Someone lobbied the King of Qin on behalf of the Six States, saying: "Why does Your Majesty not dispatch envoys to devise strategies for the Six States, causing them all to serve Qin with the rites of vassal lords? Thus Qin may be free of the peril posed by the feudal lords, and Your Majesty may sit securely and command the realm. Those Six States once vied with Qin for supremacy; now, if they are made to distrust one another, their combined strength will surely scatter—scattered, they will weaken, and weakened, they will be easy to control. If Your Majesty deigns to follow my counsel, then permit me to travel among the Six States and persuade them to become brother nations, with Qin as their hegemon, so that none under heaven dares to disobey. Should they refuse, dispatch troops to chastise them, and their ruin may be awaited within the hour." The King of Qin said, "Well spoken." He then sent envoys eastward to lobby the Six States, and indeed they all served Qin with the rites of vassal lords, whereupon Qin proclaimed itself emperor.
💡 商战启示录
This strategy reveals the wisdom of dividing competitors to secure maximum control at minimal cost. In modern business warfare, enterprises often establish industry alliances or standards, rendering competitors dependent and thereby dominating the market. For instance, Microsoft, during the PC era, opened system compatibility, drawing numerous hardware manufacturers into an ecosystem around Windows—seemingly equal cooperation, yet Microsoft held the core authority. Similarly, Qualcomm, through its patent licensing model, compelled phone makers to pay royalties with "tributary rites"; without direct mergers, it nonetheless tightly controlled the industrial chain. The crux lies in "sowing mutual suspicion"—creating cognitive divergence or conflicting interests among rivals to prevent their united opposition. When IBM opened its PC architecture, it set Compaq, Dell, and others against one another while IBM retreated behind the scenes to set standards, much like Qin "ruling all under heaven from a seated position." Yet caution is warranted: excessive fragmentation may shatter the ecosystem or invite antitrust scrutiny. Enterprises must balance control with mutual benefit—avoiding frontal clashes while ensuring their core advantages remain irreplaceable—to reign supreme in the arena of commerce.