← Back to the front page

Great Daring Moments From History

Khalid Elhassan September 28, 2020 31 min

Josip Broz Tito - World War II — Yugoslav partisans wading across a river. Wikimedia

9. The Empty Fort Strategy

Zhuge Liang as also known for another daring bluff, which became proverbial in China as the “empty fort strategy”. It came about when he was tasked with defending a walled city with a severely undermanned garrison. A vastly superior enemy army approached – one against which Zhuge Liang’s tiny garrison stood no chance.

Rather than barricade the city gates, he threw them open. He then grabbed a musical instrument, and proceeded to nonchalantly play it while seated atop the gates. When scouts informed the enemy commander what they saw, he rode to the gates and saw that they were indeed wide open. He looked up at the walls, and saw that they were unmanned, while Zhuge Liang nonchalantly played music above. Suspecting a trap, the enemy commander turned his army around and left the defenseless city.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.