King Zhuang of Chu has spent three years in silence, feasting, doing nothing, letting his ministers despair. One minister dares to ask. The king answers: a bird that does not fly, flies high enough to touch the sky. The warrior who waits chooses the moment.

楚庄王沉寂三年——饮宴，无为，任大臣绝望。一位大臣敢于进谏。庄王答道：不飞则已，一飞冲天；不鸣则已，一鸣惊人。等待的勇士，是在选择时机。

Besiege Wei to Save Zhao

Sun Bin cannot face the enemy directly, so he attacks their home instead. The best generals do not fight the battle in front of them.

孙膑无法正面迎敌，于是攻击敌人的大本营。最高明的将领，不打眼前的仗。

Tian Ji's Horse Race

Tian Ji races horses against the King of Qi and always loses. Sun Bin watches and asks to see both sets of horses. He tells Tian Ji: your horses are not weaker overall. They are just racing in the wrong order. Put your worst against the king's best. Lose that race. Then put your best against the king's middle, your middle against his worst. Tian Ji wins two of three — the very same horses, simply sent out in a smarter order.

田忌与齐王赛马，屡战屡败。孙膑在旁观看，要求看过双方的马。他告诉田忌：你的马并非整体更弱，只是出场顺序不对。用你最差的马对王的最好的马，输掉那一局。再用你最好的对王的中等，你的中等对王的最差。田忌三局两胜——还是原来那些马，只是换了出场的顺序。

Playing the Yu Without Knowing How

Three hundred musicians play for the King of Qi, but one cannot play at all. When the new king demands solo performances, the fraud must flee. A warrior who bluffs in peacetime is exposed when the real battle comes.

三百乐师为齐宣王合奏，其中一人根本不会吹竽。新王要求独奏时，骗局败露，南郭先生落荒而逃。太平时欺骗，战时必然现形。

Know the Enemy, Know Yourself

King Wuling of Zhao has watched his infantry lose to nomad cavalry for years. He studies them: their horses, their dress, their weapons, how they move. Then he announces: Zhao's army will wear nomad clothes and fight on horseback. His ministers are appalled. This is undignified. This is un-Chinese. This is surrender to barbarians. The king asks one question: do you want to win, or do you want to look right? He overrules every one of them. Zhao becomes the dominant military power of its generation.

赵武灵王眼看步兵一次次败于北方游牧骑兵。他研究对方——马匹、服饰、武器、作战方式。然后他宣布：赵国军队将改穿胡服，改习骑射。大臣们大惊失色。此举有失体统，不合华夏礼仪，是向蛮夷低头。武灵王只问了他们一个问题：你们要赢，还是要体面？他驳回了所有人的反对。此后，赵国成为那一代最强大的军事强国。

Carrying Thorns to Beg Forgiveness

General Lian Po has mocked Lin Xiangru for too long. When he finally understands, he walks through the city bare-backed, thorns tied against his skin, to beg Lin Xiangru's pardon. From that day the two men guard Zhao as one.

廉颇嘲笑蔺相如已久。当他终于明白真相时，袒背负荆，亲自登门请罪。从此将相和睦，同心保赵。

Strategising on Paper

Zhao Kuo knows every military text by heart, yet leads his army to catastrophe. He had mastered every book about war without once standing in a real one.

赵括熟读兵书，却在真实战场一败涂地。纸上得来终觉浅，绝知此事要躬行。

Three Men Make a Tiger

Pang Cong is about to leave the capital as a royal hostage. He asks the king a question: if one man said there was a tiger in the marketplace, would you believe him? No. Two men? The king hesitates. Three men? The king admits he would. Pang Cong says there is no tiger in the marketplace, and then he leaves. When he returns, the king has already turned against him — convinced by a tiger that never existed.

