The state of Qin attacked Zhao, and the King of Zhao sent Zhao Kuo to replace Lian Po as the supreme commander. Lin Xiangru admonished, saying: "Your Majesty appoints Zhao Kuo because of his reputation, but this is like gluing the tuning peg of a zither—the tones can never change. Zhao Kuo can only recite the military texts left by his father; he does not understand how to adapt with flexibility." The King paid no heed and appointed Zhao Kuo nonetheless.
From youth, Zhao Kuo had studied the art of war and discoursed on military strategy, believing that no one under heaven could rival him. He had once debated military matters with his father, Zhao She, who could not refute him, yet neither did he praise him. Zhao Kuo's mother asked Zhao She why this was so, and Zhao She replied: "War is a ground of life and death, yet Zhao Kuo speaks of it with careless ease. If Zhao does not employ Zhao Kuo as commander, so be it; but if it must employ him, the one who will bring ruin upon the Zhao army is none other than he."
When Zhao Kuo was about to set forth on campaign, his mother submitted a letter to the King of Zhao, saying: "Zhao Kuo cannot serve as supreme commander." The King asked: "Why?" She replied: "When I first served his father, he was then a great general. With his own hands he offered food to more than ten guests, and the friends he cultivated numbered in the hundreds. All the gifts bestowed by Your Majesty and the royal clan he distributed entirely among the officers and soldiers. From the very day he received his command, he ceased to concern himself with household affairs. Now, the moment Zhao Kuo assumed the generalship, he sat facing east to receive his subordinates, and no officer dared lift his eyes to look upon him. The gold, silk, and brocade bestowed by Your Majesty, he hoards and carries home, and each day he seeks out cheap lands and dwellings to purchase. In what way does Your Majesty see him as resembling his father? Father and son are of wholly different minds—I beg that Your Majesty not send him forth." The King said: "Return home; my decision is already made." Zhao Kuo's mother then said: "Since Your Majesty is resolved to send him, if he proves unequal to the task, may I be spared from implication?" The King consented.
After Zhao Kuo replaced Lian Po, he altered all the established regulations and dismissed many of the officers. When the Qin general Bai Qi learned of this, he dispatched elite troops in a surprise maneuver, feigning retreat while severing the Zhao army's supply routes, and split the Zhao forces into two isolated sections, so that the soldiers' morale dissolved. After more than forty days, the Zhao troops were starving. Zhao Kuo personally led his finest warriors in a desperate charge, and the Qin forces struck him down with arrows. The Zhao army suffered a catastrophic defeat, and several hundred thousand soldiers surrendered to Qin, who buried them all alive. In total, Zhao lost four hundred and fifty thousand men.
💡 商战启示录
Zhao Kuo's defeat reveals the fatal risk of "armchair strategy" in modern business. Many managers, armed with prestigious degrees, MBA theories, or success-story case studies, become blindly overconfident and disregard real market shifts. For instance, the founder of a bike-sharing giant, modeling rapid expansion on a Harvard business case, ignored the complexity of offline operations and cash-flow management, ultimately incurring massive losses. Zhao Kuo's "changing all rules and regulations" mirrors scenarios in corporate mergers or reforms where new leaders recklessly overturn established systems—such as Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer forcibly imposing new strategies while neglecting the existing technical architecture and user habits, accelerating the company's decline. Lin Xiangru's metaphor of "gluing the strings of a se" warns that business strategies must adapt to circumstances, not cling to dogma. Zhao Mu's observation highlights the essence of leadership: Zhao She shared hardships with his soldiers, while Zhao Kuo remained aloof above them—paralleling modern leaders who, focused solely on personal gain and detached from their teams, sow discord and disunity. Bai Qi's "feigned retreat" strategy resembles competitors in business who lure the recklessly expansive into traps by yielding ground. Ultimately, Zhao Kuo's death by arrow symbolizes enterprises eliminated by the market due to flawed decisions. Thus, the wisdom of modern business warfare lies in this: theory must be grounded in practice, leaders must be pragmatic and approachable, change must be gradual and inclusive, and one must guard against hubris—otherwise, however impressive one's credentials or theories, the fate of the Battle of Changping awaits.