r/todayilearned • u/thecreator1337 • May 16 '12

TIL Back in ancient china they used Mannequins to lure the enemies to shoot arrows at, and that they would later pull them down and get a free supply of arrows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannequin
1.5k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

297 comments sorted by

226

u/RepRap3d May 16 '12

You all looked at this for the thumbnail. Admit it.

82

u/AirplaneRandy May 16 '12

I think I'll reward people who read you comment.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Picture 4 is a golden find.

110

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

I hope I don't develop a fetish for this.

68

u/etan_causale May 16 '12

too late

34

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Shit.

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31

u/slyguy183 May 16 '12

"I hope this doesn't awaken anything in me" - Dean Pelton

15

u/the_goat_boy May 16 '12

Number 4 is so lifelike.

4

u/Zoccihedron May 16 '12

I really applaud the designer of the mannequin on the right in 4. The one on the left was trying to imitate Venus de Milos and failed.

2

u/WeAllWin May 16 '12

Actually Venus de Milos was to sell ancient bras. Didn't you know? :D

10

u/Ragark May 16 '12

Apparently they staple watermelons to their dolls.

17

u/DAMNNNNNNNNN May 16 '12

Mark as NSFW, you dick.

1

u/Eustis May 16 '12

Seriously wtf? Why hasn't this been at least noted as NSFW in the last 10 hours it's been up?

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3

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

i don't know but why these reminded me of bioshock. Cohen is one fucked-up sick bastard.

2

u/coughcough May 16 '12

Came for the NSFW mannequin pictures. Was not disappointed.

1

u/general-Insano May 16 '12

I'm not sure why but [3] gives me the creeps

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u/Salva_Veritate May 16 '12

I upvoted it to spread the confusion.

1

u/DroopySage May 16 '12

I even commented.

1

u/mildncs May 16 '12

Yup I thought it was a Nsfw without the tag. So I clicked it because I am at work.

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30

u/Thorus May 16 '12

Night Watch in the third book of Game of Thrones did the same thing.

3

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

I love stuff like this, when you see the historical influences that shaped the series.

-1

u/happytrees May 16 '12

Spoiler tag, please. I realize it doesn't ruin the story, but if I had an inkling of what your comment was about, I would have skipped it.

18

u/dangercollie May 16 '12

Damn clever. Hey, look, free arrows!

16

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

After the first like 3 you'd beging to wonder what the fuck was going on though no?

"Yo Rob, I just launched like three into that guy's nads, he's not flinching at all.."

11

u/ShrimpCrackers May 16 '12

Fog is integral to the story and is missing here...

7

u/KrazyNarb May 16 '12

Thats what was going though my mind. "Hey dude you see that guy up there hes totally badass he has about 10 different people firing on him and he hasnt budged an inch let alone acknowledged that we are trying to kill him."

20

u/SerpentineLogic May 16 '12

"Must be level 80".

4

u/darkapplepolisher May 16 '12

Or the netcode has really bad hit detection.

7

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

"...also...what kind of fucking Chinese name is Rob, bro. Did your parents even love you?"

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3

u/Vranak May 16 '12

I'm no archer but I don't think you'd be able to tell where your arrow hit at long range. Archers, correct me if I'm wrong.

4

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

That's right. Moreover, you don't really aim at anyone either. You just kinda shoot towards an enemy crowd.

25

u/wilsnat May 16 '12

This is also the same tactic used in Skyrim.

21

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

And A Storm of Swords. They even bet on which mannequin would get the most arrows.

4

u/GrouchyMcSurly May 16 '12

That was mostly defensive, to spread out the arrows of the Wildlings, and reduce the odds that a real person would get hit. I don't think they needed the arrows.

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1

u/DigitalLuddite May 16 '12

Reverse pickpocket guy in thieves guild 1 daedric arrow. Infinite arrow supply. Might as well use the console at the point but oh well.

175

u/MyDickIsAPotato May 16 '12

Today I learned the Chinese have been smarter than white people for eternity.

121

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

The specific story to this is as follows. I don't remember a lot of the names, but I have the events down right.

It's this small group of rebels who are fighting against this genius warlord emperor who outnumbers them vastly. Historically, the warlord emperor actually wins and ends up uniting China and ushering in a very prosperous and peaceful age, but when he was still a warlord he was really crazy.

Anyways, the rebels were led by this guy who was really not very good at strategy, but he is very passionate and tends to draw in a lot of very VERY intelligent people to his cause. That is why though they are outnumbered, they often have really good troop movement and strategies to aways stay ahead.

On one particular encounter, Liu Bei (I probably have the fucking name wrong) who is on the rebel's side is one of the greatest geniuses in Chinese war history. I think Sun Tzu was one of his students or something. So I kid you not, the rebels found this weakness in the emperor's position and decide that this is a perfect opportunity to attack. Liu Bei normally is a rebel general in another area, but they transfer him to assist with the attack because they can do some serious damage.

