This is a popular book that "comes alive" from the pile of old papers.
From Emperor Zhou's granting of "independent company licenses" to doctors to Zhao Kuangyin and Chen Qiaoyi's "yellow robe" counterattack in the workplace, interspersed are the "workplace PUA" during Shang Yang's reform, the "entrepreneurial rivalry" between Chu and Han, and the "family ethics drama" of Li Shimin's Xuanwu Clan.
There is no old cliché of "Oh, woe, woe" here, only the imaginative association of using the jade seal as an official seal and the post station as a courier point. Xiang Yu's hesitation at the Hongmen Banquet is a typical case of "failure to control the balance at the negotiation table"; Liu Bang's three-chapter rule is just like a textbook of "set up rules before a new team settles in"; even Wei Qing and Huo Qubing can read the passion of "business backbones for performance" - but their KPI is to protect the family and the country.
From the "crisis of relocation of the group headquarters" when the Zhou family moved eastward to the "note of maintaining the stability of a startup company" in the early Han Dynasty, emperors and generals are no longer the stereotyped faces in portraits: Duke Huan of Qi is the "Master of Resource Integration in the Spring and Autumn Period", Lin Xiangru's "returning the perfect jade to Zhao" is "the on-the-spot performance of a top negotiator", and Han Xin's "humiliation under the crotch" hides the "survival philosophy of forbearance and accumulation of strength in the workplace".
Opening this book is like listening to someone talk about history in a nagging tone: Machiavellianism is an upgraded version of office politics, war is the intense heat of team competition, and the successes and failures of thousands of years ago are, in the final analysis, nothing more than the simple truth of "Those who follow the rules will be safe, and those who understand people's hearts will win." By reading it, you can turn the hard-core wisdom in "Zi Zhi Tong Jian" into something transparent that can shine into reality without having to read classical Chinese.
