Reading Mao Xuan: Why is strategic thinking so important to us?

From the public account: learning and practice in the workplace

"Strategic Issues in China's Revolutionary War" in the first volume of Mao Xuan's selection is a classic long article, which is often read and often new, and will also take more time to interpret it, which is really a very big change in daily work, life, and thinking.

My biggest feeling is that when you learn this, you will be able to use it at work instead of reading "Wow, that's great!" "Let out an exclamation but immediately forget it."

The theory and method of sending you information every day and taking a bunch of British and American management psychologists to tell you to improve your thinking ability, enhance your personal cognition, see through people's hearts for a second, and see the essence through phenomena for a month, it is recommended that you stay away early and avoid long-term nipple music. What is said is the right nonsense, like a castle in the air, will only accelerate the process of depravity, and that's it.

Of course, Yining also strongly recommends that you must read this article in light of the original text, because it is an article that expounds the essence and meaning of the word "strategy" by explaining the "Chinese revolutionary war."

In the past, we often mentioned the word "strategy" in various scenarios, and many people would think that strategy seems to be far away from our ordinary people, and there are fewer application scenarios, but in fact, it is not. Our personal planning for ourselves, our planning for our careers, our plans for our families, etc., are closely related to the word strategy.

It should be said that the word strategy should not be a proper noun of a certain class, and anyone can guide and help us solve some troubles and problems in life by thinking about the meaning of the word "strategy", and even help us to complete some valuable and meaningful things. I think this is also related to the characteristics of Mao's selected articles, because they were written for the proletarian personnel at that time, to solve the practical problems facing the revolution at that time, and all of them still have extremely strong vitality and appeal, and they will endure for a long time.

One

Still an old habit, let's first talk about the historical background of this article.

This article was written in December 1936, and from this time it can be seen that the Red Army has completed the three main divisions in the Long March, what information does the three main forces meet the divisions mean?

This means that we have changed our military line through a series of meetings that include the Zunyi Conference, and the series of meetings before and after the Zunyi Conference. In other words, at this time history has proved that Mao Zedong's military line is correct, and the military line that was previously moved from the Soviet Union is not in line with the actual situation in China.

The second point is that after the Long March of the Central Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi, a series of meetings, such as the Wa Yao Fort Conference, were held and a series of meetings began to readjust and determine our new political line. Because at the Zunyi Conference before, there were actually no suitable conditions to correct the problems on the political line, and politics and military affairs are closely related.

But the question of political line is far more difficult to correct than the military problem. Therefore, summing up and expounding the question of the military line first will greatly help to correct the question of the political line.

At this time, the Opening of the Red Army University in Northern Shaanxi just happened to have this opportunity, so it was just a matter of summing up this military line issue and giving it to the students of the school to learn and understand.

Thus, there is this "Strategic Question of the Chinese Revolutionary War", which, in addition to summarizing all the strategies and tactics of the Red Army since the founding of the Red Army, has the other purpose of assisting in the correction of the political line.

This is the historical background of "The Strategic Question of China's Revolutionary War."

Two

There is such a paragraph at the beginning of this article, which is excerpted separately and interpreted, which is very interesting.

The Laws of War – This is a question that anyone who guides war cannot fail to study and solve.

The Law of Revolutionary War - this is a question that anyone who directs a revolutionary war cannot fail to study and solve.

The Law of China's Revolutionary War - this is a question that anyone who guides China's revolutionary war cannot but study and cannot fail to solve. ——" Mao Xuan Vol. 1, Strategic Issues in China's Revolutionary War

These three paragraphs are linked, in fact, there is a theoretical basis behind it: there is a process from general to special in studying anything.

We know that the process of the birth and application of theory is actually a process from the special to the general, and from the general to the special.

These three paragraphs focus on the second half of the sentence, that is to say, the laws of any revolutionary war need to be studied and applied in the light of the specific conditions of specific things.

Although the law of war is important, revolutionary war is a special situation of war, and the Chinese revolutionary war is a special situation in revolutionary war.

This, therefore, requires us to study not only the laws of war, but also the laws of revolutionary war and, finally, the specific laws of the Chinese revolutionary war in which we find ourselves.

The meaning of this passage can be applied to any industry and understanding things, because it is an objective law.

To use another sentence in "Mao Xuan": Theory must be combined with practice.

This law is not difficult to understand, so we will not elaborate too much, but what I want to explain here is that in the process of reading "Mao Xuan", everyone will gradually find that all the views, theories, and ideas in it are unified and are internally linked.

It will not present today a point of view that links theory to practice, and then tomorrow in another article other views that do not conform to that view.

For example, it would never suddenly appear in another article after saying that it was necessary to "prevent the idea of pure militarization" that "military politics is good."

Nor will we ever see in an article the idea of "cracking down on all centrists" after saying "unite all forces that can be united."

