the art of war is just like water. An unchangeable property of water is that it always flows downward. If you want to win, there is also an unchangeable law, that is, using the strong points to attack weak points. Once we master this unchangeable law, that is, water flows downward, we can also use the strong points to attack the weak points. Is it enough? It is far from enough, as there are thousands of rivers in the world, but none of them flows down the same course. Observe the shape of motionless water in natural state, and see whether there are two identical lakes. No. A river’s new flow direction and its new shape in motionless state is always changing. So, Sun Tzu said “Water changed its flow direction with the terrain.” That is to say water is always changing with the terrain of its flow course. Even the shape of water in its motionless state is ever-changing. Tactics changes with the enemy. So what is the most important thing in the warfare? It is changing with enemy regardless of the conventional tactics. So there are no constant situations in warfare, and a man who can change with the enemy and win is called the god of war. Even though tactics or the art of war is talked a lot in books, a good commander, after carefully reading these books, should reach the optimal level of flexibly changing with The miliatary situation instead of sticking to an old way and being an armchair strategist. Now let’s fully review the metaphor. Tactical disposition is just like water,water avoids high places and flows downward, so in war, avoiding what is strong and to strike at what is weak; water changes its course with the terrain, and tactics should be changed with the enemy, so there are no constant conditions in warfare. He who can change with the enemy and win is called the god of war. So the optimal level of tactics is flexibly changing with the enemy, and trying to make the enemy unable speculate your specific tactics. The word “god” in ancient china did not always have religion implication. What did it mean? As it was described in the Book of Changes, The unpredictability of Yin and Yang is called “god”. Yin and Yang is the fundamental drive to make all things change, and the drive generates the basic law. If you can grasp the Yin and Yang of a thing, namely its law, you can grasp the thing. It is same with tactics. If you grasp the basic military situations and then know the law of your enemy’s tactics, then it is impossible for the enemy to take surprise moves. But if you can make yourself unpredictable for your enemy, and he only knows that once you adopted some tactics, took some surprise moves and defeated him, but he will never speculate where and when you will adopt what kind of new tactics and make some surprise moves to defeat him once again. Then such a commander is what we called the god. It is the god of military, the god of war. Okay, that’s all for today.