36 Strategies Vernacular Full Translation

31 Chapter 1: Introducing Bricks and Attracting Jade ([-])
The original classics are used to lure them, and they are also attacked.

The translation uses similar things to lure the enemy, so that the confused and ignorant enemy can be fooled and suffer our attack.

Interpreting the meaning of "throwing bricks to attract jade" in the 36 strategies is very clear, that is, throwing out a worthless brick in exchange for a piece of priceless jade, that is, "exchanging cheap for expensive", "using small to make big", "using sheep for cattle" ".Brick can generally refer to all things of inferior quality, low value or small quantity. In contrast, jade refers to all things of high quality, high value or large quantity.

The "bricks" thrown can be "real bricks" (real benefits) or "fake bricks" (fake actions).There are also many methods of throwing: open throwing, dark throwing, long throwing, near throwing, full throwing or split throwing.But it should be clear: the value of the things attracted must be higher than the things thrown out, otherwise the gains will not be worth the losses, and the work will be in vain.

In a word, as a kind of strategy, attracting jade by throwing bricks and stones is by no means gentle and elegant, but a technique of deceiving, plundering, and seeking for big gains with small gains.Throwing bricks out is just to wait for jade, and if jade does not come, various means must be used.Or lure, or cheat, or take it by skill, or use all kinds of force to take it.Use similar things to confuse the other party, make them make wrong judgments, take the false as true, and then try to eliminate it.This is the crux of the trick.

This meter has a wide range of applications.It can be used positively and legitimately, and of course, crooked ways are also effective.It belongs to the small effect for small effect, big effect for big effect.In officialdom, a cheque can get a lord.In politics, a beautiful lie can swindle a large number of votes and the support of countless people.In military affairs, it is to lure and confuse the enemy army so that they are ignorant and fooled, and they can be caught in our trap, so that they can take the opportunity to attack them.There are various applications.It can be said that "throwing bricks to attract jade" is infinitely wonderful, it depends on how you use it flexibly.

And when the enemy uses this timing, we can take the following preventive measures.

[-]. Watching six directions and listening to all directions, flexible and flexible.Make reasonable adjustments to our strategic deployment at any time according to the enemy's situation. Don't stick to it stubbornly and let the enemy fool and manipulate you.Only by being good at observation, adapting to the situation, reviewing in time once suspicious signs are found, and distinguishing the true from the false, can we effectively prevent the traps designed by the enemy from falling on us.

[-]. Always recognize the situation, distinguish between the enemy and ourselves, insist that "there is no free lunch in the world", and not be swayed by the enemy's small favors.Those who are greedy for petty gain will often mistakenly enter the thief's boat, and when the enemy has the ability to protect their own rights and interests, they will generally not give up their benefits.Therefore, if you find a small profit in an area where the enemy is well-defended and under strong control, you must carefully identify whether it is a bait, and you must not fall into the enemy's arms, and you will get a small gain and suffer a big loss.

[-]. Adhere to our own opinions and judgments, not let the enemy's rhetoric influence our plans, and strictly prevent falling into the predicament of conformity.If others hint that it is beneficial, you will take it; if you do what others are rushing to do, you will inevitably fall into the trap.Therefore, we must stick to our own thoughts and independent opinions, and the more chaotic we are, the more we must maintain our own opinions.

In short, once the enemy shows signs of using the strategy of "throwing bricks to attract jade", we should promptly dismantle and destroy his plan, and we must not let the opponent use "broken bricks" to deceive us of our "good jade".

Examples of Wisdom
The Khitan defeated the Tang army

The strategy of "throwing bricks to attract jade" is actually to take advantage of the enemy's weakness, give a little sweetness to lure the enemy into being fooled, and finally achieve the goal of defeating or annihilating the enemy.The following story is to take advantage of the enemy's arrogance and weakness, which is easy to underestimate the enemy, and successfully lure him into an ambush to destroy him.

In 690 AD, Khitan captured Yingzhou.Wu Zetian sent four generals Cao Renshi, Zhang Xuanyu, Li Duozuo, and Marenjie to march westward to recapture Yingzhou and pacify Khitan.

