Ling Guang-45-"The Art of War"

Recently, I flipped through history books again.

Although I won't deliberately use it because it's tiring, but how to do great things? I've put all the answers here.

Mobilization under the guise of religion or lofty ideals is often the catalyst for historical change, but its core is often intertwined with more primitive driving forces: the struggle for resources, the redistribution of power, and the satisfaction of group desires. The promised land on the surface, in the reality of political operations, is replaced by very specific visions of interest. This is not a historical accident but a recurring logic in the reshaping of power structures.

Throughout the history of the East and the West, this pattern is not uncommon. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng's uprising initially rallied people with the egalitarian appeal of equal land and tax exemption, but in the process of its rapid expansion and even the capture of Beijing, it attracted far from all idealists. A large number of displaced people, defeated soldiers, and frustrated literati joined, with mixed motives: many sought food and clothing, revenge, or wealth, while those who truly envisioned a blueprint for an equal land society were likely few. Slogans here became a kind of adhesive, directing the restless forces caused by various real hardships toward the common action of overthrowing the old order. The heaven promised by the slogan was equal land and tax exemption; the heaven in the hearts of the followers: survival, turning over, and seizing power, achieved a temporary isomorphism under the same banner.

The Western example may be more typical. In late medieval Europe, the indulgences issued by the Church were essentially a theological packaging of wealth transfer. The Martin Luther Reformation they triggered, though under the banner of pure faith, quickly combined deeply with the political independence demands of the German princes, the dissatisfaction of the urban class with economic burdens, and even the emergence of national consciousness. What Luther attacked was the wealth and corruption of the Roman Church; what the princes saw was an opportunity to intercept church property and strengthen their own power. The spread of Protestant faith and the consolidation of secular power, the redistribution of economic resources, went hand in hand. Under the theological slogan of justification by faith, it was a profound socio-political and economic revolution. Believers thought they were building a heaven of faith, while the princes and citizens were building a new order of power and wealth.

More recent cases are no exception. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement mobilized the lower classes with a modified Christian doctrine, the God Worshipping Society. Hong Xiuquan proclaimed "All under heaven as one family, sharing great peace," depicting a dual utopia of material and spiritual. However, under the Holy Treasury system, wealth was highly concentrated, and the equality preached by the privileged class quickly collapsed. The anti-Qing slogan it inspired was both national sentiment and the most direct desire for land, food, and living space. For most of the following peasants, the Heavenly Kingdom first meant having land to farm and food to eat, not abstract theological ideals. The great destructive power and final defeat of this movement precisely proved that when the heaven promised by the slogan, sharing great peace; and the heaven actually built by the leadership group, privileged rule, seriously deviated, internal collapse was inevitable.

The art of politics lies in effectively integrating these complex and diverse, even contradictory motives. Machiavelli pointed out in "The Prince": "The ruler does not need to have all good qualities, but must appear to have them. What is important is to maintain support and achieve the goal."; Napoleon once commented that what he most envied about Alexander was not his outstanding military ability, but his outstanding political mind. He worshipped Amun, and thus truly conquered Egypt.

Directing force in the same direction is often more urgent and feasible than unifying hearts. Manipulating symbols, simplifying narratives, and establishing common enemies.

Whether it's the Qing court, the Roman Church, or the infidels. In the crucible of mobilization, refined ideas often need to give way to simple creeds with emotional impact and action appeal.

Those magnificent movements in history should be examined from a dual perspective: we must listen to the public declarations and lofty ideals that resound through the clouds, and also detect the unspoken, or secretly discussed in private rooms, practical calculations; what drives the trend is never a single pure thought, but the complex force formed by the combination of the banner of idealism and the torrent of realism.

In the end, whether it's "Overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming" or "Justification by faith," the role of slogans lies not only in the truth or falsity of their ideas, but in whether they can provide explanations for the specific pains of the times, provide outlets for the repressed desires of the group, and clothe the redistribution of resources with a legitimate appearance. History is often written with the real footnotes of the latter, while the former is engraved on the monument.

Most of the people who have read books and understand reason are already officials in the Qing court. So if we want to fight against the Qing court, we have to use some stupid people; to deal with those stupid people, we must never tell them the truth, we must use religious forms to hypnotize them, to make them feel that what they are doing is right.

 

So "Overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming" is just a slogan, just like "Amitabha." The Qing Dynasty has always oppressed us Han people, taking our silver and women, so we must overthrow the Qing; to overthrow the Qing, to take back our money and women, whether to restore the Ming or enrich the people in the future, is just taking off pants to fart, who cares? Okay, we are all smart people, understand. In short, if successful, there will be countless money and women.

In fact, there is no need to care about the suffering of the world, whether it's the leader or the followers, it's all for the word "profit"; all those who shout slogans of building heaven are actually building their own heaven, others' hell; so don't talk so much, to achieve your own goals, use any sinister people, let these people and forces go in the same direction is the highest art of war, the art of politics.

Do you think Chen Jinnan in "The Deer and the Cauldron" has ideals? He does; so what he said to Wei Xiaobao was about others, not himself, but for such sinister people, this direct method must be used; he said those people are stupid, are those people stupid? Most are. So his propaganda to them is indeed the word "profit"; investment and speculation, no matter which way, in terms of verbs, are one.

First step, first understand what the purpose of this battle is, that is, my strategic purpose, how to establish momentum. If you think about settling for a corner from the beginning, and you think about pacifying the world from the beginning, the result is bound to be different; second step, how do I fight? In the general direction, what is near, what is far, what to fight first? What to put later, what to win over? What is the path? How to achieve, how to use tactics; third step, finally, how do I form a favorable environment where the strong always defeat the weak. How to deliver benefits to all parties, how to unite the interests of all parties, that is, to make friends as many as possible, to make enemies as few as possible. Form a joint force.

The art of war is nothing more than: momentum, tactics, force