100 Unorthodox Strategies

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'100 Unorthodox Strategies (Pai-chan Ch’i Lüeh), by Liu Po-wen or Liu Chi, was a popular strategy book in 1500s China. It essentially a Cliff’s Notes version of the Seven Military Classics:

Since these seven books comprised the core of Chinese battle doctrine, they were the basis for the Ming Dynasty civil service exams required for admission to officer candidate school. This page is a gloss-of-a-gloss, listing the core concepts for quick reference. English translations of the 100 Unorthodox Strategies are available for those wanting to read the additional commentary and historical examples.


100 Unorthodox Strategies
# Title Explanation
1 Estimates You must know what you’re up against to make a strategy. The first order of business is always assessing the enemy’s alliances, short-term and long-term goals, terrain features, strengths, weaknesses, intelligence, ability, unit size, and supply cache.
2 Plans
  • Instead of attacking enemies, ruin their plans.
  • It is best to prevent enemies from ever wanting to fight, through intimidation, awe, economic superiority, or surpassing virtue.
3 Spies Using spies is the most crucial aspect of planning. Without determining the enemy’s numbers, condition, abilities, etc., you can’t plan for the right things.
4 Elite Forces Vanguards must consist of the fiercest troops, to strengthen the resolve and mitigate the enemy’s awesomeness for the less-skilled inexperienced “clean-up crew” which follows.
5 The Infantry
  • Infantry is uniquely capable of operating in mountains, ravines, forests, and wetlands. Infantry can exploit these terrain features as natural ramparts to defend against chariots and cavalry.
  • Infantry can operate on broad, level, open terrain, provided that they establish a perimeter of ramparts, trenches, caltrops, etc.
  • Infantry is best used in wedge formations and amoeba-like enveloping pincer maneuvers.
  • Infantry should not chase after retreating enemies; cavalry is better suited for high-speed clean-up tasks.
6 The Cavalry Cavalry requires broad, level, open terrain to operate. They cannot operate in mountains, ravines, forests, wetlands, or bodies of water.
7 Amphibious Strategies
  • Being upstream offers the same advantage as being uphill.
  • Do not enter the water to attack river-fording enemies, since you will also be at a disadvantage.
  • Attack as enemies emerge from a river, making it a bottleneck.
8 Chariots Land-based vehicles require broad, level, open terrain. They cannot operate in mountains, ravines, forests, wetlands, or bodies of water.
9 Trust People will only fight and die for an absolutely trustworthy leader.
10 Instructions Sending untrained people into battle is the same as abandoning them. Even the simplest training of responding to the most basic marching orders (e.g., advance, retreat, halt, hold) is 10:1 force multiplier.
11 Large Numbers Numerically superior forces are an advantage, but only when they:
  • Unflinchingly respond to commands (especially to advance and halt).
  • Operate over large open terrain (to avoid forming useless bunches).
  • Utilize enveloping tactics.
  • Are not hampered by logistics and supply issues.
  • Do not overextend and/or spread out to thin, like in Risk.
12 Small Numbers Use guerrilla tactics to overcome numerically superior enemies (i.e., night raids, ambushes, and intercepting them at bottlenecks).
13 Love People will only fight and die for those who they truly care about.
14 Awe People will only fight and die for those who inspire awe, which is a 40/40/20 combination of reverence, admiration, and fear.
15 Rewards
  • Rewards can make subordinates prioritize your urgent concerns, since personal gain appeals to everyone.
  • People are most committed to causes which they directly benefit from.
  • Reward returns the will-to-live to despondent people, who must be alive to enjoy their rewards.
  • Only publicly-issued, merit-based rewards are effective motivators.
16 Punishments
  • Threats and/or fear are often necessary to goad others into fighting.
  • The mutual accountability which emerges between group members trying to avoid punishments creates group solidarity.
  • Punishments must be prompt, impartial, and consistent to ensure that unsupervised subordinates still follow their orders.
  • Punishments must be proportionate to the infraction. While the “broken windows” approach of severely punishing small infractions to prevent large infractions works, the resentment it creates is counterproductive.
17 The Host Fighting on your home turf is actually a disadvantage; it splits your forces’ energy between saving their homes, and destroying the enemy
18 The Guest Fighting on enemy turf is advantageous, since you will always be in desperate “back-to-the-wall” situations against a dispersed enemy.
19 The Strong Feign fear and weakness to lure enemies into fighting your stronger and/or numerically superior forces by throwing off their assessments.
20 The Weak Deceive a stronger and/or numerically superior enemy by exaggerating the size and power of your forces, to throw off their assessments
21 Arrogance
  • Treat exceedingly strong enemies whom you cannot certainly defeat with excessive obedience, humility and servitude. This fosters arrogance; an engineered character flaw to exploit later.
  • Strong enemies should be handled politically, rather than militarily.
  • Leaders must strive to balance confidence and pride, so they avoid hubris without repressing their potential.
22 Alliances
  • Bribe your enemy’s neighbors to secure a position for pincer attacks.
  • If you cannot thwart the enemy’s plans, disrupt their alliances.
    • Since most plans involve conspiracies and team-ups, the enemy’s power is limited when they can’t draw upon the strength of others.
23 Disposition Coax a numerically superior enemy into spreading out too thin, like in “Risk.” Breaking a large powerful force into many small forces spread over a large area negates their numerical advantage on a local scale.
24 Strategic Power
  • All tactics should focus on creating positional advantages.
