Here at the frontier, the leaves fall like rain. Although my neighbors are all barbarians, and you, you are a thousand miles away, there are still two cups at my table.


Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

~ Wu-men ~


Sunday, February 25, 2007

The 36 Strategies: #21 The Gold Cicada Molts It's Shell


21. The gold cicada molts it's shell


This means leaving behind false appearances created for strategic purposes. Like the cicada shell, the facade remains intact, but the real action is now elsewhere.


A famous example of this strategy comes from the D-Day operation during WWII. The Germans were convinved that the US General Patton would be the leader of the invasion forces.


The allies set up a fake army, to be led by Patton. False communications were on the radio waves. German spys took pictures of fake tanks. A whole army was fabricated.


The D-Day invasion succeeded, in part, because the German Army thought the invasion was feint, with the real invasion, to be led by Patton, would take place elsewhere.

2 comments:

John Vesia said...

Patton the movie was just on recently. Quite a performance by George C. Scott (remember his monologue?). I believe he won the oscar for that one.

Rick Matz said...

That monologue was probably one of the top 100 scenes in movie history.