Imperial China, roughly 200 B.C. Two men, once great friends, became bitter enemies. Hsiang Yu descended from nobility; hot-tempered, dull-witted, and prone to violence, Hsiang was the heroic idiot, the type to lead his men into battle from the front. Liu Pang, on the other hand, hailed from the peasant class, and tended toward the crafty, the pragmatic, the strategic … seeking (and following) wise counsel, leisure, women, and wine. The men were generals in the Ch’u army, and were sent on competing fronts – Hsiang from the north, Liu on a more direct route – to conquer the kingdom of Ch’in. Hsiang was determined to reach the target city of Hsien-yang in Ch’in before his friend and brother-in-arms, but the commanding officer of the northern front hesitated in the advance to battle. Predictably, Hsiang became outraged, declared his senior officer a traitor, beheaded him and assumed control. To his surprise, however, Liu – with a smaller, faster army – was in Hsien-yang with Hsiang arrived. One of his advisers warned that Liu had begun to covet power more than women, wealth, or wine, and urged Hsiang to kill Liu at the first opportunity. Hsiang hesitated, perhaps recalling the friendship the two men once shared; Liu (sensing the danger) fled. Hsiang, angry at being bested and foiled, murdered the prince of Ch’in, burned Hsien-yang to the ground, then resumed his pursuit of Liu. Cornered, outnumbered, his army in disarray, Liu then asked Hsiang for peace. Again, Hsiang’s adviser cautioned him to kill Liu as a dangerous enemy, but possibly flattered, seemingly merciful, Hsiang instead decided to force Liu to acknowledge him as master, and allowed Liu to surrender. However, while negotiating terms Liu managed to escape once again, and Hsiang – bested and foiled, once again – resumed his pursuit. In a penultimate meeting, Hsiang captured Liu’s father and threatened to boil him alive if Liu did not surrender. Liu replied that his father was also Hsiang’s father; if Hsiang persisted in boiling the old man then he should bring Liu a bowl of soup. Later, Hsiang made a critical tactical error, enabling Liu to launch a surprise attack and gain the upper hand; this time, Hsiang offered surrender.
Liu accepted, then slaughtered Hsiang’s army, forcing Hsiang to flee alone and on foot. When he encountered a few of his former soldiers he told them: “I understand Liu has placed a bounty of 1,000 gold pieces for my head. Let me do you a favor.” Hsiang then slit his own throat.
A woman’s true power lay in her beauty, her charm, and her womb;
any and all three may be used as a weapon.
Beautiful and ambitious, born the daughter of a minor aristocratic family during the Tang Dynasty, Wu Zhao (Zetian) was formally induced into the imperial harem of Emperor T’ang T’sai-tsung at the tender age of 15, a fifth-grade concubine. But she had no intention of remaining a bedchambers plaything; rather, her sights were set much higher. While she used beauty and charm to establish herself as the Emperor’s favorite concubine, Wu understood that men are invariably fickle, notoriously inconstant, and what is favored one day can be forgotten the next. To secure her position, Wu turned her attentions to Kao Tsung, the Emperor’s son. When the Emperor died in 648 A.D. and Kao Tsung ascended the throne, Wu was forced to adhere to the customs of the age, which required the wives and concubines of the deceased Emperor to shave their heads, enter a convent, and remain there until death …
… it was considered unseemly for the chattel women of a dead Emperor to be with other men.
But Wu cared nothing for tradition, custom, or respect, and sought only power and position.
Emperor T’sai-tsung died when Wu was 24. By the time she turned 25, she had escaped the convent and returned to court as Kao Tsung’s concubine, befriending his wife, Empress Wang, while sleeping with the dynastic king. The empress encouraged Wu’s dalliance; she had not borne the new Emperor an heir, and hoped Wu, whom she believed to be an ally, would produce a child.
Which she did – a daughter – whom history rumors Wu Zhao promptly killed (either strangled or smothered but inevitably dead) and who then orchestrated the murder to implicate Empress Wang, who was in turn executed by her husband and father of the child, the Emperor, who then married Wu Zhao, making her his second wife and paving her way to become China’s only divine female ruler.
After, of course, she had all of her enemies, rivals, and even some of her own children, disgraced, exiled, or killed.
Imperial China’s original and only “Boss Bae,” Wu Zhao went on to become one of the era’s greatest rulers, reforming agriculture and taxation, securing trade on the Silk Road, developing her own set of Hanzi – called Zetian characters – and reigning over a 23-year period of peace and prosperity.
However.
A huge stone slab was erected in front of Wu’s tomb before her demise; as was customary in that time, after death historians inscribed a monarch’s accomplishments.
But for Empress Wu Zhao? Despite legendary social, political, and economic achievements,
her slab was left blank.
The truest of ironies is that the one son she had exiled instead of murdered?
Eventually, he returned … and forced Wu Zhao to abdicate the throne.
Seems she had (mostly) the right idea. In the end, it was the son she spared that dethroned her.
China has more than 4,000 years of recorded history, so no wonder that nation’s past is replete with tales of honor and betrayal, conquest and peace, mercy … and regret. A key tenet of Sun-Tzu’s Art of War considers that, by definition, enemies harbor ill-will; it is wiser to crush them totally than risk later retribution … the only assurance of peace in the presence of the enemy is their absence.
About 30 years prior to Communist China’s “Great Leap Forward,” Mao Tse-tung’s and his ragged army of 75,000 were driven into the mountains of western China by Chiang Kai-Shek, the leader of China’s Nationalist Party and the man who helped overthrow the Qing Dynasty, the last of China’s imperial rule. Chiang was determined to eliminate the Communist Party in China; by the mid-1930’s he managed to wipe out approximately 65,000 of Mao’s troops, but then got distracted by Japan’s incursion into his nation and lost sight of his original objective to permanently remove Mao and his supporters.
Chiang had forgotten the ancient rule; Mao, however, did not. During the advent of WW2 Mao had recovered enough military strength to obliterate Chiang’s army and drive him into Taiwan.
Today the Communist Party is the ruling authority in China, and Chiang’s Nationalist Party?
Mere historical fact and distant memory …
Napoleon Bonaparte once said that to have ultimate victory, one must be ruthless.
He would know.
Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian military theorist born late in the 18th-century, famously stated that “war is a continuation of politics,” believing that the ultimate objective of war is the total annihilation of the enemy; once the enemy has been vanquished, negotiation begins for the division of spoils, lands, resources and territory. A partial victory means only that the battle continues.
The goal of power is to control one’s enemies; destroy their options and force them to obey one’s will.
The subjugation of one’s adversaries does not necessitate bloodshed;
… rather, the true objective is to render them powerless, and unable to exact revenge.
However.
When exercising this Law of Power, be wary (and ever vigilant) of the wounded …
… a viper injured but alive will bite with twice the venom.
Mercy could be at your own expense. Tread carefully.