6. The Chinese General Who Tricked an Enemy Into Supplying Him With Arrows
Zhuge Liang (181-234) was a wily chancellor and military strategist during China’s Three Kingdoms Period, whose greatest exploit occurred in 208, during the buildup to a climactic battle between armies separated by the Yangtze River.
Zhuge Liang was maneuvered by his opponents to commit himself to furnishing 100,000 arrows within just a few days–a seemingly impossible task. After mulling it over, he gathered a flotilla of river boats, lined them up with bales of wet straw and instructed his crews what he expected from them.
He waited for a foggy night to quietly row them across the river and positioned them in a line close to the enemy camp. At a signal, his crews shattered the night’s silence by shouting, beating drums, clanging gongs and creating an unholy din.
As a result, the enemy camp awoke in a panic convinced they were facing an unexpected night attack. They unleashed a storm of arrows at the boat silhouettes flitting in the murk–arrows which were embedded in the bales of straw. After Zhuge Liang’s boats were full of arrows, his crews departed.
