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Chapter 3 · Attacking Stratagems

擒賊擒王

Qín zéi qín wáng

To Catch the Bandits, First Catch the King

General Bao acting out To Catch the Bandits, First Catch the King
General Bao demonstrates 擒賊擒王 — To Catch the Bandits, First Catch the King.
擒賊擒王 capture · bandit · capture · king

Don't hack at the limbs. Take the head — the leader, the keystone, the decision-maker — and the rest folds.

今 Today

Instead of convincing forty skeptical team members one by one, you spend all your energy winning over the single VP whose yes makes those forty conversations unnecessary.

反 When it backfires

Behead the wrong thing and the body fights on. Take out a figurehead while the real power sits elsewhere, and you've just made noise and an enemy.