Sun Wanrong, the Khitan pioneer, was familiar with military books and was quite cunning.He thought that the Tang army was so powerful that a head-on confrontation would not be good for him, so he first created public opinion in Yingzhou that there was a shortage of food, and deliberately let the captured Tang soldiers escape.Commander-in-chief Cao Ren of the Tang Army saw that the Tang soldiers who had fled back along the way were yellow and emaciated, and learned from them that Yingzhou was seriously short of food, and the Khitan soldiers in Yingzhou City were not stable.Teacher Cao Ren was overjoyed, thinking that the Khitan was vulnerable, and the capture of Yingzhou was just around the corner.

Zhang Xuanyu and Maren Jiebu, the vanguard of the Tang army, both wanted to win the first prize, greedy for merit, and rushed forward to Yingzhou.Along the way, the old and weak Khitan soldiers who escaped from Yingzhou claimed that Yingzhou city was seriously short of food, and the soldiers fled one after another, expressing their willingness to surrender to the Tang army.The two generals Zhang and Ma believed that Yingzhou was short of food and the Khitan army was unstable.So, they led their troops to travel day and night to Xixia Stone Valley.I saw that the road here is narrow, with cliffs on both sides.According to the law of using troops, this should be a dangerous place to set up an ambush.However, Zhang and Ma mistakenly thought that the Khitan soldiers were already too hungry to survive a single blow, and because of their mentality of taking the first place, they forced the troops to continue to attack.

The Tang army entered the valley mightily and marched smoothly.Unexpectedly, at dusk, there was only a sound of a cannon, and instantly arrows rained down on the cliff.Tang soldiers turned on their backs and trampled each other, causing countless casualties.I saw Sun Wanrong personally leading the troops rushing from all directions.The Tang army could not advance or retreat, there were ambushes in the front, and the cavalry intercepted and killed them in the back. Without a fight, there would be chaos. Zhang and Ma were also captured alive by the Khitan army.Sun Wanrong used the seal of the general of the Tang army found, and immediately wrote to Master Cao Ren, falsely reporting that Yingzhou had been conquered, and asked Cao Renshi to go to Yingzhou City to deal with the Khitan leader quickly.

Master Cao Ren had already relaxed his vigilance. After receiving the letter, he believed it and immediately led his troops to Yingzhou.The large army advanced rapidly, and was also preparing to pass through the Xixia Stone Valley and rush to Yingzhou.Needless to say, this invincible army repeated the same mistakes, and was also chased and intercepted by the Khitan ambushes, and the entire army was wiped out.

In this case, Sun Wanrong deliberately let the captured Tang soldiers go, and gradually arranged for the old and weak Khitan soldiers to flee, giving Zhang and Ma the illusion that the enemy was defeated and incompetent.The Khitans lured the enemy to go deep, and finally wiped out the enemy in one fell swoop.

Buy one get one free

In business activities, the strategy of "throwing bricks to attract jade" can be used in many aspects.For example, the company invests in advertising expenses in product promotion activities, scientific research expenses and trial production expenses in product development activities, and benefits and benefits in the process of recruiting talents, etc., all of which have received the effect of attracting jade.

There is an automobile factory called Oldsmobile in Connecticut, USA. Its business has been sluggish for a long time, and the factory was once facing bankruptcy.The president of the factory reflected on the operation and production strategy, and summed up the reason for the failure of the company's operation: the sales method was not flexible.Therefore, he carefully compared the marketing techniques of competitors and other products, and finally designed a bold sales method, "buy one, get one free".

The practice of buying one and getting one free has been around for a long time, but the general practice is to give away some small items for free.For example, if you buy a TV, you will get a small toy; if you buy a video recorder, you will get a video tape and so on.And this kind of marketing method of exerting a little favor on customers can indeed play a great role in promotion.

