Attracting Arrows with Straw Men
(Cǎochuán Jiè Jiàn 草船借箭)

It was the time of the Three Kingdoms (Sānguó 三国, period 07) and Marshal ZHŌU Yú 周瑜 was encamped across the river from his enemy CÁO Cāo 曹操, the infamously expansionist and extremely successful leader of the state of Greater Wèi 魏. Zhōu Yú was short of ammunition for what he assumed was destined to be a difficult battle ahead against Cáo’s better equipped troops. He also sought to test a newly arrived military strategist ZHŪGĚ Liàng 诸葛亮. Zhūgě was the principal military strategist to LIÚ Bèi 刘备, of the state of Shǔ Hàn 蜀汉. Zhūgě Liàng was famous, but Zhōu had as yet little confidence in him.

So Zhōu Yú summoned Zhūgě Liáng and explained that in the coming battle against Cáo’s troops he anticipated a shortage of about 100,000 arrows, and he charged Zhūgé, as a faithful subordinate, to try to supply them within a scant ten days.

Zhūgě Liàng argued that ten days was too long to wait to engage Cáo in battle, and promised to find the necessary arrows within three days or subject himself to whatever punishment Zhōu Yú might provide. Zhūgě Liàng asked only to be provided with 500 soldiers to go to the banks of the river to collect the arrows at the end of the three days. Zhōu had difficulty believing this, but he accepted the offer.

Zhōu Yú sent his assistant LǓ Sù 鲁肃 to look into what Zhūgě Liàng was actually doing, but LǓ Sù was Zhūgě’s old friend, and agreed to lend him 20 boats and about 30 soldiers per boat, as well as about a thousand of the straw men used as target practice. He was puzzled just what was involved, but it was clear that Zhūgě Liàng had something up his sleeve.

Zhūgě Liàng waited until there was a heavy fog, which as it happened did not occur until the third evening. Then he led out his soldiers in their boats under cover of darkness and fog, instructing them to hide under heavy black tarpaulins, while leaving straw men standing along the sides of the boats. Then they tied the boats together and towed them down the river, beating drums and shouting, as though there were about to cross the river and attack Cáo Cāo’s troops.

The night was dark and the fog made it difficult or impossible to see anything. When anything could be glimpsed by Cáo’s troops, it was the shadowy forms of the straw men tightly massed along the sides of the boats, slowly moving towards them. Cáo Cāo worried that he was about to be the object of a sneak attack by Zhōu Yú’s troops, and he ordered ten thousand archers to attack from the shore, even though it was too dark and dangerous to risk entering the water. They fired volley after volley of arrows at the river, trying to hit the “men” in the boats. Eventually the boats and their strangely motionless crews floated away.

The next morning, while the fog still had not dispersed, Zhōu Yú sent his 500 men to the river bank, as promised, to “harvest” arrows. In addition each of the boats had about five or six thousand arrows sticking into its straw men, producing over a hundred thousand arrows even without those stuck into the mud along the river.

Lǔ Sù hurried to report Zhūgě Liàng’s great strategic success to Zhōu Yú, who had to admit that Zhūgě Liàng was a good deal more clever than he was.