One evening in 341 BC, a group of soldiers pursuing the enemy came to a place called Maling. The soldiers looked up and saw that the roads around were rugged and narrow, with trees scattered on both sides of the road and weeds.

One evening in 341 BC, a team of soldiers chasing the enemy came to a place called Maling . The soldiers looked up and saw that the roads around were rugged and narrow, with trees scattered on both sides of the road and weeds. Suddenly, a big tree on the side of the road, whose branches were cut off and whose bark was stripped off, jumped into their eyes. With the glimmer of dusk, the soldiers found that there seemed to be a line of words engraved on the tree. The general led by the team loudly ordered the soldiers to light a torch to light him. Just as he stretched his neck and tried to see the words on the tree, the sound of killing sounds shook the sky, and the arrows were like rain. The soldiers were suddenly frightened, and the people were rushing on their backs and horses, and they were in a mess. The general who recovered a little and looked at the scene in front of him, and knew that his wisdom and military defeat were defeated. He couldn't help but draw his sword and sigh at the sky: "It became the name of a son." Then he ended his life in grief and shame.

This is the famous Battle of Maling in the history of in the Warring States Period. The two sides against each other are the army of Qi State and Wei State . At that time, the commander of Qi was Tian Ji , and the military advisor was Sun Bin ; the general of Wei was Prince Shen, and the commander was Pang Juan . The war was defeated by the Wei army falling into the ambush circle of Qi army. Pang Juan committed suicide under the big tree engraved "Pang Juan died under this tree".

So, where do the words on the tree come from? Who is the "银" in Pang Juan's mouth referring to? This starts with the cause of the Battle of Maling.

1

Korean , one of the "Seven Heroes of the Warring States Period", was the weakest of the seven countries at that time. Wei State felt that South Korea was weak and easy to bully, so he raised his troops to invade. South Korea was weak and could not resist the fierce attack of Wei, so it had to ask for help from Qi's , King Wei of Qi, . The King of Qi agreed to Han's request and sent Tian Ji to take charge, and Sun Bin led the troops to rescue Han as the military advisor.

Under Sun Bin's plan, Tian Ji led his army to attack Daliang, the capital of Wei, forcing the Wei army to retreat from South Korea to rescue himself. While dealing with the Wei army, the Qi army took the lead in entering the deep area of ​​Wei territory, and the Wei army retreating from South Korea followed closely behind. After carefully studying the advantages and disadvantages of the enemy and us and the situation on the battlefield, Sun Bin came up with a clever plan to confuse the Wei army.

During the Warring States Period, Qi State was a vassal state with a very developed commodity economy. The living conditions of the people were far better than those of several other vassal states that were mainly agriculture. Therefore, most people in Qi are unwilling to join the army, and even more unwilling to fight. Therefore, in the eyes of the common people of other vassal states, the soldiers of Qi were timid and cowardly and had weak fighting power.

Sun Bin formulated a "stove reduction plan" strategy in response to the actual situation of the Wei army's contempt. After the Qi army entered the territory of Wei, Sun Bin ordered the soldiers to build 100,000 stoves first, and reduce the number of stoves to 50,000 on the second day, and then reduce it to 30,000 on the third day.

Wei army pursued Qi army all the way and found that the number of Qi army's stoves was getting smaller and smaller day by day. Pang Juan, general of Wei, concluded from this that the Qi army was dispersed and soldiers fled seriously. So he decided to abandon the slow-moving large infantry troops and various baggages, and led the elite cavalry with strong troops day and night to chase the Qi army led by Tian Ji and Sun Bin.

After three days of rapid horse racing and day and night, the Wei army finally arrived at Maling at the third day at sunset. What Pang Juan did not expect was that he and his cavalry were ambushed by tens of thousands of people in the Qi army. Not only did he fail and lost his life, but he also won Sun Bin with his own defeat, making him famous.

2

After seeing the words Sun Bin carved on the tree, Pang Juan said before his death that "it became the name of a prince". In addition to being full of regret, he seemed to be full of unwillingness; and Sun Bin was as prepared as a god, and insisted on putting Pang Juan to death and then quickly, as if he had exposed a secret hidden deep in his heart.

