Speaking of the Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons, I have to mention Qi Huan Gong, and the reason why Qi Huan Gong can become the overlord is that there is a peerless think tank behind him - Guan Zhong. One of his strategies not only reflects a deep insight into human nature, but also a strategic cleverness.
During the Spring and Autumn Period, the princes of the world were divided, and wars were frequent. In this era of war and chaos, the State of Qi has become the leader among many vassal states with its strong military and political strength, and the Duke of Qi Huan naturally has the ambition to become the overlord. However, to unify such a chaotic situation, it is clear that force alone is not enough, and this requires extraordinary resourcefulness and strategy.
Guan Zhong is not just an ordinary strategist, his wisdom lies in his grasp of people's hearts and the use of strategy almost to the realm of art. When Duke Huan of Qi wanted to conquer Chu by force, Guan Zhong proposed a seemingly absurd but actually far-sighted strategy - "gold to buy deer".
The State of Chu, as a country that is evenly matched with the State of Qi, naturally will not surrender easily. Guan Zhong is well aware that a hard-nosed military confrontation is too costly for Qi Guo, and it is better to adopt a more ingenious way. He proposed to use economic means to gradually weaken the national power of the state of Chu. The specific method is to buy the deer of Chu at a high price. What's the use of buying deer, you may ask? This reflects Guan Zhong's cleverness.
The land of Chu is vast and abundant, and deer is one of the very common resources. Guan Zhong's purchase of deer at a high price was able to make the Chu people mistakenly believe that the Qi country was rich and rivaled, and on the other hand, he was actually luring the Chu people to give up farming and go to hunt deer in exchange for gold. As a result, more and more Chu farmers put down their farming tools and turned to hunting in the mountains.
Guan Zhong's plan has just begun. When a large number of peasants in Chu gave up farming and went to the mountains to hunt deer, their grain production was naturally greatly affected. At this point, Guan Zhong sent people to secretly buy grain from Chu State, which further aggravated the food crisis in Chu State.
It wasn't until the deer hunting became popular and the granary of Chu was empty that people suddenly realized that all this was the other party's plan. But by this time, it was already too late. In this way, the state of Qi plunged the state of Chu into economic difficulties and social turmoil without spending a single soldier. The strength of the state of Chu was gradually weakened, and the people were struggling to make a living, and finally had to sue for peace with the state of Qi and recognize its supremacy.
The ingenuity of this strategy is that Guan Zhong did not directly start the war, but took advantage of the greed of the Chu people and allowed them to push the country to the brink of collapse. This strategy not only significantly reduces the risks and costs of war, but also profoundly reveals the greed and short-sightedness in human nature, and how these human weaknesses can be exploited for political purposes.
Such wisdom is not only reflected in the strategy of the enemy country, but also in the political education of one's own people. Through this incident, Duke Qi Huan deeply understood Guan Zhong's wisdom and foresight, and more firmly relied on and used Guan Zhong's strategy to rule the country. And the people of Qi also saw from this that their country did not rely on force alone, but relied more on wisdom and strategy to become the hegemon of the world.
This story still has strong relevance to this day. In the modern world, although we no longer solve problems through conquest, similar wisdom and strategies still apply in many fields such as business competition and international relations. How to resolve conflicts through non-confrontational methods and how to seek win-win results in competition are still worthy of our learning and thinking.
In this story, we see the importance of strategy, but also the wisdom of leaders. A good leader must not only have lofty goals, but also have the wisdom and strategy to achieve them. And the strength of a country is not only based on economic and military strength, but also on the strategy of governing the country and the wisdom of the people.
Guan Zhong's strategy of "buying deer with gold" is not only a simple economic operation, but also a profound psychological and strategic battle. This wisdom of leading opponents into traps demonstrates the deep understanding and exploitation of human nature by ancient wise men. Today, such stories can still bring us inspiration, whether in dealing with international relations or in business competition, foresight and insight into human nature can often achieve twice the result with half the effort.