MAGIC STRATEGY & TACTICS

The Siege of Yongqiu: Saved by an Illusion

The quintessential illusion is to make something appear from nothing. Rabbits from hats; birds, umbrellas and flaming torches from thin air;  cards, coins and thimbles from nowhere; beautiful girls from empty trunks - all variations on a theme.

Magicians as a group tend not to be philosophers, but those who are quickly discover they have many spiritual allies in the Taoist schools of thought. Lao Tse, who wrote that illusions conceal realities; Sun Tzu, who wrote that deception is the essence of victory in battle. The Chinese generals - practitioners of both philosophy and magic -  were especially adept at constructing gigantic illusions, improvised on the battlefield:

In AD 755, the illustrious T’ang Dynasty was threatened by a major rebellion. One rebel general, Ling Huchao, set siege to the city of Yongqiu, which was defended by a small garrison commanded by loyalist Commander Zhang Xun. This wily officer commanded his soldiers to make 1,000 man-sized dummies of straw dressed in black clothing, attach them to lines, and let them slide down the outside of the city walls at twilight. Rebel General Ling, misperceiving this as a sortie by the city garrison ordered his archers to loose a hail of arrows against them. When Commander Zhang had his straw dummies drawn up with their thousands of “captured” arrows, rebel General Ling realized he’d been tricked. Next evening, Commander Zhang had 500 real soldiers lowered down the city walls. General Ling, thinking them dummies sent to harvest more arrows, laughed in derision and made no preparations for battle. Zhang’s small force struck hard & fast, set fire to the Ling’s camp, killed many rebels, and scattered the rest like straw in the four winds.

-- Whaley, Barton. Turnabout and Deception: Crafting the Double-Cross and the Theory of Outs. Naval Institute Press. 

The "Empty Fort" Stratagem: the Enemy is Frightened by the Nonchalant Performer