Zhuge Liang’s Arrows and Empty Fort Stratagem
Zhuge Liang (181-234) was a wily chancellor and military strategist during China’s Three Kingdoms Period. One of his exploits took place in 208 during the buildup to a climactic battle between armies separated by the Yangtze River, when Zhuge Liang was maneuvered by opponents to commit himself to furnish 100,000 arrows within a few days – a seemingly impossible task. After mulling it over, he gathered a flotilla of riverboats, lined them up with bales of wet straw, and instructed their crews what he expected from them.
He waited for a foggy night, quietly rowed them across the river and, undetected, positioned them in a line close to the enemy camp. At a signal, his crews broke the night’s silence by shouting, beating drums, clanging gongs, and creating an unholy din.
Startled, the enemy camp awoke in a panic, and convinced they were facing a surprise night attack, unleashed a storm of arrows at the boat silhouettes flitting in the murk – arrows that were embedded in the bales of straw. Then, his pincushioned boats groaning with the weight of more than 100,000 captured arrows, Zhuge departed.
Another bluff, which became proverbial as the “empty fort strategy“, occurred when he was tasked with defending a walled city with a severely undermanned garrison. A superior enemy army approached – one against which Zhuge’s minuscule garrison stood no chance. Rather than barricade the gates, he threw them open, then grabbed a musical instrument and played it nonchalantly atop the walls. When the enemy commander saw the city’s gates wide open, looked up and saw the walls unmanned, and heard Zhuge playing music, he suspected a trap, turned his army around, and left.