Tian Dan was about to attack the Di tribe, and went to see Master Luzhong. Master Luzhong said, "General, if you attack Di, you will not take it." Tian Dan said, "I once held an inner city of five li and an outer city of seven li, leading broken remnants of troops, and defeated Yan with its ten thousand chariots, recovering the lost lands of Qi. Now if I cannot take Di, why is that?" He mounted his carriage and left without taking leave, then went to attack Di, but after three months he still had not conquered it. Tian Dan then became afraid, and went to ask Master Luzhong, saying, "Sir, you said I would not take Di—please let me hear your reasoning." Master Luzhong said, "When the general was at Jimo, when seated you wove grass baskets, when standing you held a spade, and urged your soldiers on, saying: 'There is no place left to go! The ancestral temples are destroyed! The souls are scattered! Where is there to return to?' At that time, the general had the resolve to die, and the soldiers had no thought of survival. Hearing your words, there was none who did not wipe away tears and raise their arms, eager to fight—this is why you could defeat Yan. But now, to the east the general has the revenues of Yi, to the west the pleasures of the Zi River, a golden belt at your waist, galloping between the Zi and Mian rivers—you have only the joy of living, and no resolve to die. This is why you cannot prevail." Tian Dan said, "I have such a heart, and you, sir, have already perceived it." The next day, he roused his spirit and inspected the city walls, standing where arrows and stones flew thick, took up the drumstick and beat the drum—and only then was the Di tribe conquered.
💡 商战启示录
Tian Dan's failure and subsequent success in besieging Di reveals the dialectical relationship between "crisis awareness" and "complacency" in business leadership. In the early days at Jimo, Tian Dan found himself in a desperate situation, sharing hardships with his team and igniting a collective determination to fight with their backs against the wall, ultimately triumphing over a stronger foe through sheer will. Yet once glory and rank were secured, he indulged in the comforts of his fiefdom and stipend, sinking into ease and losing all sense of urgency—his army's morale scattered, and even a minor city defied him for three months. This mirrors the modern corporate world: many enterprises rise through grit and unity of purpose in their founding years, but after an IPO or a successful funding round, founders and executives often fall prey to the "affluenza"—becoming conservative in decision-making, bureaucratic in structure, and stagnant in innovation. Nokia's sluggish response to the smartphone revolution, or Kodak's neglect of digital photography, are both cautionary tales of how the comfort zone forged by success can cause one to miss the window of transformation. The key to Lu Zhongzi's awakening of Tian Dan lay in re-establishing a "resolve to face death"—that is, rebuilding a sense of crisis. In modern business, leaders must emulate Ren Zhengfei's insistence on "Huawei's winter" or Jeff Bezos's unwavering "Day 1" philosophy, proactively sustaining the organization's hunger and agility by setting ambitious goals, dismantling departmental silos, and encouraging internal competition to counteract the inertia bred by success. Tian Dan's eventual return to the front lines, braving arrows and stones to beat the war drum, demonstrates that a leader must lead by example, stay grounded at the forefront, and transmit the signal of "battle" to reunite the team and overcome the challenge. The core strategic lesson of this tale is thus: regardless of an enterprise's stage, leaders must remain vigilant against the erosion of strategic sharpness by complacency, deliberately cultivate a "moderate sense of crisis," and personally charge ahead—only then can sustained competitiveness be preserved.