36 Strategies Vernacular Full Translation

Chapter 35
After careful research, Onassis found that Saudi Arabia does not object to owning its own tanker fleet for oil transportation.So, he decided to start here and seize the right to ship Saudi oil.Onassis first lobbied to the King of Saudi Arabia: "Allah has given you the wealth of the world, you should try to double your profit! Aramco extracts your oil, and you can earn twice as much through transportation." money. Why don’t you buy your own ship to transport? Arabian oil should be transported by Arab oil tankers!” Afterwards, Onassis sent a letter to Chamal Hussein, the leader of the Saudi anti-American movement and nationalist. Some of the sheikhs made an extremely anti-American claim: Arabian oil should be transported by Arab oil tankers flying the Arabian flag.Onassis then spoke at length with Crown Prince Abdul Aziz about his vision.In the end, even Yamal Shakht, the former president of the National Bank of the Third Reich, expressed his willingness to go to Saudi Arabia to persuade the king to adopt Onassis' opinion.

On January 1954, 1, the former Crown Prince Abdul Aziz ascended the throne.He soon signed the "Jeddah Agreement" with Onassis that shocked the world's business circles.Once this agreement is fully implemented, both Saudi Arabia and Onassis will get the benefits they want, but Aramco will suffer a fatal blow.The burning firewood at the bottom of the pot—the shipping right was taken away, and the boiling water in the pot would no longer exist.

Although, under the joint attack of all Western oil companies, the "Jeddah Agreement" was finally canceled by the king, but this ending could not conceal the ingenious strategy of Onassis' "drawing salary from the bottom".He accurately found the opponent's weakness that he had the strength to attack, and with the help of others, he powerfully attacked the opponent's lifeline, and almost succeeded.

Qi State Wisdom Destroyed Lu State
"Drawing from the bottom of the pot" is generally used to deal with opponents stronger than yourself.This is exactly the time when the original scriptures say "we are no match for our strength".In political struggle, if you cut away from the side what a powerful opponent depends on for survival, and deprive it of the necessary elements for its existence, it will weaken or die by itself.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, Duke Jing of Qi was once ridiculed by Confucius, and he has been bitter about it ever since.In addition, after the death of Yan Ying, the virtuous Prime Minister, he had no successors, and the state of Lu reused Confucius at this time, and the state affairs were in great order, so he panicked, and said to the doctor Li Mi: "The state of Lu reuses Confucius, which is a great threat to me. In the future, when his hegemony develops, our country will be the first to suffer from it, what should we do?" Li Mi quickly offered advice: "When you are full of warmth, you think about lust, and when you are poor, you start stealing. Today, the state of Lu is peaceful, and Duke Lu Ding is also a womanizer. If Choose a group of beauties as gifts for him, and he will accept them all. After that, he will naturally roll around in the thickets of makeup day and night, and Confucius will definitely be driven away as time goes by. At that time, His Majesty can rest easy."

Qi Jing recognized that this plan was very clever, so he sent Li Mi to select beauties, teach them singing and dancing, and bestow them with charming looks.After training, 120 horses were specially decorated, golden le carved saddles, dressed like brocade, and sent to Lu State with all the beauties, saying that they were dedicated to Lu Dinggong for enjoyment.

Ji Si, another prime minister of the Lu Kingdom, immediately changed into casual clothes when he heard the news, and went to the south gate by car.The beauties of Qi State are performing a dance, dancing vigorously, advancing and retreating, dazzling.Ji Si couldn't help being stunned, his hands and feet were numb, and he was so confused that he had already forgotten the matter of going to the court to discuss matters.Knowing that Lu Dinggong was also good at this, Ji Si took the opportunity to be his guide, took him to change into casual clothes, and came to the south gate again.From then on, the king did not go to court early.

Confucius heard this and sighed sadly.Zilu said next to him: "Mr. Lu has fallen into obsession and put state affairs behind him. Teacher, can you go?" Confucius said: "Don't worry! If you don’t forget, the country still has something to do. Otherwise, it’s not too late to pack up the burden!”

In a blink of an eye, when it came to the suburban festival, Duke Lu Ding just attended the sacrifice as usual, but he didn't show any sincerity.After the hasty sacrifice, he went back to the palace to enjoy himself, and he didn't even care about giving his liver to his ministers.Seeing Lu Dinggong like this, Confucius was very disappointed, so he said to Zilu: "Go and inform all the students, pack up your bags, and leave here tomorrow morning!"