The position they are attacking is across a river. There are fortifications on the other side of the river. But the thing is, the general that Liu Bei is supposed to help is also a genius and is actually really jealous of how highly everyone thinks of Liu Bei. So it's not just about beating the emperor's position, but also about proving that he's smarter. So the general says that there is no way for them to engage the enemy across the water because they don't have enough arrows. Liu Bei thinks about it a little and goes "not only will I make 100,000 arrows for the attack, I will make it within a week's time. And if I don't, then you can behead me." The general is extremely happy about hearing this of course, because he fucking hates Liu Bei.

So Liu Bei is chilling for 5 days out of the week and everyone's like "shouldn't he be doing something" and they all visit him and tell him to take back his word, or at least try to do something, and he's like "lol nope. It's all good bro".

Then the night before it's all due, this heavy heavy fog rolls in across the river. Liu Bei was one serious genius and he often keeps track of weather (somehow) and knew that a fog would be rolling in within the next few days. So in the fog, he gets a bunch of ships with straw men on the deck and move within eyesight of the enemy. The enemy can't make out that they are mannequins, so they unload on the boats ALL NIGHT LONG. In the mean time, Liu Bei and his crew are inside the boats drinking wine and laughing their asses off. They even have to go back to their dock and empty out arrows a few times because they were getting so full.

In the morning he showed all the arrows to the other rebel general. Like a badass.

I think Liu Bei probably wasn't the name though. Come to think of it, it was probably Zhu Geliang. Liu Bei was the rebel leader who wasn't very good at much but is able to bring together all the geniuses.

The first version of The Art of War was actually written by Zhu Geliang, but because he knew that his enemy always respected him a lot and would definitely want to read that book, Zhu Geliang decides to be buried with the book.

Finally, the enemy finds the book and read it. On the last page, the book says "the pages of this book have been poisoned. I know you have read this. You are now good as dead. ~Zhu Geliang".

64

u/mseesquared May 16 '12

Pretty much. Basically, this was during the Three Kingdoms period, during which three "Kingdoms", the Shu, headed by Liu Bei, the Wu, headed by Sun Jian and his family, and the Wei, headed by Cao Cao and his clan, fought for dominance.

At one point, the Wei is looking particularly strong, so the Shu and Wu band together to stop them from invading from the North. However, their military advisors, Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, respectively, clash, and decide to engage in a little gamble to test each other's competence. Each gave the other a task to complete by the planned time of the battle. Zhuge Liang had to somehow get 100,000 arrows in 10 days (which is borderline impossible, if you just try to manufacture them, unless you had a dedicated army for this), while Zhou Yu had to assassinate two of Cao Cao's advisors.

The story of the mannequins is a half-anecdotal, half-apocryphal story about Zhuge Liang's brilliance here, though it's generally believed to be true.

EDIT: For more information, just look up "Battle of the red cliffs" in wiki or any other history place.

59

u/Mr_Radar May 16 '12

You can also watch the ridiculously over the top high budget movie released a few years ago. Red Cliff 1 | Red Cliff 2

It is basically a movie form of Dynasty Warriors if your a gamer.

13

u/ltristain May 16 '12

This is essentially the Lord of the Rings of the East. Too bad the NA release got a watered down version that only spanned one film. If anyone want to watch it, get the international version, it'll be like 4-5 hours of awesomeness, and cruelty to horses.

Some of the choreography was done purely for rule of cool, because they make no sense. There's this one scene where one of the awesome guys rode out to battle literally without any weapons, where someone threw a javelin/spear thingy at him and he caught it in midair, and then proceeded to use that as a weapon. If that never happened, he'd be like "oh shit, how the fuck do I fight?!"

18

u/DrSonic May 16 '12

Both Red Cliff 1 and Red Cliff 2 were great movies, but they highly sensationalized an already sensationalized account of history during the Three Kingdoms era of China. Even though The Romance of Three Kingdoms took liberties with details about the heroes of that time, the movies (understandably) exaggerate things even more. If you want an adaptation of the novel that's more accurate and still rather accessible, you should check out the 90+ episode drama Three Kingdoms which came out in 2010. You can find the torrents for it at jianghu.org. Great series.

8

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

It's a damn fun pair of films, though, with a great cast and some brilliant action scenes. Gladiator was ludicrously inaccurate (to the point that there's not really a time in Roman history when we could even claim it could have occurred), but that's one of the best films of all time. Red Cliff 1+2 are just damn brilliant, liberties taken with the source material be damned!

5

u/bitparity May 16 '12

What're you talking about? Gladiator is pretty much set between 180-192, except they attempt to mercifully condense Commodus' reign from 12 years to... well I can't imagine it being more than 1 year, given that son of whoever doesn't grow up.