Therefore, we see that the three paragraphs at the beginning of this article express the same views as those expressed in the "Theory of Practice" later.

For example, the views often conveyed in "Mao Xuan": specific analysis of specific problems, starting from reality in everything, combining theory with practice, etc., these views are all in the same vein.

From the development of these viewpoints, we will see that in studying revolutionary war in China, in addition to studying the laws of war and revolutionary war, we must also study the laws of Revolutionary War in China.

We have read up to now, in fact, we have summarized a lot of views, when you read the original text, you can also try to summarize your own views, and then when reading new articles, you can continue to compare the original views with many views in the new articles to see if they are unified.

For example, in the "Theory of Contradictions", it is mentioned that in the process of development of anything, there is only one major contradiction at the same stage.

Then, after you remember this point of view, when you later read the articles in the Mao Xuan that analyze the specific practice at that time, you will see whether it violates this theory, see whether it is consistent, and see how it specifically applies this point of view.

Then, in the long run, we can understand more deeply and slowly learn to use the things inside.

This is also a meaning that we should systematize and interpret "Mao Xuan" one by one.

Sometimes, we will see all kinds of novel ideas on the Internet, and some apps will hold a book club, output all kinds of tall nouns, what kind of thinking, that kind of thinking, and so on.

It may seem novel, but their own views often clash with each other, in fact, because they are not systematic.

Before reading "The Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War," we talked about this issue in the hope that everyone could try according to this method, that is, as long as they understood a certain point of view, they would look at the original text more and see which viewpoint he used in this analysis and which theory used in that analysis.

In this way, when analyzing the next key point, it is more helpful for our digestion.

Three

Let's talk about strategy

The above analysis shows that there is a process of studying the laws of things from the general to the special, and without such a process there is a danger of evolving into dogmatism and empiricism.

Next, let's talk about "strategy."

The article is called "The Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War," and if we don't talk about what strategy is, it will be difficult to understand this selected article in its entirety.

Let's first look at how this article in Mao Xuan explains the strategic problem:

The original text is as follows:

"As long as there is a war, there is a big picture of the war. The world can be the overall situation of war, a country can be the overall situation of war, an independent guerrilla zone, a large independent aspect of combat, or it can be the overall situation of war. Anything that has the character of taking care of all aspects and stages is the overall situation of the war.

Studying the law of war guidance with an overall nature is the task of strategic science. Studying the laws of war guidance with a local nature is the task of campaign science and tactics. - "Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Strategic Issues in China's Revolutionary War"

Then it is relatively clear that strategy refers to a strategy, planning, etc. formulated from the overall situation, which can be called strategy.

Generally speaking, from the original text of this paragraph, we know that strategy refers to:

It is a kind of thing with the overall nature, which can be planning, strategy, planning, thinking, etc., in short, it is a science to study the overall law of things, and understand that this place is almost over.

However, if we want to have a deeper understanding of the word "strategy" in theory, and to gradually cultivate our strategic vision and strategic planning ability, we need to pay more attention to this sentence in the original text:

"Anything that has the character of taking care of all aspects and stages is the overall situation of the war."

Does this sentence have any special meaning? some.

It deals with a basic theory in The Theory of Contradictions, namely the ideas of "connection" and "movement" in Marx's theory.

The original text said that taking care of all aspects actually requires a "connection" point of view, and only when we see the connection between a thing and various things around us can we say that we have taken care of all aspects.

At the same time, we must have the point of view of "movement", that is to say, we must see the changes between different stages in the development of a thing, the trend of evolution, and we can talk about the nature of taking care of each stage.

So what is the big picture? What is a strategic perspective?

In fact, it is to look at things from the perspective of connection and movement, and then form our strategic vision according to the various connections we see with other things, as well as the different stages of development of each thing.

Knowing this, then when we practice our strategic vision and cultivate our strategic awareness, we will have goals and methods.

When you learn to look at everything, you must first observe the connection between this thing and the things that may be related around you, and the different stages of the development of this thing and thing, in the long run, strategic awareness and strategic vision will gradually develop.

As I said before, strategy is not a proper term of a certain class, and we ordinary people can learn and understand it; "Mao Xuan" says that a world can have an overall situation, and a country, region, and battlefield all have their overall situation.

In the same way, a family, a project, and so on have their own overall situation.

This brings us back to the ideas and methods that we have kept mentioning before:

Look at things as comprehensively as possible, and this comprehensiveness includes a thing and the surrounding things, as well as the context and historical origin of the development of this thing.

That's the strategy, and how it's practiced.

Is it complicated? Not complicated.

But to constantly see accurately, well, and comprehensively, it requires continuous trial and error, and continuous practice.

We see that in fact, we have returned to the principles in the practical theory of "Mao Xuan".

Therefore, in the above foreshadowing analysis, I said that the ideas and theories in "Mao Xuan" are common, and can often be used to confirm each other and explain each other's practical problems.