Afterwards, Confucius abandoned his official position and led a group of students to travel around the world and lived a life of nomads.Without the governance of Confucius, the state of Lu soon declined.

The prosperity of the State of Lu was due to a Confucius who presided over the overall situation.Therefore, to weaken the state of Lu, there is nothing more effective and simpler than driving Confucius away.Obviously, Qi Guo used the strategy of "drawing salary from the bottom of the pot".There is no water without a source, no tree without roots, and any political force has its roots.Start from the root and you will win.

How Leaders “Draw Salary”

In the workplace, when some leaders encounter powerful and sharp subordinates, instead of confronting him head-on, they use various "salary-drawing" methods to weaken his momentum and subdue him with softness.This kind of victory trick is called "drawing salary from the bottom".

The bottom line is to draw the salary from the bottom of the pot, and the effort is all on the word "drawing".In order to realize their own intentions, the leader "pumps" secretly, "pumps" brilliantly, and "pumps" so hard that opponents can't argue with them, and they have no choice but to do so.

Common “salary draw” methods include:

[-]. Deliberately ignoring subordinates who are full of arrogance and sharp edge.Pretend to forget his "existence": he is neither assigned work nor mentioned much about him.When others mentioned him, he didn't make any expression, and his mouth was noncommittal.If things go on like this, more subordinates will naturally imitate the leader's attitude and gradually alienate him, putting him under tremendous psychological pressure.After a while, his arrogance will naturally subside, and his edge will also disappear.

Second, do not provide opportunities for subordinates to showcase their talents.On the surface, he is amiable and treats everyone the same, but secretly he is doing a lot of tricks, deliberately placing his subordinates in positions where they cannot develop their strengths, making him anxious and helpless. "No matter how great your skills and knowledge are, I will not give you a chance to use them!" The leader uses this method to fundamentally deprive his subordinates of the "capital" of arrogance and rudeness, dampen his spirit, and let his subordinates submit.

[-]. Create unequal opportunities for knowledge expansion and talent growth, and deliberately support a subordinate's competitors, so that this subordinate gradually lags behind others.In order to fundamentally combat his arrogance, the leader can also carefully select one or two reliable forces, intentionally give them small troubles, and give them various favorable opportunities in priority.Let them surpass a certain subordinate who was originally in the leading position in a relatively short period of time, let him bow down, and finally adjust his work attitude and principles of doing things.

[-]. Let the talent and vigor of a certain subordinate be wiped out in the harsh environment that restricts his strength.The leader restricts his hands and feet, dissipates his energy, and makes him tired of annoying entanglements and internal frictions all day long by formulating targeted rules and regulations and appointing a special person to cooperate with a certain subordinate.In such a harsh atmosphere, no matter how powerful and vigorous this subordinate is, he cannot escape the doom of self-destruction.

[-]. Cut off the knowledge source, information source, power source, etc. of the subordinate, so that he will fall into the predicament of "cutting off the cooking".Leaders often use "restricted conditions" as an excuse to deliberately arrange a subordinate in a closed, conservative, and backward environment, so that he cannot get new knowledge, new information, and new motivation from the outside world for a long time, and cannot learn the truth. Ability, thus knowledge aging, ability degeneration, loss of proud capital, and finally accepting the mercy and manipulation of leaders.

[-]. Use a good excuse to prevent a subordinate who is in trouble from getting out of bad luck.When a subordinate can't bear the oppression of his boss and asks his superior to "change the environment", the leader will use the last trick: use "work needs", "take care of you as much as possible", "the leader values ​​you", "resolutely retain " and other pleasant words, trying to prevent a certain subordinate from flowing out of the unit or department.At this time, leaders usually use hard cards or both hard and soft methods to achieve the attempt to continue to control subordinates.

[-]. For peers or superiors who are stronger than themselves, sow dissension and gossip, very cautiously and secretly cut off his power source (support from the masses) and power source (leadership trust), let him gradually weaken, and eventually lose competition strength.

[-]. In the process of "salary drawing", if "smart drawing" or "secret drawing" is not possible, as long as the subjective and objective conditions permit, the leader will tear up his face and "forced drawing" or "clear drawing".

Therefore, when you realize that the leader is "draining your salary from the bottom of the pot", it may be time for you to consider changing your work attitude and principles of dealing with people.If the leader creates something out of nothing and forcibly suppresses it, then you should carry out a strong counterattack by continuously strengthening your strength.

(End of this chapter)