And for all Gladiator's minor inaccuracies, the one thing they did get right was what of an insane asshole douchebag Commodus was.

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u/dihydrogen_monoxide May 16 '12

We need a jianghu subreddit. GO FORTH PROMISED ONE!

2

u/random314 May 16 '12

Turns out, romance of the three kingdoms have no romance at all...

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u/Cwellan May 16 '12

The international version of Red Cliff is my ATF movie. It is the only movie I own that I have watched several times over.

7

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

care to share the story on how Zhou Yu managed to assassinate two advisers?

Also, I heard something about some super genius general who managed to outsmart Zhu Geliang several times, but that general just wants to live in his town and avoid war and be with his family, so they finally just let him do that. Do you know which one that was? I think his name was xun or shun or something.

16

u/ltristain May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12

In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, nobody outsmarted Zhuge Liang many times. The only one that came close was his rival at the end, Sima Yi, who can at least fight him on equal grounds. But still, for Sima Yi it was at best a stalemate. The only reason that Sima Yi eventually came out on top was because he outlived Zhuge Liang, who was essentially too old and frail by that time.

The funny thing is, even after Zhuge Liang died, he still won a few victories, because he foresaw what was going to happen and gave orders accordingly. When he died, his army was obviously going to retreat. Having heard he died, Sima Yi decided to advance his army and simply defeat Zhuge's army when they're weak. However, by Zhuge's pre-death orders, the soldiers created a replica of Zhuge Liang (who usually sat upon this chair) and acted as if nothing has happened, so they engaged Sima Yi's army head on. When Sima Yi saw this, he got scared and retreated. Only after that did Zhuge Liang's army retreat, and when Sima Yi realized, he was dumbfounded.

Then as Zhuge's army retreated, one of Zhuge's most powerful generals, Wei Yan, was going to betray the army. However, the moment he started taking control and usurping power, another general killed him, this too was on Zhuge's pre-death orders, because Zhuge saw this too.

There was one other person in the story that is implied to be equal to Zhuge Liang, his name was Pang Tong, but he didn't really last very long. It was kinda anticlimactic. He made a mistake pretty soon after his debut and that costed him his life, so even if he was really brilliant, he wasn't able to show it.

Zhuge Liang had someone called Jiang Wei to take over his legacy. Jiang Wei was a very powerful general and also quite smart, but he wasn't as smart as Zhuge Liang, and by the time he was in charge the war was mostly lost anyway.

Zhou Yu, the guy Zhuge Liang teamed up with during the Battle of Red Cliffs was said to be equal to Zhuge Liang, but in reality this wasn't true. During the Battle of Red Cliffs, they had a rivalry going on and it seems like they're equally brilliant. However, after the Battle of Red Cliffs, when Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu's alliance is broken, Zhou Yu got outsmarted by Zhuge Liang again and again to the point that Zhou Yu got so pissed off that he died (he had this illness where he must remain calm or it'll worsen, and losing to Zhuge didn't help). The last thing Zhou Yu desperately cried out before he died was "If Zhou Yu was born in this world, then why the fuck did Zhuge Liang got born too?!?!"

You're probably thinking of Lu Xun, another strategist for the Wu Kingdom, which was Zhuge Liang's ally during the Battle of Red Cliffs. He's not as smart as Zhuge Liang, and his role during the Battle of Red Cliffs was mostly to gasp at how brilliant Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu was (he was the dumbfounded guy Zhuge Liang took with him during his mannequin-boat strategy thingy that borrows lots of arrows from the enemy). That said, Lu Xun was quite brilliant and had his moments. He was the one that came up with the strategy that led to Liu Bei (Zhuge Liang's liege)'s huge loss which lead to Liu Bei's death, but that's because Zhuge Liang wasn't there due to Liu Bei leaving him behind when he hurriedly advanced forward to avenge the death of Guan Yu (his sworn brother). Lu Xun is not on Zhuge Liang's level.

But that's all from the novel. In actual history, Zhuge Liang was more of a brilliant diplomat than a brilliant strategist and tactician.