You can use the views inside to confirm each other, and see a point of view can also be taken to the reality to continue to confirm, so that the learning effect is better.

Four

Four crossings of chishui to do a case study

In view of the above connection and movement point of view, let's use the example of the four crossings of chishui to illustrate it specifically, this is one of my favorite cases, and I plan to analyze several articles in detail next.

For example, in the four crossings of the red water, it talks about the Duck Creek Plan. In this plan, we must first analyze our relationship with the various encirclement and suppression armies, and this relationship is the connection.

Before the Qian army, because they were already in a state of being maimed, when considering them, it was almost negligible, thinking that they were no longer too aggressive.

And the Sichuan army Guo Xunqi's troops, because their purpose was mainly to prevent the Red Army from entering Sichuan, as long as they did not fight to achieve this purpose, then they would not be so active.

The Xiang army will not cross the Wujiang River, abandon the defensive blockade line into Hunan and enter Zunyi, so they are no longer within our consideration.

Based on the judgment of these interrelated links, a plan was drawn to concentrate the First, Third, and Fifth Armies to attack Zhou Hun Yuan's troops.

This is the point of view of connection.

However, at this time, the situation on the battlefield suddenly changed, Zhou Hunyuan refused to venture forward alone, and all the encirclement and suppression troops adopted a strategy of gradual advancement and siege of pillboxes.

So from the perspective of the movement, how will this bunker promotion strategy evolve if it continues to develop?

It inevitably evolved into gradually reducing the Red Army to a small space, and finally annihilating the Red Army with superior troops.

If we continue to develop in the direction of this movement, if we do not take contingency measures, then there is a danger of extinction.

At this time, in fact, we use the perspective of movement to analyze the consequences of the development of things at different stages.

After the analysis is out, we take corresponding measures, so there are three crossings of chishui, the enemy is mobilized to another place, in the enemy's movement, we find gaps to intersperse, so as to avoid the enemy's four-sided encirclement strategy.

In the Three Crossings of Chishui, the analysis of this strategy is applied to the point of being fascinating.

For example, if we cross the Chishui River with great fanfare, what changes will this cause to the enemy?

We sent a regiment to pretend to attack Gulin, what changes will this cause to the enemy?

What changes will the enemy cause when we let this feint regiment be brought on the radio and frequently transmitted signals?

The occurrence of these three events can be predicted by speculating with the eyes of movement, and there is a great possibility that the enemy will be mobilized to the Gulin area, so that our main army can cross the red water in all directions to shake off the enemy.

There's actually a connection and movement in it all about looking at things.

When we look at things from these two perspectives, we actually look at things from the perspective of the overall situation, and this kind of vision is what we call strategic vision.

Five

How to cultivate this strategic thinking

There are many elements involved in complex things, and in general, we can start with simple analysis.

How simple is that?

Just ask yourself these two questions as you make every decision, say every word, do everything, and think about every decision:

First, if this decision, this sentence, or this thing is done, what impact will it have on who, what things, and things around you?

Second, if this decision, this sentence, this thing is done, what impact will it have on what aspects of your future?

When you do anything, think about these two questions simply, and you can gradually develop your own strategic vision.

The more you think, the more you connect, then when you want to achieve a certain goal, you will consider the possibilities between various things, the possibilities of various stages, so as to help you make a reasonable plan.

This is both a strategy, it is not so high and unattainable, but it is not so easy to master.

So some people may say, do people have to live so tired? With so much to think about, what fun is there?

This question is to be said in a passage that appeared in the recent Long March:

"Defend for offense, retreat for forward, turn sideways for the sake of facing head-on, take detours for the sake of going straight. The affairs of the world are not transferred by your will, you want to be so biased that you can't do it all at once, and when you come back in a circle, things are just done again. ”

Many things are like this, thinking more for the sake of thinking less, worrying more for the sake of less trouble, experiencing fewer twists and turns in advance, and so on.

Sometimes, less is more, opposites and unity.

You see, it's not that all the problems are connected, they're all connected, it's wonderful.

If you feel tired, then this is also the truth, in order to live less tired, you have to live tired first, isn't it still the same reason?

Think more, think more, and see things more frequently from the perspective of connection and movement, not that you should be careful and personal, but a habit and method of looking at things and analyzing things.

If you look at my "I Read Mao Xuan And Share", you know that I have not uploaded "The Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War" and the theory of practice and contradiction, because these articles are too classic, and I dare not use my own simple views to analyze them, and I am really worried about misleading people.

Next, we will continue to analyze the "Strategic Issues of China's Revolutionary War", you can click "Watching" below to keep an eye on it.

Well, I'll talk to you here today.

A trip to the mountains, a ride to the water, an article is also a fate that passes by.

Write as you like, don't try to be lively;

If you can see it, you have a fate.

Welcome to chat.