The term "Thirty-six Plans" is earlier than the book "Thirty-six Plans", and Tan Dao Ji (? -A.D. 436), according to the Biography of King Jingze of the Southern Qi Dynasty: "Tan Gong's thirty-six plans are the best policy, and your father and son should only listen to them." It means that defeat is inevitable and only retreat is the best policy.

This sentence has been used to this day. In Song Dynasty, Hui Hong said in "Cold Zhai Night Talk": "Thirty-six strategies, walking is the best policy." . In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, more people quoted this sentence.

Then some people are willing to collect books and compile "Thirty-six Plans". However, it is difficult to verify the writing reason and author of this book.

Thirty-six plans, every six plans into an episode, of which the first plan is the winning plan; The second set is the enemy's strategy; The third set is the attack plan; The fourth set is a melee instrument; The fifth set is a plan for parallel operations; The sixth set is the defeat plan.

Extended data

"Thirty-six Strategies" is a summary of China's ancient military strategists' strategies, and it is a valuable legacy of military science. In order to make it easier for people to memorize these 36 strategies, a scholar took one word from each of the 36 strategies and wrote poems in sequence: Today, Duke Tan planned to catch a thief, fish and snakes laughed at each other in the sea, sheep and tigers separated by peaches and mulberry trees, trees were dark and stupid, pots were empty and bitter, and there was a beautiful corpse on the roof, and William was cut down.

Except for Tan Gong's tricks, every word in the poem contains one of the thirty-six tricks, which are: golden cicada, throwing a brick to attract jade, killing people with a knife, waiting for the rest, catching thieves to catch the king, taking advantage of the fire, closing the door to catch thieves, fishing in troubled waters, scaring snakes, hiding the sky from the sea, plotting against each other, and hiding a knife in the smile.

Stealing, distracting the tiger's attention, Li Rigan, criticizing others, watching the fire from the other side, blossoming on the tree, sneaking into the old warehouse, pretending to be the best, playing the fool, playing hard to get hard to get, making empty plans, practicing tricks, attacking from afar, fighting against customers, building a ladder, stealing beams and replacing columns, making things out of nothing, and borrowing money.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia -36 meter