隔岸观火　(gé àn guān huǒ)

Sit on Your Hands and Watch Others Fight

This stratagem is similar to the scheme of “sitting on the hill and watching the tigers fight.” Both mean to stay in safety and watch others fight. When the parties involved in the fight are all hurt and exhausted, you just get up and reap the spoils.

According to the famous Sun Zi’s Art on the War, even when you are overwhelmingly stronger than your enemy and you are confident that you can win the battle, you should never enter the battlefield hastily. Otherwise what you might gain in the end could be no more than a pyrrhic victory.

Particularly, when your enemies are fighting among themselves, you should sit on your hands and wait for them to play out. If you engage yourself too early, you might get hurt as well. So, you don’t begin your strike until the fighting parties flat out. The ultimate purpose is to win the battle without a fight.

Cao Cao, the military genius who laid the foundation for the Kingdom of Wei during the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280 AD), was perhaps one of few who understood the essence of this stratagem.(https://www.daowen.com)

During the late years of Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD), Cao was fighting the two sons of Yuan Shao, a powerful warlord.

When their father died two years after a humiliating defeat in the hands of Cao, the two sons began an internal power struggle and then, hunted by Cao, fled to Liaodong to look for shelter under warlord Gongsun Kang there.

Instead of continuing his pursuit, Cao ordered his troops to return to their home base. Many of his aides felt puzzled. Cao explained that since the two brothers didn’t trust each other and the Liaodong warlord didn’t trust the two brothers, so let them played it out first.

“We just sit here and watch. I bet Gongsun Kang will bring us the heads of the two brothers,” said Cao.

Gongsun Kang first pondered the idea of forming a united frontline with the Yuan brothers to fight the Cao troops if the latter came to attack him. However, after Cao retreated, he thought providing shelter for the two brothers might not be a good idea since the Yuan family had long been harboring the ambition of taking his territory.

In order to avert any possible troubles in the future, Gongsun Kang eventually killed the two Yuan brothers and had their heads delivered to Cao as a token of reconciliation.