The five-thousand-year history of China's spiritual civilization has created many excellent cultures, thousands of years of ancient military theory to achieve the system, and many war strategy books have emerged. The "Art of War of Sun Zhen" in the Warring States period; the "Taigong Liutao" in the Qin Dynasty; the "Sima Law" in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, including the most complete and earliest military book in China's history, "The Art of War of Sun Tzu". His book records many classic theories of tactics, among which Xiang Yu broke the cauldron and sank the boat, and Han Xin fought backwaters, all of which originated from the tactic of "putting death in the ground and reborn later".
"Putting oneself to death and being born later" literally means putting oneself in the most dangerous situation, only by fighting for one's life can you win, and Xiang Yu and Han Xin, who have used this tactic in history, have been very successful, but why did they lose Ma Chen?
At the end of the Qin Uprising, Xiang Yu led the Chu army into the territory of the Qin Dynasty, and the Battle of Julu was the most important battle. In this battle, the strength of the Qin army and the Chu army was very different, and the number of soldiers and horses was hugely different, and Xiang Yu used the battle of "putting the ground to die and being born later" in the face of this situation, but it was not only this tactic that made Xiang Yu win the victory. Xiang Yu has been fighting for many years and has rich experience, and he combines a variety of theories to determine the tactics by knowing the level of the opposing army, and the tactic of "knowing oneself and knowing the other side can win every battle" is used to judge the battlefield situation. Xiang Yu did not use defensive strategies because of the inferiority of troops, but instead he turned from defense to attack, took the initiative to attack, grasped the initiative, and divided the opposing army into several parts to attack jointly, so that the other side's defense line was naturally broken. Xiang Yu's skill of "breaking the cauldron and sinking the boat" is only suitable for temporary morale boost, if the natural army will weaken if it fights for a long time, Xiang Yu knows the reason for it, which is why Xiang Yu turned the tide of battle in the Battle of Julu.
Han Xin's backwater battle was very different from Xiang Yu's, Xiang Yu chose this tactic because of the weakness of the troops, and Han Xin chose this tactic because there were no elite soldiers who could fight with it, these soldiers were incapable and weak-willed, Han Xin had enough confidence to defeat the other side, first adopted the method of putting it to death and then reborn, and then chose the tactic of weakening the opponent's ability and increasing his morale. However, this tactic was not a complete victory, and what could really make Han Xin victorious was his own strong command ability and military skills.
Ma Mo's failure came from various factors, and the situation of putting him to death was not his choice, but he was cornered, he chose this tactic in desperation, but ignored their own environment and failed to lay the basic conditions for this tactic. Secondly, Ma Mo violated the strategy that had been set long ago, and the temporary change of strategy led to internal contradictions in the army, which was simply unable to resist foreign enemies. Ma Mo was in a passive state in this war, and he was surrounded by the opposing army, so that this tactic had no place to play, so that the war must be the end of defeat.
Putting it to death and being born after is not a tactic that exists alone, it needs to judge the situation, be familiar with the strength of the other side, combine with other tactics, and act rashly without considering the overall situation, and the result is naturally unsatisfactory.