On: Working smarter

I don’t believe in ‘work smarter not harder”

But if I did, this is how I think it would be:

In the 3rd century AD, a Chinese military strategist named Zhuge Liang was accused of treason ahead of a big battle, which he denied.

To prove his loyalty, he was ordered to make or procure 100,000 arrows for the army within 10 days. Failure would result in his execution.

Zhuge accepted the challenge and, to further prove his commitment to the country, declared that instead of 10 days, he would do it in 3.

Considering the technology at the time, manufacturing that amount of arrows in 10 days, let alone in 3, was impossible. Right?

Instead of manufacturing the arrows, Zhuge had another idea.

He took a few boats and had his men attach bundles of straw to them.

Late in the evening, when it was foggy, he had them drive the boats down a river towards the enemy’s camp.

Since visibility was low, the enemy camp feared that the few boats were decoys and that there could be a larger fleet ready to trap them if they were to engage them in the water.

Instead of directly attacking the boats in the water, the enemy soldiers stood on the riverbank and fired thousands of arrows towards the boats.

All the arrows were caught and stuck in the straw bundles that had been attached to the boats.

Zhuge’s men who had been hiding on the boats waited until the barrage of arrows had stopped raining down and then turned around.

They met with Zhuge, and handed him the hundreds of thousands of arrows that they had collected, which he then presented to the army chief.

And just like that, Zhuge had delivered on his task and no longer faced execution.