庞葱即将随太子入赵为质。临行前，他问魏王：若一人说街市有虎，大王信吗？不信。两人呢？大王犹豫了。三人呢？大王说，那便信了。庞葱说，街市本无虎——然后他离开了。庞葱归来时，魏王早已对他生疑——只因一只从未存在的虎。

Mao Sui Recommends Himself

Lord Pingyuan needs twenty capable men for a mission to Chu. He finds nineteen. Mao Sui steps forward. Everyone in the room knows his name but not his deeds. Mao Sui says: the reason a nail does not show is that it has never been put in far enough. Let me be put in. In Chu's court, when the negotiation stalls and the king refuses, Mao Sui draws his sword and holds it before the king, forcing him to face exactly what is at stake. The alliance is sealed.

平原君需要二十位门客出使楚国，只找到十九人。毛遂自荐而出。众人认识他的名字，却不知他的本领。毛遂说：锥子之所以未能显露，是因为从未刺入囊中。请让我入囊。在楚国朝堂之上，谈判陷入僵局，楚王拒绝联盟，毛遂拔剑而起，直指局势利害。联盟就此达成。

The Humiliation of the Bridge

Young Han Xin is stopped by a bully who demands he fight or crawl under his legs. Han Xin crawls. Later, he commands the armies of Han. The warrior who knows which battles to skip wins the war.

少年韩信被地痞拦住，要么拔剑，要么从胯下钻过。韩信选择了钻过。后来，他统率汉朝大军。懂得跳过哪些战斗的勇士，才能赢得战争。

Break the Cauldrons, Sink the Boats

Xiang Yu orders every cooking pot smashed, every boat sunk. Victory or death. The warrior who removes escape finds a clarity comfort never gives.

项羽破釜沉舟，士兵知退路已绝，以一当十，大破秦军。

Cross at Chencang in Secret

Han Xin sends workers to rebuild the burned mountain road, loudly, visibly, for all to see. Meanwhile his army crosses through Chencang in secret. The enemy watches the distraction until it is too late.

韩信派工匠大张旗鼓地修复烧毁的栈道，让敌人清楚看见。与此同时，大军悄悄从陈仓渡过。敌人看着那个假目标，直到太迟才知。

A Battle with Backs to the River

General Han Xin positions his troops against the river with no retreat possible. Desperation becomes the warrior's sharpest weapon.

韩信背水列阵，置死地而后生。绝境之中，往往藏着最锋利的力量。

Besieged on All Sides

Xiang Yu hears Han soldiers singing the songs of Chu from every direction. The greatest warrior must also know when the fight is over.

四面皆楚歌声，项王知大势已去。识时务者，才是真正的英雄。

A Promise Worth a Thousand Gold

Ji Bu is a fugitive with a price on his head, but he is known as a man who never breaks his word. Even his enemies refuse to betray him. The warrior whose word is iron earns the protection of strangers.

季布是通缉逃犯，却以一诺千金著称。连敌人也不愿出卖他。言出必行的勇士，能赢得陌生人的庇护。

The Old Man Loses His Horse

The old man's horse runs away. Neighbours come to comfort him. He says: how do you know this is bad? The horse returns with a fine wild horse beside it. Neighbours congratulate him. He says: how do you know this is good? His son rides the wild horse and breaks his leg. Commiserations. He says: how do you know this is bad? War comes. Every able-bodied young man in the village is conscripted. His son, with the broken leg, stays home. Every stroke of luck, good or bad, kept turning into its opposite.

老人的马跑了。邻人来安慰他——他说：你们怎么知道这是坏事？马回来了，还带来一匹好马。邻人道贺——他说：你们怎么知道这是好事？儿子骑野马摔断了腿。邻人又来安慰——他说：你们怎么知道这是坏事？战事来了，村里的壮丁悉数被征。儿子因腿伤留了下来。福祸之间，原来一直在悄悄换位。

Weightier than Mount Tai

Sima Qian defended a general in court. Emperor Wu had him castrated as punishment. He chose not to die, because he had not yet finished writing 史记. He lived in shame for years and kept writing. He finished it. The book outlasted every emperor who ever read it. He chose to live in disgrace rather than die with the work unfinished.

