greatest wisdom book

Chapter 111
The ultimate state of "pretending to be stupid": pretending to be a pig and eating a tiger
In matters of generals, quietness is used for seclusion, and righteousness is used for governance, which can fool the eyes and ears of soldiers and make them ignorant.

In "The Analects of Confucius", there is a passage of Confucius's praise of people's "stupidness", to the effect that: "Ning Wuzi, when the country's politics is clear, he uses his intelligence and wisdom, and when the country's politics is dark, he pretends to be stupid. People can catch up with his cleverness, but no one can catch up with his stupidity." This sentence tells us: It is more difficult to learn "stupid" than to learn "wisdom".

Outstanding talent is not necessarily wisdom. On the contrary, wise people do not reveal their superhuman talents, because being too revealing will cause the tree to attract the wind.Sun Wu mentioned a kind of "stupid soldiers" thought in "Nine Lands".The bounden duty of soldiers is to obey orders, so they only need to know "what to do", and the "why" is not within the scope of what they should know, and at the same time, the possibility of mistakes caused by their self-righteousness is avoided.Whether this kind of thinking is really applicable to combat is up to us, but what is certain is that in real life, the "fake insanity" that confuses the public is also an indispensable wisdom in life.

Wen Qiao of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was the successor of Wen Xian, a famous minister of the Western Jin Dynasty. He joined forces with Tao Kan to quell the Wangdun Rebellion and re-established the Jin Dynasty. He is famous in history.After Emperor Sima Shao of the Eastern Jin Dynasty came to the throne, he was worshiped as a servant.At this time, the power struggle within the ruling group of the Eastern Jin Dynasty had developed to the point of intensification. Wang Dun, who had a heavy army and occupied the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, was very domineering, and his political ambition to replace the Eastern Jin Dynasty became increasingly obvious.The decisive and courageous Jinming emperor Sima Shao could not tolerate Wang Dun's extravagant hope of getting involved in the imperial power, so he was determined to eradicate Wang's political and military influence.

After Sima Shao worshiped Wen Qiao as a servant, he soon promoted him to Zhongshu Ling, and regarded him as a pillar of the Sima Dynasty.Wen Qiao's popularity naturally aroused Wang Dun's panic.So he asked the emperor to transfer Wen Qiao to his general's mansion as Zuo Sima.Wen Qiao had no choice but to go to Wuchang.When he first arrived in Wuchang, Wen Qiao decided to change his strategy after repeatedly dissuading Wang Dun from his bad behavior.

After that, Wen Qiao pretended to respect Wang Dun and was willing to take care of him wholeheartedly, and made secret plans from time to time in order to gain Wang Dun's trust.In addition, Wen Qiao consciously made friends with Wang Dun's confidant Qian Feng, and often said to Qian Feng: "Mr. Qian Feng is extremely talented, full of economics, and unparalleled in the world." After hearing Wen Qiao's praise, Qian Feng felt deeply It was very useful, and the friendship with Wen Qiao deepened day by day, and he often said nice things about Wen Qiao in front of Wang Dun.Through this layer of relationship, Wang Dun gradually regarded Wen Qiao as his confidant.

Soon, Danyang Yin resigned and there was a vacancy, Wen Qiao said to Wang Dun: "The land of Danyang is like the throat of a person to the capital, and it must be filled by someone with comparable talents and knowledge." : "I don't think anyone can be more suitable than Mr. Qian Feng." Wen Qiao pretended to recommend Qian Feng.Sure enough, Qian Feng fell into the trap, thinking that Wen Qiao could do nothing.So Wang Dun went to the imperial court to fill Wen Qiao as Danyang Yin, and sent him to secretly observe the movement in the imperial court nearby and report at any time.

At the farewell banquet for Wang Dun, Wen Qiao pretended to be drunk and toasted his colleagues present crookedly. Qian Feng tied up his hair and said unhappily, "What are you Qian Feng? I toast you but you don't drink." Wang Dun thought that Wen Qiao was really drunk, so he persuaded them not to misunderstand.When Wen Qiao left, he knelt down and kowtowed goodbye to Wang Dun suddenly, with tears in his eyes.After leaving the gate of Wang Dun's mansion, he went back three times, as if he was very reluctant to leave, which moved Wang Dun very much.

Sure enough, after Wen Qiao bid farewell to Wang Dun and walked towards Jiankang, the car was not far away, Qian Feng came to see Wang Dun and said: "Wen Qiao is the emperor's favorite, and has a close relationship with the court, not to mention that he is the best friend of the emperor's uncle Gengliang. This person is absolutely unbelievable!" But Wang Dun thought that Qian Feng was maliciously slandered because of Wen Qiao's humiliation at the banquet, so he angrily reprimanded: "Wen Qiao was drunk that day, it was a bit too much for you, but you can't Revenge for such a trivial matter!" Qian Feng was deeply ashamed and withdrew.

Wen Qiao finally got rid of Wang Dun's control and returned to Jiankang.He reported Wang Dun's plot to rebel to Emperor Ming, and together with his minister Geng Liang, he planned to conquer Wang Dun.When the news reached General Wang Dun's residence in Wuchang, Wang Dun was furious: "I was actually cheated by this kid." However, it was too late to save the fate of failure.

It is true that a person needs to be strong, but if he is unyielding and unyielding, he may run into a wall or even encounter accidents.

In a dangerous or embarrassing situation, you might as well try the method of "fake insanity but not insanity", pretending to be cowardly and foolish on the surface, secretly "drilling troops and practicing martial arts", and when the time is right, attack decisively to catch the opponent by surprise.

(End of this chapter)