The current situation of Oldsmobile is: because a backlog of cars cannot be released in time, the factory funds cannot be withdrawn, and the warehouse rent interest burden is extremely heavy.In response to this situation, the president decided to go all out, and published a special advertisement in major newspapers across the country: Buy a Toronado brand car, and you can get a "South" brand car for free.

Oldsmobile Automobile Factory became a blockbuster with the unique way of buying a car and giving a car as a gift, which impressed many people who were blind to advertisements and told each other.Many people who were attracted by the advertisement traveled far to see what happened, and the distribution department of the factory was full of people.The backlog of cars that no one cared about in the past was bought at a price of 21 US dollars. The factory also fulfilled its promise in the advertisement one by one, and gave away a brand new "South" brand car for free.Buyers can also get a $500 rebate if they don't want the giveaway sedan.

Oldsmobile Motors used the trick of "throwing bricks to attract jade" to successfully sell out the backlog of cars even though it earned less than $5 per car.The president of the factory knows that if these cars are overstocked for a year and cannot be sold, the loss of interest, warehouse rent, and maintenance costs for each car will be close to this amount.But now, not only the "Toronado" brand car has gained fame, increased popularity, and increased market share, but also brought out a new brand-"South" brand.This kind of low-end car began to appear in the name of "gift", and with more gifts, it gradually became famous.In this way, the Oldsmobile Automobile Factory killed two birds with one stone, and it really came back to life, and the business has since embarked on a prosperous road.

Oldsmobile exchanged the "brick" of "South" brand cars for the hot sales of ballast trucks. While solving business problems, it also received unexpected results, making the "brick" of "South" brand cars "It has also attracted the attention of consumers, and its reputation has increased greatly since then.Selling two hot models at the same time, it can be said that the strategy of "throwing bricks to attract jade" has been used to the extreme!

Rules under High Profit

Operators need to pay attention when using "throwing bricks to attract jade", and try to make the thrown "bricks" really attract "jade".To be like the most shrewd Jewish businessman in the world, take "a lot of profit" as the principle of doing business, so that you can quickly build your own business empire.

In the past eight years, Robmeade Household Goods Co., Ltd. in the United States has developed rapidly in production, and its profits have grown at an annual rate of 18% to 20%.The company's success is due to its use of an incomparably powerful management weapon - an incentive mechanism, which stimulates employees' aggressiveness and competition with high wages, thereby creating more labor fruits for the company - profits.

The company's incentive mechanism lies in the profit sharing system it adopts, that is, the annual profit is distributed to each employee according to the prescribed ratio.That is to say, the more the company earns, the more the employees get.The employees understand the principle of "a rising tide lifts all boats", so they all strive to be the first, actively produce, not to mention, they also take the initiative to offer suggestions to improve products.Therefore, the company has always been known for its high quality in the houseware industry and has always won a large number of orders.

On the face of it, the higher the wages of employees, the higher the cost, and the lower the profit.In fact, the company has formed a virtuous circle value-added system: high wages - high efficiency - high profits - higher wages - higher efficiency - higher profits... In the long run, paying employees more than the average level Wages, on the contrary, are an effective means of reducing costs.Because the part of wages paid to employees is, after all, only part of the newly increased profits.At the same time, high wages can also play a role in strengthening the centripetal force of enterprises and stabilizing the workforce.Of course, it is also conducive to poaching talents from elsewhere.

The good intentions of Robmeade's "throwing bricks to attract jade" have won a lot of money.This wise move has been emulated by more and more enterprises.The pros and cons of "throwing bricks to attract jade" is to know how to "calculate carefully" and calculate accurately. Throwing a brick can earn a piece of jade, which can be described as a huge profit.If the calculation is not accurate, it may become a "throwing jade to attract bricks", and nothing will be returned.

Hans' little bronze medal
The strategy of "throwing bricks to attract jade" can be successfully implemented in the commercial war, mainly relying on "luting it with profit".It is to take advantage of the weakness of the other party (including enemies, competitors, and customers) who love to take advantage, first give him a little sweetness, pay a small price, and make small sacrifices, so as to obtain big profits.This is a "give first, take later" strategy.

(End of this chapter)