司马迁在朝堂上为一名将领辩护。汉武帝以腐刑惩处他。他选择活下去——因为《史记》尚未写完。他在屈辱中写了数年，写完了。这部书比所有读过它的皇帝都活得更长。他宁可忍辱苟活，也不让《史记》就此中断。

A Hundred Reports Are Worth Less Than One Look

Old general Zhao Chongguo, past seventy, is asked to advise on a frontier crisis from the capital. He refuses to give an opinion from maps and reports. He requests permission to go to the frontier himself. Emperor Xuan agrees. When he arrives he recommends not fighting at all, but farming the land instead. Everyone expects him to be wrong. He is not. The answer to a border war turned out to be a farming plan.

年逾七旬的赵充国，被召至京城就边境危机献策。他拒绝凭地图和奏报发表意见，请求亲赴前线。汉宣帝准奏。他到达后，建议的不是出兵，而是屯田。所有人都以为他错了，结果他是对的。一场边境战事，最后靠屯田化解。

Where There Is Will, the Thing Gets Done

Emperor Guangwu restored the Han dynasty from nothing. He was a prince reduced to farming who raised an army and reunited an empire. General Geng Yan spent years completing a campaign everyone had called impossible. When Geng Yan finally reported victory, the Emperor said: a man of will accomplishes in the end. He knew what it meant. He had done it himself.

光武帝刘秀从零开始重建汉朝——一个沦为农夫的王族之后，亲手拉起一支军队，重新统一天下。大将耿弇历经数年，完成了所有人都说不可能的战役。耿弇上报捷讯时，皇帝说：有志者，事竟成。他深知这句话的分量。因为他自己，就是这样走过来的。

Cannot See the True Face of Mount Lu

Su Shi climbs Mount Lu from every direction: south, north, ridge and valley. Each view is different. None is the whole. Standing on a peak, he realises: he cannot see the shape of the mountain precisely because he is standing on it. We are always least able to see the things we are caught inside.

苏轼从四面攀登庐山——从南，从北，从山脊，从山谷。每个方向都是不同的景象，没有一处是全貌。站在山顶，他忽然明白：看不清这座山，正是因为身在山中。我们往往看不清自己深陷其中的事。

Forced onto Liangshan

Lin Chong is a captain of the Imperial Guard, a good man with a good life. Step by step, powerful enemies frame him, exile him, try to kill him. He endures each blow. But there is a last blow. The night he burns the grain depot, Lin Chong stops enduring.

林冲是禁军教头，一个好人，过着好日子。一步步地，权贵陷害他、流放他、追杀他。他一次次忍耐。但总有最后一击。那个火烧草料场的夜晚，林冲不再忍了。

Serve the Country with Utmost Loyalty

Before Yue Fei leaves for the front, his mother takes a needle and inks four characters into his back: serve the country with utmost loyalty. He will never forget them. Twenty years later, his enemies find a way to stop him that no enemy on the battlefield ever could.

岳飞出征前，母亲用针将四个字刺入他的背上：精忠报国。他永远不会忘记。二十年后，有人用一种战场上的敌人从未能做到的方式，将他终结。

The Plot by the East Window Is Exposed

Qin Hui and his wife sit by the east window, planning how to destroy Yue Fei. "This plan," says his wife, "can never be spoken of again." But plans whispered by the east window have a way of reaching daylight. Long after the scheme succeeded, history remembers only who these two destroyed.

秦桧与妻子坐于东窗之下，密谋如何害死岳飞。"此事，"其妻说，"永不可再提。"然而东窗下的密谋，终有见光的一天。后人记住这对夫妻，只因他们害死了谁。

Since Ancient Times, Who Has Not Died

Wen Tianxiang is the last general still fighting for the Song. He is captured by the Mongols. They offer him a position, then a title, then his freedom. He refuses every time. In prison he writes 正气歌, a poem about moral courage that has outlasted every dynasty since. He is executed. His answer to every offer was always the same: since ancient times, who has not died? Let my heart of loyalty shine in the pages of history.

文天祥是最后一位为南宋而战的将领。他被元军俘虏。对方先给官职，再许高位，再许自由。他一次次拒绝。在狱中，他写下《正气歌》——一首关于浩然之气的诗，流传至今，历经朝代而不衰。他被处决。对每一次劝降，他的回答始终只有一句：人生自古谁无死，留取丹心照汗青。