When the state of Yan attacked Qi, it captured more than seventy cities, leaving only Ju and Jimo unconquered. Tian Dan, a general of Qi, relying on the city of Jimo, defeated the Yan army, slew the Yan general Qi Jie, and recovered the cities of Qi. In the beginning, when the Yan army was attacking Qi, King Min of Qi said to Su Dai, "The Yan army is powerful—what shall be done?" Su Dai replied, "Allow me to go and persuade the King of Yan." Thereupon Su Dai journeyed to Yan and said to the King of Yan, "Qi has defeated Chu in the south, humbled Qin in the west, and driven the forces of Han and Wei, along with the people of Yan and Zhao, as easily as one wields a whip to urge on horses. Now, Your Majesty, with the might of a state of ten thousand chariots, seeks to avenge a grievance against Qi—I privately deem this a grave error. Though Qi be a lesser state, none under heaven can withstand it. If Your Majesty now desires to attack it, it is like striking a rock with an egg. Better that Your Majesty lift the siege against Qi and treat it with generosity, lulling it into unpreparedness, and then plot against it thereafter." The King of Yan said, "Well spoken." And so he withdrew his troops. Later, King Zhao of Yan passed away, and King Hui of Yan ascended the throne, bearing a grudge against Yue Yi. When Tian Dan heard of this, he spread a divisive scheme within Yan, proclaiming, "The King of Qi is already dead, and of Qi's cities, only two remain untaken. Yue Yi, fearing execution, dares not return to his own state. Under the pretext of attacking Qi, he in truth seeks to muster his forces and proclaim himself king in the south over Qi. The people of Qi have not yet submitted to him, and so he deliberately delays his assault on Jimo, biding his time. What the people of Qi dread is only that another general should come—for then Jimo would surely fall." King Hui of Yan, credulous of this, sent Qi Jie to replace Yue Yi. Yue Yi fled to the state of Zhao, and the soldiers of Yan were all filled with indignation. Tian Dan then gathered more than a thousand oxen from within the city, draped them in crimson silk, painted them with five-colored dragon patterns, bound sharp blades to their horns, and fastened reeds soaked in oil to their tails, igniting the ends. He chiseled several dozen holes in the city wall, and under cover of night released the oxen, with five thousand stalwart soldiers following behind them. As the tails burned hot, the oxen, enraged, charged into the Yan camp, and the Yan army was thrown into great panic by night. The blazing light of the torches on the tails blazed brilliantly, and when the Yan soldiers beheld the dragon patterns upon the oxen, any they struck were either slain or wounded. The five thousand men, seizing the moment, attacked the Yan forces with wooden bits clenched in their mouths to stifle all sound, while the city's inhabitants beat drums and raised shouts in pursuit, the aged and weak alike clanging bronze vessels to make a din that shook heaven and earth. The Yan army, utterly terrified, fled in defeat. The men of Qi then slew the Yan general Qi Jie. As the Yan troops scattered in chaos, the Qi forces gave chase to the routed enemy, and every city they passed turned against Yan and submitted to Tian Dan. Thus were all of Qi's seventy-odd cities recovered.
💡 商战启示录
Tian Dan's restoration of Qi stands as a classic exemplar of ancient commercial strategy. Its core tactics lie in the "stratagem of sowing discord" and "surprise innovation through asymmetry." The former corresponds to information warfare in modern business: Tian Dan precisely exploited the fissure of trust between King Hui of Yan and General Yue Yi, disseminating false intelligence to dismantle the rival's core leadership—much as enterprises today leverage internal discord among competitors, weakening their management cohesion through舆论 manipulation or headhunting tactics. Yue Yi's replacement by Qi Jie plunged the Yan army into low morale, akin to the decline in combat effectiveness a company suffers after losing key talent. The surprise innovation embodies the "blue ocean strategy": rather than frontal assault, Tian Dan devised the "fire-ox formation"—an asymmetric weapon that overturned the rules of battle with minimal cost and maximal shock, paralleling how technological disruption or business-model innovation reshapes industries, as Tesla challenged legacy automakers with electric vehicles, or Netflix upended DVD rental through streaming. Tian Dan also excelled at "all-hands marketing": the elderly and weak within the city struck bronze vessels to amplify the din, magnifying the effect of victory—just as companies mobilize every employee in brand propagation to achieve viral diffusion. Moreover, in the aftermath of triumph, Tian Dan swiftly recovered over seventy cities, underscoring "momentum-driven expansion," which corresponds to seizing market windows to rapidly capture share. This case delivers a cautionary lesson: in competition, one must guard against rivals' sowing discord while adeptly exploiting information asymmetry, and achieve breakthroughs through innovation rather than relying on brute-force resource confrontation.