In fact, Pang Juan and Sun Bin are brothers of the same school. It is said that they both studied under the hermit Guiguzi and learned military strategy.After he finished his studies, Pang Juan knew that Sun Bin was better than him. If he kept a master like Sun Bin and wandered around the world, he would be hard to have a day to become famous. So, Pang Juan came up with a vicious way to get rid of Sun Bin's big trouble.

After Pang Juan got his position in Wei State, he tricked Sun Bin to Wei State and designed to frame him. In the end, Sun Bin was scraped off his kneecap and became an unwilling disabled person. Later, with the help of Qi envoys, Sun Bin finally escaped from Wei and defected to Qi. In Qi State, Sun Bin was appointed as the disciple of the noble Tian Ji, and through the incident of " Tian Ji's horse racing ", Tian Ji was amazed, and gradually received his support and recommendation, and later he was valued by King Wei of Qi and became the military advisor of Qi State.

Pang Juan thought that using despicable means would destroy Sun Bin. Even if a disabled person had a lot of talent and strategy, he could not use it. Unexpectedly, he lost his life after all the calculations. In the end, he was embarrassed and angry and committed suicide in front of Sun Bin.

Sun Bin's deep understanding of Pang Juan is based on his classmates' years plus his painful experience in Wei State, as well as the head or side confrontation between the two sides over the years. So he tempted the enemy step by step to target Pang Juan's arrogant and conceited personality, and eventually became famous in Maling, and took the opportunity to avenge his deep hatred.

The Battle of Maling is a landmark battle on the stage of the Warring States Period. As a result of this battle, Wei not only lost its troops and generals, but even the commander-in-chief Shen was captured by Qi and became a prisoner. After this battle, Wei State was greatly damaged and lost its hegemony as the Warring States Period. Qi State takes the power of the winner and is temporarily leading in the battle for hegemony.

3

The strategy Sun Bin adopted in the Battle of Maling was exactly the strategy he explained in the "Statement" of "Sun Tzu's Art of War ": "Weapon is a devil. Therefore, if you can, you cannot, and if you use it, you will not use it." means that using troops to fight is a kind of changeable technique, and various methods are required to deceive and confuse the enemy. Even if you can fight, you have to pretend to be cowardly and pretend to be unable to fight; even if you want to fight, you have to pretend to be like you don’t want to fight at all.

If we carefully analyze it, we will find that the "intrigue" used by Sun Bin in the Battle of Maling is really extraordinary. The impermanence of the "reducing stove" is that under normal circumstances, people will give full play to their strengths to the greatest extent and try every means to avoid their weaknesses; but Sun Bin just jumped out of this thinking pattern and did the opposite, making full use of the weaknesses of the Qi army's timid and cowardly and poor combat effectiveness in the eyes of others to make a big fuss, and eventually successfully confused and seduced Pang Juan, causing him to defeat him in Maling.

It is not uncommon for people to use their own strengths or the disadvantages of others to make plans, and the most valuable thing about Sun Bin is that he dares and is good at using his own weaknesses to find solutions to the problem.

As we mentioned earlier, Sun Bin won Tian Ji's appreciation through his outstanding performance in "Tian Ji's Horse Racing". In fact, the strategy Sun Bin gave to Tian Ji on horse racing also illustrates the uniqueness of Sun Bin's way of thinking from another perspective.

When racing horses, Tian Ji and King Wei of Qi always followed the convention of high-quality horses against high-quality horses, medium-quality horses against medium-quality horses, and low-quality horses against low-quality horses; but Sun Bin secretly took a unique approach, broke the unwritten rules of the game, and grasped the initiative in the game. He used a low-level horse against a high-level horse, a high-level horse against a medium-level horse, a medium-level horse against a low-level horse, and two wins in three games, finally allowing Tian Ji, who had been defeated repeatedly, to win the game and a generous prize.

Schopenhauer said, "The biggest prison in the world is human thinking." From a first-class military strategist and strategist like Sun Bin with superhuman courage, what we have learned is not only wisdom, but also a way to break through thinking patterns and break the rules of the game. A person's life is a process of constantly breaking through cognition. I hope we can all break free from the invisible shackles of thinking, less accustomed to it, diligent in multi-dimensional in-depth thinking, and strive to become a lifelong learner with growth thinking.

Author: Cat Eye Light