  • Create strategic power by imposing constraints on your enemies. Capitalize on the momentum these create to attack the enemy’s weak points.
25 Daylight In daylight, always set up extra tents, pennants, and equipment to exaggerate your numbers and deceive spies.
26 Night Deceive spies at night by setting extra campfires and sending false communications and signals to non-existent forces to exaggerate your numbers and conceal your true location.
27 Preparation Preparation is the key to avoiding defeat. However, the level of paranoia needed to guarantee safety inevitably leads to fatigue and burnout, which creates laxity and openings. Focus on minimizing exposure and being aware of your weaknesses, since neither of these can be truly eliminated.
28 Provisions
  • Standoffs are won by whoever is the best-supplied.
  • Hungry, sick, wounded enemies without ammo or fuel are easily defeated.
  • Defend your supply lines at all costs.
  • Over-extended units need more time, and risk, to resupply.
  • Devote your most elite troops to destroying or disrupting the enemy’s supply chain.
29 Local Guides The local people must be consulted when devising strategies, because their life experience makes them experts on the local terrain features.
30 Knowledge Preparation means manipulating the enemy into fighting on your terms, at a time and place which you choose.
31 Observers “Forewarned is forearmed.” Forward observers, reconnaissance patrols, scouts, lookouts, and guard posts are critical to cope with the constantly-changing conditions of a dynamic battlefield environment.
32 Marshes
  • Avoid marshes or wetlands. If unavoidable, pass through quickly.
    • The soft, muddy ground impedes mobility, creating a bottleneck.
    • Enemies can divert dams, rivers, and streams can be to flood wetlands, and drown your immobilized forces.
  • If you must make camp, seek high ground a circular perimeter, to allow for drainage and defense from all directions.
33 Contentious Terrain
  • Rush into battlefields to secure the strategically-valuable locations.
  • Do not attack an enemy which has claimed strategically-valuable locations. Instead, wait for the situation to change.
34 Advantageous Terrain
  • Few armies are strong enough to overcome disadvantageous terrain.
  • Knowledge of terrain features and their exploitation is 50% of victory.
  • Total victory is impossible without exploiting terrain.
35 Mountains Mountains offer height and cover advantages, but make resupply difficult.
36 Valleys Valleys can be advantageous terrain, if they are fortified to keep enemies from using them as pinch points.
37 Offense Only attack when the enemy has a known exploitable weakness which you are capable of destroying with absolute certainty.
38 Defense Don’t attack if you don’t have what it takes to win. Instead, use this time to reinforce your defenses, and wait for a better opportunity.
39 Initiative Immediately attack enemies upon their arrival, before they have time to organize or fortify their position.
40 Response Delay conflict until the enemy’s spirit wanes and their discipline laxes.
41 The Unorthodox Attack in unexpected ways, when and where enemies are least prepared. Scholars overthink this technique; usually it’s a pincer attack.
42 The Orthodox Direct conventional conflict is a weapon-of-last-resort, reserved for use against enemies which cannot be confused, deceived, or cut off from reinforcements or resupply.
43 The Vacuous Conceal any gaps in your power or defense, to prevent the enemy from attacking your real weaknesses.
44 The Substantial Enemies with substantial strategic power will not move or attack recklessly, so brace yourself for their inevitable onslaught.
45 Recklessness Attacking without preparing a strategy based on a detailed analysis of the enemy guarantees defeat.
46 Weightiness (Gravitas) Prevent manipulation by never moving or maneuvering unless it clearly offers a real advantage
47 Profit The profit motive can be exploited to bait traps, lure enemies into ambushes, or deceive covetous enemies into other reckless actions.
48 Harm
  • Set up ambushes to prevent enemy raids and impede advancement.
  • The enemy will follow whatever path has no ambushes, so the ambushes can be used to indirectly control the enemy’s movements.
49 Security A highly-motivated far-traveling enemy wants to fight upon arriving. Instead, reinforce your defenses and secure your position to deny that fight and drag the conflict out into a siege, which depletes the enemy’s supplies and morale.
50 Danger People must expect to die in dangerous situations, because anything else results in a half-hearted effort that leads to both death and defeat. Ironically, only those who accept death get to live to see victory.
51 Fighting to the Death
  • Desperate situations produce maximum effort from subordinates.
  • If your troops are doubtful, confused, and disobedient, place them in actual confrontations and “burn the ships,” to give them perspective, and no recourse but to get their acts together.
    • Note that there are numerous historical examples of this stratagem failing.
52 Seeking Life Worrying about escaping and living after the battle weakens your resolve. If you have made proper assessments and troop deployments, then victory is certain and there is nothing to fear.
53 The Hungry Devote a portion of your troops to plundering. Consume the enemy’s provisions instead of your own to weaken them and make resupplying easier.
54 The Sated Far-traveling enemies have strained supply chains, so intercept the enemy’s resupply efforts with unorthodox troops.
55 Fatigue
  • Compel others to act, instead of being compelled.
  • It is critical to secure advantageous positions, because the enemy will tire themselves out scrambling to compensate.
56 Ease Relaxing after a victory gives enemies a chance to regroup and attack.
57 Victory Do not relax after victories, or act as though you were victorious; this opens yourself to attack.
58 Defeat Instead of dwelling on defeat, look for the advantages which the new situation brings (i.e., regroup and attack when they are celebration.)
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