Oh interesting! I must have mixed my facts up or something, my bad. You’re right that it’s attributed to Zhuge Liang, but it seems like Wikipedia thinks it was a fictional story when attributed to Zhuge Liang, but it looks like he wasn’t the first to use this strategy and he wasn’t the last. Regardless, I was wrong about Sun Tzu having done it and I learned more about history, so thanks!
A lot of the stuff in modern The Art Of War publications was added later - basically glorified notes - by scholars who assume it illustrates some point made by Sun Tzu. They don’t always hit their mark, though.
Sun Tzu isn’t in that story, it is a tale about Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi from the Three Kingdoms period.
Oh interesting! I must have mixed my facts up or something, my bad. You’re right that it’s attributed to Zhuge Liang, but it seems like Wikipedia thinks it was a fictional story when attributed to Zhuge Liang, but it looks like he wasn’t the first to use this strategy and he wasn’t the last. Regardless, I was wrong about Sun Tzu having done it and I learned more about history, so thanks!
Here’s the Wikipedia article I was referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_Fort_Strategy#Zhuge_Liang
A lot of the stuff in modern The Art Of War publications was added later - basically glorified notes - by scholars who assume it illustrates some point made by Sun Tzu. They don’t always hit their mark, though.