The Empty Fort Strategy is the 32nd of the Chinese Thirty-Six Stratagems. The strategy involves using reverse psychology (and luck) to deceive the enemy into thinking that an empty fort is full of traps and ambushes, and therefore retreat. This tactic is best known for being used by the Three Kingdoms period strategist Zhuge Liang in a fictitious account in Luo Guanzhong's historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
There are two actual recorded battles employing such strategy during the Three Kingdom period. The first one, recorded in Yu Huan's A Brief History of Wei, was employed by Wen Ping in 226 at Jiangxia during an invasion led by Sun Quan. The other and the more well known example was from Pei Songzhi's annotations in Records of Three Kingdoms, which was later romanticized by Luo Guanzhong in Romance of the Three Kingdoms (see the Hanzhong Campaign section below for more details).
Read more about Empty Fort Strategy: Cultural References
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