Gongzhong of Han sent Su Dai to speak to Xiang Shou of Qin, saying: “Your regard for personal favor is not as deep as your regard for the interests of Qin. Now you have allied with Han, yet Qin desires to attack Han—this is Han’s calamity. Gongzhong is about to have Han ally with Qin, and wishes to use Qin’s strength to attack Qi, which would be disadvantageous to you. It would be better for you to unite with Han to show kindness to Qin, and then attack Qi—Qi will surely submit to Han, which would be to your advantage. Now if you ally with Han, and Qin attacks Qi, Qi will surely submit to Qin—this would be your loss. I hope you will consider this carefully.” Xiang Shou said: “My uniting Qin and Han is not for the purpose of attacking Qi, but rather to chastise Qi through this means—why do you speak thus?” Su Dai replied: “If Qin desires to attack Qi, it must first pass through Han, yet Han and Qin have never been on intimate terms. If Qin wishes to attack Qi, Han will surely not come to its rescue. Therefore, when Qin attacks Qi, it must rely upon Han as its support. It would be better for you to unite with Han, using Han as your support, and then attack Qi—Qi will surely submit to Han, and Qin will surely be grateful to you. In this way, it will be to your advantage.” Xiang Shou said: “Well spoken.” Thereupon he formed an alliance with Han.
💡 商战启示录
This strategy reveals the game-theoretic wisdom of restructuring alliances through the redefinition of interests. Su Dai did not directly persuade Xiang Shou to abandon the Qin-Han alliance; instead, he guided his decision-making by reframing what constituted "benefit": he argued that joining with Han to attack Qi was inferior to allying with Han to jointly campaign against Qi, thereby allowing Qi to fall to Han while Qin gained moral prestige—a win-win outcome. In modern business, this resembles the co-opetition strategies among platform enterprises. For instance, in the Microsoft-Nokia partnership, Microsoft could have forcibly promoted its own operating system, but chose instead to ally with Nokia—leveraging Nokia's hardware strengths while allowing Nokia to benefit within the ecosystem, thereby jointly countering Apple and Android. Conversely, when one party becomes overly dominant and forcibly annexes its partner's interests—as when Microsoft later acquired Nokia's handset division without balancing the interests of all stakeholders—the synergy collapses. The core of Su Dai's approach lies in "repaying interest with virtue": consolidating alliances by granting allies tangible benefits, rather than engaging in zero-sum games. In business negotiations, enterprises often fall into "either-or" thinking, but the superior strategy is to reframe the problem and discover a third path where both parties gain. For example, the merger of Didi and Kuaidi was not an acquisition by one side, but rather a capital integration that rewarded shareholders on both sides while reducing destructive competition, ultimately allowing the combined entity to dominate the market. Thus, this strategy teaches us: in business cooperation, one should skillfully analyze the counterparty's true needs, and by adjusting the cooperative framework, enable the other side to see that "benefiting others" is "benefiting oneself," thereby forging a sustainable alliance rather than engaging in short-term exploitation.