Preface
It was in February, the 5th year of Han’s reign (202 B.C) that Liu Bang has officially claimed to be the new emperor in Dingtao. In May, Liu Bang has summoned the banquet in the Southern palace to all his subordinates. During the banquet, Liu proposed a question to all the guests saying that” All generals, please do not hide your true words from me, please speak your true words. Could anyone tell me that why I can hold the sovereignty of the world whereas Xiang Yu lost the charge?”
Gao Qi and Wang Ling answered, “My lord, you are a man of arrogance and tend to insult others, while Xiang Yu is a generous man and cares for his subordinates. However, my lord, every time you sent out a general to lead the troupe to conquer the city and land, you know the importance to share the profits with your troops. That is what we claimed as “sharing the profit with the world”. On the contrary, Xiang Yu tends to envy the talented and outstanding subordinates and traps those who have war merits and double-guesses those who are loyal. Even when he led the army to victory, he does not share profits with others and conquers the land without sharing the gains to his fellowship. That is why he lost the world.”
L
iu
replies that “You only know part of the reasons yet you may not know the core reason. If I want to compare the ability of military strategies and the ability to win the victory away from thousands miles from the battle field, I cannot compare to Zhang Liang. When it comes to the protection of the nation and comforting the civilians, support the military with grains without any shortcut of demand, I am far less able than Xiao He. If we want to talk about leading the military of hundreds of millions to win the victory and attack the land with success, I am no better than Han X
i
n. These three are all outstanding military leaders and I can recognize their talents and know to appoint them on the right positions, which is why I can win the world. Xiang Yu has only one important military counselor in his cabinet-Fan Tseng yet he did not trust him with important matters that is the main reason why Xiang Yu lost his battle against me and was captured alive.”
Such insightful statement made by Liu Bang has won the historical recognition from the later generations for thousands of years. However, from the point of view of myself, the author of the book, Liu Bang only knows part of the reasons whereas he did not know a deeper level of the reason behind his success. The solid triangular forces constructed by Zhang Liang, Xiao He and Han Xin indeed shall be credited with their military achievements for Liu’s winning of the world while Fan Zeng cannot nearly be compared to them in terms of military talents or his functional purposes. Xiang Yu did not completely abandon or lack of emphasis on the importance of Fan Xeng, even he put Fan in an important position still, it cannot lead to a better result than completely dessert Fan. The reason why Xiang Yu lost his battle against Li
u
was due to the strategic planning and Fan ‘s stratagem is nowhere clever than Xiang Yu.
From my point of view, a major business is like a big table, the trend, strategy, military tactics and logistics are the four stools that support the balance of the table. Not a single aspect can be discounted as useless. In between the times of the power shift of Qin Dynasty to Han Dynasty, the successive 5 leaders during this time: Ying Zheng (Emperor Qin Shi Huang), Chen Sheng, Mi Xin, Xiang Yu and Liu Bang., their rise and fall has been related with these four important aspects.
Let’s talk about Mi Xin, which the same king that has been established by Xiang Liang is called Emperor Yi of Chu. The overall status was the passing stage of Zhou to Qin system, but Mi Xin is trying to recover the Zhou’s ancient system under the treaties of Huai Wang. What reverse the ending of the final result is that he sent our two troops of military and Liu Bang and Xiang Yu have both attacked into the fortress of Xianyang (the capital city of Qin Dynasty) and overthrow Qin. Still, he has become the greatest loser, first of all, being forced to move out from the capital and then being murdered in a foreign land.
Chen Sheng has established his own kingdom at the county of Chen called “The Chu of Zhang” with the attempt for the succession of Qin. We can see that he has been right on the major trend. Strategically speaking, he urged to conquer Qin on the Westside of the border so that they can settle the camp on the west side of the land, which is also correct. Take Wu Guang in the name of the fake king to attack Xingyang to solve the problem of supply. Why Chen Sheng has finally lost in the battle and lead to final failure is due to the stratagem. He doesn’t have enough military talents to help him execute the strategy. The general-Wu Guang sent out to attack Xingyang has not achieved his ultimate goal .The leader of the troops sent out to conquer the land all have their own selfish minds. Only Zhou Wen has successfully fought his way and led into Hanguguan.
Ying Zheng has ruled Qin to unite the world and it has no doubt on the trend its strategy and tactics was no doubt quite superior. Unfortunately, he was too urgent to promote the sovereignty when promoting the Qin’s system and has led the human resources, material and finances to the brink of overloading. After Hu Hai has succeeded to his throne, he does not only try to correct his father’s fault, rather he kept self-abusing himself and lead the final overthrown of the second generation of Qin, Jr.
Ever since Liu Bang has the subinfeudation of the Hanz
h
ong area and Xiao He has regulated the laws and regulations which is a total reform of the internal affairs of Qin’s Dynasty. Take Han Xin to enforce the military law which is a total Qin’s system on his military reform. Afterwards, Zhang Liang has advised to distribute the land which is a total revolution of Qin’s system. From the general trend, Liu Bang has gone on the right track with the support of his of these three outstanding military talents. From the perspective of strategy, Han Xin’s strategy and mail to September under the strategic planning of Zhang Liang which guaranteed Liu Bang to remain on the right track. As for military tactics, from the choices of the Sanqin’s to the ambush to Qin so all the way to the North with the sweeping success of the North. Afterwards, the Qin system retreat back the old Zhou Dynasty system. The major trend of mistakes has become the “Chaos of Seven Nations” during the emperor Jing of Han.
Finally, when it comes to Xiang Yu, his tactics is inferior to no man however, it was flawed in other three aspects. When the world was under subinfeudation, Xiang Yu has infused with considerably high aspect of the Qin’s system under the treaties of the Emperor Yi of Chu. When it comes to strategy, Xiang Yu has committed major mistakes which will be later elaborate clearly in this book. As for the supply support, Xiang Yu’s military has been cut down from the army provision route and suffer from the bitter results.
However, the trend, strategy, military tactics and military provision supply were not mutually exclusive instead they are mutually related. If he does have the eye for strategy, he shall be knowing that the hybrid system of Zhou and Qin when practicing subinfeudation is not a long-term steady plan, rather it is a form of political compromise. The most ideal approach is he shall take into consideration once the world can be in military chaos again and prepare for the worst as strategic preparation. If his strategic planning has serve the purpose then he would not locate the capital at the city of Peng which lead to the supply chain has prolonged when Chu and Han goes against each other and give the Peng Yue to attack the Southern land, which will be touched upon later in the book.
As for personal traits, Liu Bang is more tactful than Xiang Yu when it comes to strategy whereas Xiang Yu is stronger than Liu Bang on tactics. We cannot simply conclude that the reason why Liu Bang wins and Xiang Yu fails is because strategy is more important than military tactics. In fact, strategically speaking, Xiang Yu often reverse his disadvantages through strong tactics in difficult situation, Liu Bang has been severely defeated by Xiang Yu’s strong tactics even when Liu was at a very advantageous standpoint.
