The intermingling of fiction and reality is the most likely to make people dizzy, and for this reason, this "art of war" is often used. "Virtuality" can not show its face, do not reveal its family background, and does not reveal its strength, which makes people take it lightly; "Real" can show the edge, show the kung fu, show the strength, and make people frightened. If the truth is concealed by falsehood, it can often put people in the most desperate psychological torture. This is the essence of the "virtual and real chapter" of "The Art of War".

【This Guide】

This article mainly talks about the operational principle of "attacking the virtual with the real and avoiding the real and attacking the weak".

"Soldiers are impermanent, water is impermanent", and the virtual and real are also like "the five elements are impermanent, the four seasons are impermanent, the days are short and long, and the months are dead and alive", only by being good at grasping its law of change can we turn our own "virtuality" into "reality" and the enemy's "reality" into "virtuality", even if the enemy is completely caught in the dilemma of "being prepared for everything and being all-encompassing", and we can "go out of what we do not want" and "attack what we must save", so as to attack the enemy's "virtuality" with our own "reality" and truly realize "attacking the virtual with the real and avoiding the real to attack the virtual".

The theme words of this article: avoid the real and attack the false, and win because of the enemy.

【Source of Wisdom】

Sun Tzu said: Those who are on the battlefield first and treat the enemy will be discouraged, and those who will be on the battlefield and tend to fight will work. Therefore, those who are good at fighting will cause others but not others. He who can make the enemy self-defeating, also benefit; Whoever can prevent the enemy from reaching will also do harm. Therefore, the enemy can work, be hungry, and be safe.

Going out of the way, tending to what it doesn't expect. Those who travel thousands of miles without working will also walk in a land where no one is man; Those who attack and will win, attack what they do not defend; Those who defend and must be solid, defend what they do not attack. Therefore, those who are good at attacking, the enemy does not know what they are defending; Those who defend well, the enemy does not know what they are attacking. Few, as far as invisible; Divine and silent. Therefore, he can be the commander of the enemy.

And then those who cannot be controlled, rush to their emptiness; Those who retreat and cannot be chased, and they are not able to reach quickly. Therefore I want to fight, although the enemy is high and deep, and he who has to fight with me will be saved by attacking him; I don't want to fight, I draw the ground and defend it, and the enemy can't fight with me, and he will do what he wants.

Therefore, if I am invisible and I am invisible, then I am exclusive and enemy; I am designed for one, and the enemy is divided into ten, and if I attack one of the ten enemies, then the enemy is outnumbered; Those who can defeat the outnumbered with the multitude, then I will make an appointment with the fighters. The place where we are fighting is unknowable, and if it is unknowable, then the enemy has many of them; If the enemy has many soldiers, there will be few fighters with us. Therefore, the first is the last widow, and the last is the first widow; Prepare the left and right widows, and prepare the right and left widows; If you are prepared, you will be all-encompassing. The widow is also the one who prepares people; The multitude, let others prepare for themselves.

Therefore, if you know the place of war, you can fight for thousands of miles on the day of war; If you don't know the battlefield, you don't know the day of the war, then the left can't save the left, the right can't save the left, the front can't save the back, the back can't save the front, and the far ones are tens of miles, and the near ones are several miles? With my degree, although there are many soldiers of the Yue people, it is also beneficial to victory or defeat? Therefore, it is said: victory can also be done. Although the enemy is numerous, there can be no fight.

Therefore, the strategy knows the gains and losses, the reason of movement and stillness, the form and the place of death and life, and the corner and knows the place where there is enough. Therefore, the form of the soldier is extreme, as for the invisible; If it is invisible, it cannot be seen in the depths, and the wise cannot plan. Because of the form, it is wrong to the public, and the public cannot know; Everyone knows the form of my victory, but I don't know the form of my victory. Therefore it conquers not, but should be in infinity.

The image of the soldier is water, the shape of water, avoiding the high and tending down; The shape of the soldier, avoiding the real and attacking the false. The water is controlled by the land, and the soldiers are defeated by the enemy. Therefore, the army is impermanent, and the water is impermanent; Those who can win due to the change of the enemy are called gods. Therefore, the five elements are impermanent, the four times are impermanent, the days are long, and the months are dead and alive.

【Classic Interpretation】

Sun Tzu said: Those who occupy the battlefield first and wait for the enemy will take the initiative to be comfortable, and then those who arrive at the battlefield and rush to meet the battle will be tired and passive. Therefore, a person who is good at directing operations is always able to mobilize the enemy without being mobilized by the enemy. What can make the enemy automatically enter my predetermined territory is because of the lure of small profits; What prevents the enemy from reaching his intended territory is the result of many obstacles. When the enemy is well rested, he tries to fatigue it; When the enemy has enough food, he tries to starve it; When the enemy is stationed, he tries to make it move.

