It means: If you want to be successful in the world, you'd better be cold-hearted before you can achieve anything.

source: an essay "guiguzi's making love" written by guiguzi, a strategist in the spring and autumn period.

excerpts from the original text: the way of heaven and earth is the one who marries. Those who marry, change yin and yang, open and close at four o'clock, and change everything. Vertical and horizontal, counter-attack, repetition, and counter-attack will inevitably be carried out.

Opening and closing are the laws of development and change of all kinds of things in the world. Both opening and closing are aimed at changing all aspects of the internal opposition of things, and making all things develop and change through the beginning and end of the four seasons. Whether it is vertical and horizontal, or leaving, returning, or resisting, it must be achieved through opening or closing.

Expanding materials

Creation background:

Guiguzi knows the important role of language in human society, just as the ancient cautionary saying goes, "A word prospers the country, but a word destroys it". We should take corresponding countermeasures according to each person's characteristics.

To control your mouth with the technique of opening and closing, so that the voice comes and goes regularly, then you have mastered the speaking skills and the great strategy of the world! Through the response and contest in lobbying, we can finally achieve "can be vertical, can be horizontal" and invincible in the world! These people who conquer the world by lobbying and words are called "strategists".

However, strategists advocate not to use troops easily, not openly, or to achieve military goals by using the technique of vertical and horizontal cooperation before using force, which is similar to the principle of "defeating the enemy without fighting" and "going up to the army to make a plan, then cutting off the enemy, cutting off the army again, and attacking the city from below".

Therefore, Guiguzi advocates that the person in charge of troops must be wise and brave, and "the material is not good, so you can't use troops". It is advocated that the yin is the yin and the yang is the yang, that is to say, in the dark, unconsciously, the opponent has been defeated by strength. It seems to refer to the application of a military deterrent force, such as Su Qin's alliance of six white horses, which has the effect of defeating the enemy without fighting.