Three minutes to talk about culture
"Striking at the west" means that the enemy will be thrown away immediately after striking from the east, creating a false impression, luring the enemy into making erroneous judgments, and causing confusion in the enemy's command.
Say 200 A.D. Cao Cao and Yuan Shao fought for hegemony in the Central Plains, and set up a battlefield on the bank of the Yellow River, which is a famous battle of Guandu in history. At that time, Yuan Shao had 100,000 horses and horses, and he was the most powerful prince at that time, and the army that Cao Cao used to resist Yuan Shao was only about 20,000, which was far inferior to Yuan Shao, how could he defeat Yuan Shao?
At this time, Yuan Shao's general Yan Liang led 10,000 horses to attack Cao Cao's strategic place White Horse City, White Horse City was in an emergency, Cao Cao hurriedly gathered all the strategists to discuss countermeasures, some said to send troops to rescue, some said that it was better to give up, Cao Cao was not sure of his mind for a while.
At this time, the strategist Xun You said: "At this time, we can first send troops to cross the Yellow River and pretend to attack Yecheng." When Yuan Shao divided his troops to rescue, we could send troops to attack Yuan Jun, who was besieging White Horse City, Cao Cao clapped his hands and decided to act according to the plan.
Cao Cao led thousands of men to march to Yecheng overnight, and when Yuan Bing learned about it, he hurriedly reported to Yuan Shao. Yecheng is Yuan Shao's old man, Yuan Shao listened, and was angry, and hurriedly led the men and horses to Yecheng to face the battle.
Cao Cao learned that Yuan Shao had gone to Yecheng, so he hurriedly turned around, hurried his horse, and marched towards White Horse Citywas defeated by the Cao army who came, and most of the dead and wounded.
Yuan Shao rushed to Yecheng, but he didn't even see Cao Cao's shadow, so he knew that he was fooled and immediately ordered his troops to return to White Horse City. But it was too late, Yuan Shao's generals Yan Liang and Wen Chong died in the chaos, and Cao Cao adopted the strategy of attacking the east and the west, dispersing the forces of Yuan's army, and won the victory in one fell swoop.
When applying the tactic of "striking at the west", it is necessary to consider the situation of the other side and confirm that the enemy's command can indeed be disrupted, and then this method will be victoriousIf the opposing commander is level-headed and sees through the strategy, this strategy will not work, so when using it, it is necessary to correctly judge the enemy's situation. It's a brilliant plan, but the reality is unpredictable.