Leading cadres at all levels must have the attitude and spirit of "500 gold to buy horse bones" in dealing with talent. After King Yan Zhao ascended the throne, in order to avenge the Qi country's destruction of Yan, he asked Guo Xiangguo to recommend talents. Guo Xiangguo told a story: There was a king who bought a thousand miles of horses, and the messenger bought back the bones of a dead thousand miles of horses for five hundred gold, so the good name spread, and people knew that the king even cherished the bones of thousands of horses, and even more cherished thousands of horses. As a result, 3 live horses were quickly obtained. You can treat me like a dead horse's bones, and attract a large number of horses. King Yan Zhao felt justified, built a palace for Guo Xiangguo, gave preferential treatment, and built a high platform by the Yishui River, which was full of gold, called Zhaoxian Terrace, also called Golden Terrace. Ju Xin, Su Dai, Zou Yan and other celebrities have come to Yan Country one after another, especially Le Yi, who came here. Soon, Le Yi led the army to attack Qi, and the momentum was like a bamboo, defeating the Qi State and avenging the Yan State.

——"The Immeasurable Role of Talent in Economic Development" (April 25, 1983) from "Knowing and Loving"

Further reading:

"500 gold to buy horse bones" is a story that has been passed down through the ages in ancient China, telling the story of King Yan Zhao following Guo Kui's advice to recruit talents, and finally relying on the talent advantage to revive the Yan State and defeat the Qi State. For thousands of years, people often use "500 gold to buy horse bones" to express the value concept of respecting talents and seeking talents.

Before King Yan Zhao ascended the throne, there was civil strife in Yan State, and Qi State took the opportunity to send troops to invade, and when King Yan Zhao ascended the throne, Yan State can be said to be broken mountains and rivers and a hundred ruins to be revived. King Yan Zhao then humbled himself and recruited talents in order to revive the country, and he asked Guo Kui for advice on the strategy of visiting the Magi. Guo Kui told King Yan Zhao the story of "five hundred gold to buy horse bones": there was once a monarch who was willing to bid a thousand gold to buy a thousand miles of horses, which lasted three years and yielded nothing. At this time, someone took the initiative to ask for Ying, and he was sent to find Maxima, and he found Maxima in three months, but it was too late, Maxima was already dead. He did not walk away, but spent five hundred gold to buy the bones of Maxima and sent them back to the monarch. The monarch was naturally furious: what he wanted to buy was a live horse, how could he buy a dead horse? He said to the monarch with a complacent look that a dead horse could still be bought back for five hundred gold, let alone a live horse. Your Majesty attaches so much importance to Maxima's reputation once it spreads, Maxima will inevitably take the initiative to send it to the door! Sure enough, within a year, there were good horses in the world who came uninvited.

At this point in the story, if King Yan Zhao has an understanding, Guo Kui continued, If Your Majesty really wants to attract talents from all over the world, you can start with Guo Kui, and I Guo Kui can be reused, not to mention those talents who are more virtuous than me? Guo Kui equated himself with the bones of Maxima, in order to show the bearing of Corporal Lixian of Yanzhao Wang. King Yan Zhao then built a palace for Guo Kui, and treated him with the etiquette of a teacher, and also built a "golden platform" for recruiting talents. This move really shook the world, and Le Yi, Zou Yan, Ju Xin and other wise men came one after another, and they became the move of Yan to defeat Qi State.

By telling the story of King Yan Zhao and Guo Kui, Xi Jinping clarified the specific ways to attract talents from the methodological level: only when leading cadres establish a strong sense of talent, truly be courteous and virtuous, and respect talents, can they achieve the realm of leaving no trace of talents and making the best use of them. He often stresses that "make good use of talents, establish a more flexible talent management mechanism, and break through the institutional and institutional obstacles in the flow, use and role of talents". This requires leading cadres at all levels not only to have the ideological understanding of seeking talents, but also to improve the system and mechanism for absorbing talents, so as to meet Xi Jinping's requirement of "using a virtuous person to achieve all the virtuous, and seeing the virtuous and thinking together, it will become a common practice".