This is the 275th original article of Shi Shuoxing
It is said that after the death of Duke Huan of Qi, there was no hegemony in the Central Plains, and after the failure of the Song Xianggong to fight for hegemony, the State of Chu controlled almost the entire Central Plains. Of course, except for the State of Qi in the east, the State of Qin in the West, and the State of Jin in the north. At that time, as soon as Duke Wen of Jin came to power, he received a plea for help from the State of Song, which opened a century-long battle for supremacy between Jin and Chu, the Battle of Chengpu.
As the saying goes, Qi Huan's public hegemony is guan Zhong's plot; Jin Wen's public hegemony is, of course, also the plot of the first. In the Battle of Chengpu, there are many places worth analyzing, the previous author analyzed the precedent of the pioneers, and controlled the overall situation, using diplomatic means, turning passive into active, and helping Jin Wengong to reverse the situation. In this article, I will analyze the tactics used in the Battle of Chengpu.
In the early Spring and Autumn Period, tactics such as detours, ambushes, and weak blows had already appeared. However, judging from the situation of the entire social war, before the Battle of Chengpu, the traditional tactics of "settling the day and settling the ground, living on each side, fighting with the drums, and not deceiving each other" still had a considerable impact on the war instructors. For example, Song Xianggong was a representative figure of conservative thinking, and during the Battle of Hongshui, he clung to backward tactical principles such as "no drums and no columns" and "no obstruction", and finally suffered a crushing defeat.
Xianxun arrived in the Song Kingdom with Jin Wengong at the end of the Battle of Hongshui and was very familiar with the situation. Xianxun summed up the lessons learned from the practice of his predecessors from both sides, and creatively introduced the strategic thinking centered on devious ways into the tactical field. It can be said that the fiasco of Song Xianggong actually inspired Xianxun.
The tactics he used in the Battle of Chengpu were the inheritance and development of Zheng Zhuanggong's tactics of first being weak and then strong, showing profit and luring the enemy, but they were more deepened. The Jin and Chu armies were almost the same in terms of the balance of strength, while the combat effectiveness of the Chu army was probably stronger. In this case, it is difficult to determine whose hand the deer will die by relying on the struggle of the horn of strength to win.
First judge the time and size up the situation, give full play to the subjective energy action, use the two factors of deceit and surprise, and strive for superiority and initiative on the battlefield, thus increasing the probability value of victory. First of all, he did not regard the Chu army as an inseparable monolith, but regarded it as a three-part part according to its combat group, and analyzed and treated it specifically.
The Chu Right Army's combat effectiveness was the weakest, so it adopted the tactics of violent shock and psychological deterrence to strike at it; when the Chu Left Army's combat effectiveness was slightly stronger, it adopted the tactics of pretending to retreat and enticing the enemy and attacking from both sides to strike at it; the Chu Chinese Army, which had the strongest combat effectiveness, first used the tactics of avoiding its sharp edge, not fighting for the time being, and then joining forces to deal with it after defeating its two wings. As a result, after the defeat of the left and right armies, the strongest Chinese army was also transformed into a lone army and a weak army, and had to admit defeat and retreat.
Such a art of conduct is unique before and at the same time. Therefore, Xianxun was praised by posterity as the first person to plan the world!
How do you think about the pre-eminent plan to determine the world
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