Attack where the enemy can't save, and run where the enemy doesn't expect it. The march of a thousand miles without fatigue is due to the fact that the march is in an area where the enemy is unprepared; The attack is guaranteed to be victorious because the attack is on a place that the enemy has not defended; The defense will be stable because it is holding a place that the enemy cannot capture. Therefore, those who are good at attacking can make the enemy not know how to defend; Those who are good at defense can make the enemy not know how to attack. It's subtle, so subtle that you can't see any signs! It's amazing, it's so amazing that you can't hear the slightest sound! So, I was able to be the master of the fate of my enemies.

Advancing and making the enemy unable to defend against it is by attacking the enemy's slack and empty places; If the enemy retreats so that the enemy cannot pursue, it is because of the swiftness of the action that the enemy cannot catch up. Therefore, when our army is about to fight, the enemy has to come out and fight us, even if it is high and deep, because we have attacked the place where the enemy must save; When our troops did not want to fight, they took up a place to defend, and the enemy could not engage us, because we induced the enemy to change the direction of the attack.

It is necessary to show the true feelings of the enemy and not to show the traces of our troops, so that our forces can be concentrated while the enemy's forces have to be dispersed. Our forces are concentrated in one place, and the enemy's forces are scattered in ten, so that we can attack the enemy with ten times the enemy's strength, thus creating a favorable situation in which we are outnumbered and outnumbered. If we can concentrate superior forces to attack an inferior enemy, then the enemy who can engage our army head-on will be limited. The place where we are going to attack is difficult for the enemy to know, and there is no way to know, so there are many places for him to be guarded against; The more places the enemy is guarded against, the thinner the enemy we have to attack. Therefore, if you are on guard in front, the forces behind are weak; If you are on guard at the rear, the forces in front will be weak; If you are on the left, your forces on the right are weak; If you are on the right side, the forces on the left will be weak. If we are prepared everywhere, we will be weak everywhere. The reason why the troops are weak is because they are divided everywhere to be prepared; The reason why the troops are sufficient is because the opponent is forced to divide his troops everywhere.

Therefore, if you can predict the place and time of the battle, you can go to battle the enemy even if you travel thousands of miles. If you can't predict where to fight, and when you can't predict when to fight, then it will lead to a situation where the left wing can't save the right wing, the right wing can't save the left wing, the front can't save the back, and the back can't save the front. According to my analysis, although the Vietnamese country has a large army, what is the benefit of deciding the outcome of the war? Therefore, victory can be inflicted, and although the enemy army is numerous, it can make it impossible for him to compete with me.

Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the enemy's battle plan, as well as the gains and losses through careful calculation; It is necessary to understand the laws of the enemy's activities by provoking the enemy; It is necessary to test the location of the enemy's lifeline through feints; It is necessary to understand the strength of the enemy's forces through small encounters. Therefore, when the feint enters the highest realm, there is no trace of it anymore. If you can't see the traces, then even the hidden spies can't see the details, and the scheming enemy can't come up with countermeasures. Tactics are used flexibly according to the changing situation of the enemy, and even if the victory is placed in front of everyone, the people still cannot see the secret. People can only know the methods I use to defeat the enemy, but they have no way of knowing how I use them to win by surprise. Therefore, every victory is not a simple repetition, but adaptation to different situations, and there are endless changes.

The law of using soldiers is like flowing water, and the attribute of flowing water is to avoid high places and flow to low places; The law of warfare is to avoid the enemy's solid points and attack the enemy's weak points. The flow of water is restricted by the height of the terrain, and the strategy of victory is formulated according to the different enemy situations. Therefore, there is no fixed and rigid posture for fighting a war, just as the flow of water has never been immutable. Those who can flexibly and maneuver to win according to changes in the enemy's situation can be called using troops like gods. There is no fixed victory for the five elements, and there is no fixed season for the four seasons to alternate, the day is long and short, and the moon is round and short.

【Modern Interpretation】

There are strong and weak things, the weak have strong aspects, and the strong have weak aspects. If the strong are against the weak, the result can be imagined; If the weak are strong against the strong are weak, the situation will change dramatically. This also illustrates a truth, "avoiding the real and attacking the false" will surely win. Of course, the strong can also take advantage of the weak side and strike a blow.

In a commodity society, "real" and "virtual" are manifested in saturation and demand, dense and sparse, high-quality and mediocre, advanced and backward, expensive and cheap, sufficient and shortage, well-known and unknown, flexible and rigid, trendy and old-fashioned, etc. "Avoiding the real and attacking the virtual" should start with market research to understand the market's consumption structure, consumption trends, consumption changes, consumer psychology, as well as competitors' commodity reputation, sales methods, commodity prices, market coverage, etc. Then, defeat the opponent's quality with their own excellent quality, defeat the opponent's backward style with their own trendy style, defeat the opponent's single, shortage with their own varieties and colors, and so on. In short, "avoiding the real and attacking the weak" is to try to avoid the opponent's strengths and attack its weaknesses with its own strengths, that is, "to attack the virtual with the real".

"Hitting the virtual with reality" is very useful and can be applied to all aspects of life, so as to make life more colorful.