25th Stratagem of 36：Replace the Beams With Rotten Timbers

偷梁换柱  / tōu liáng huàn zhù /

25th stratagem of 36

Replace the Beams With Rotten Timbers

Pic. Rotten timber; Photo credit cubicroot from Pixabay

Action explaining the stratagem

Take control or damage sustaining structure of the enemy’s force and then replace it with whatever suits your goals without your enemy paying attention. Activate this hidden weapon against your enemy in a proper time.

Historical note

One encounter the proverb 偷梁换柱  / tōu liáng huàn zhù / in the Chinese literature classic, Dream of the Red Chamber (18th century B.C.E.). The proverb has many different and close equivalents in Chinese language, such as 以假乱真 / yǐ jiǎ luàn zhēn / or mix the spurious with the genuine, 移花接木 / yí huā jiē mù/ or graft flowers on a tree, 偷天换日 / tōu tiān huàn rì / or steal the sky and put up a sham sun.

 Discussion

Stratagem 25 is effectively a strategy for turning the enemy’s strength into their biggest weakness. If rightly applied, there is nothing like corroding an enemy’s favourite weapon. By changing the true sense while keeping the facade unchanged, one can make the opponent stick to a practice that has already become detrimental and self-destructive.

 Application

In many regions of the world, culture is a very effective weapon against enemies. Chinese civilization has managed to survive for five thousand years mainly due to the extreme vitality of its culture. Whoever conquered China, whether it was Mongols or Manchus, eventually bent their knees in admiration of its grandeur. Usually, culture is used deliberately as a weapon. In changing cultural codes via the infiltration of people, customs or language, one nation can undermine an opponent’s vitality and power of resistance. As a result, agents of influence, useful idiots and plain traitors become those rotten timbers that foster the eventual submission of a weaker side by the side that has become more powerful as a result of such shifts in the distribution of power.

Photo credit PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

In business, poking fun at competitors may be one of the possible implementations of the stratagem Replace The Beams With Rotten Timbers. For instance, Samsung famously mocked the craze around new iPhone releases, showing how it demonstrated people would stand in lines for ‘just nine hours’ or that they were ‘too creative’ to buy any other devices. A signature culture cast in such an unsavoury light can certainly turn perceptions upside down. What looked fashionable or exclusive is demonstrated to be diametrically the opposite. Slowly, beams may start rotting in some customers’ minds.

Exposure of the downside of an opponent’s strengths to the customers is an effective tool in negotiations as well. For instance, if one supplier is very big, a contending supplier of smaller size, knowing of the existence of the former, may choose to persuade a customer that the size is exactly what makes the business sluggish, inflexible and inattentive of customers’ demands. Knowing opponents’ strengths and conspiring against them, presenting them as weaknesses in disguise is a good persuasive method for a negotiation process that my Chinese counterparts regularly used.

Note: you have just read one of the episodes from a series of articles on the 36 Chinese stratagems of deception. For more details on the original treatise of the 36 Stratagems please refer to the very first episode of this series.   

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Special thanks to the collaborator and proofreader Luke Sheehan