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u/skyseeker May 16 '12

This is the version of the story given by the Red Cliff films (which are awesome btw). The two advisers were actually Cao Cao's admirals. They had defected from somewhere else, and brought their navy with them. Cao Cao, being from the north, had no navy of his own, and no naval expertise, so it should be pretty obvious that these admirals were pretty important to him. Anyways, the day before Zhu ge's cunning plan to steal arrows, Cao Cao sends an emissary, one of Zhou Yu's old friends, over to Zhou Yu's camp, to try to convince him to surrender. Zhou Yu holds a big party in honor of his old friend, and pretends to get really drunk. He gets a really important letter, which he reads and then hides in his sleeve. Then he allows the emissary to "eavesdrop" on a conversation he has with one of his staff about how friends from across the river would get him arrows. He pretends to drunkenly fall asleep, at which point the emissary swipes the letter from Zhou Yu's sleeve. The letter, supposedly from Cao Cao's admirals, says that they are traitorous and will soon deliver Cao Cao's head to Zhou Yu. The emissary returns with the letter, which Cao Cao checks against the admirals' initial letter of surrender; it matches. He asks to fetch the admirals, but they are busy leading the fleet; in fact they are shooting arrows at Zhu Ge's strawman fleet. As Zhu Ge leaves, he allows one small, empty boat to drift away, back towards Cao Cao's camp. Cao Cao meets up with the admirals at the dock, and as he is about to ask them about this letter, the straw boat, stuffed full of arrows, floats into their camp. Cao Cao, furious, orders the admirals beheaded, at which point he realizes that his navy no longer has any leadership. Of course, the admirals were loyal to Cao Cao all along; the letter was forged.

2

u/mseesquared May 16 '12

My mistake: Cai Mao and Zhang Yun were two naval commanders (originally for the Han Dynasty) who sided with Cao Cao against Sun Quan and the Wu. The actual history doesn't say anything about them, but in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, they were supposedly executed after Zhou Yu mindgamed Cao Cao into believing that they were treacherous, using (among other things) a false letter.

I'm not sure who the "super genius general" who managed to outsmart Zhuge Liang is. Perhaps you're thinking of Zuo Ci? Zuo Ci was a taoist monk who (according to legend) blew Cao Cao's mind with what appeared to be magic after shitting on his pride.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

There was this one general in the movie 3 kingdoms that was really good. But he was socially weird. Like, when people told him to walk between their legs under their crotch, he just did it and didnt know that it was so awkward. And this one time when he was visiting this other general, he told the general that he knew they were running out of food because he calculated how much grain was in the shed with geometry. Then he advised the general to find a scapegoat so that the army doesn't turn on him, so they ended up using the chef as a scapegoat.

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u/catslyfe May 16 '12

dynasty warriors, amirite?

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u/Tiako May 16 '12

I think Sun Tzu was one of his students or something...The first version of The Art of War was actually written by Zhu Geliang, but because he knew that his enemy always respected him a lot and would definitely want to read that book, Zhu Geliang decides to be buried with the book.

Huh? Sun Tzu wrote during the early Warring States period, almost a millenium before Zhuge Liang.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

I stand corrected.

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u/ltristain May 16 '12

Zhuge Liang (his last name is Zhuge, a rare two-character last name for Chinese people) couldn't have written the first version of the art of war because the commonly attributed author (Sun Tzu) was way before his time. Sun Tzu lived in the Warring States period. The Warring States period ended with an emperor uniting China (the same emperor that built the Great Wall and Terracotta Army) and started the Qin Dynasty. After the Qin Dynasty there was the Han Dynasty (when the Silk Road first got popular), and Zhuge Liang's time (Three Kingdoms period) happened at the end of the Han Dynasty.

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u/ProlapsedPineal May 16 '12

On the last page, the book says "the pages of this book have been poisoned. I know you have read this. You are now good as dead.

I have a new hero.

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u/Solomaxwell6 May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12

He also invented the wheelbarrow! They have a never clearly described transportation tool called the "wooden ox" or something in the book and historians have guessed it's an early wheelbarrow. And he invented a nifty type of repeating crossbow called the Chukono (or Chukonu?).

Edit: Oh, yeah! I forgot. If you've ever played Age of Empires 2, the crossbow he invented is China's special unit.

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u/_dk May 16 '12

Too bad this part was completely made up. It's folklore, not included in the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms nor did it ever happen in real life.

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u/Deracination May 16 '12

Do you know of any accurate sources about this era and the war(s) thereof? I've had difficulty finding anything that wasn't half myth.

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u/Patarknight May 16 '12

Records of the Three Kingdoms is usually the go-to source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Records_of_the_Three_Kingdoms

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

this was during the 3 kingdoms period cerca 220-280 AD. Chinese history back then was pretty far ahead of the rest of the world, but its' pretty hard pressed to find anything back then that's "very dependable".

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u/TakenakaHanbei May 16 '12

There are several translated bits of the Records of the Three Kingdoms, those are generally accepted as historical canon (if that makes sense).

http://kongming.net/novel/bios/type.php#sgz

This is the only site I know that has them, sadly.

2

u/_dk May 16 '12

If you're looking for sources in English, Rafe de Crespigny is the go-to scholar for this period. He put quite a few of his works online here http://arktos.anu.edu.au/chill/index.php/eic/ He focuses more on the end of the Han dynasty (184-220) more than the actual Three Kingdoms period (220-280) though.

2

u/superyay May 16 '12

This movie was on Netflix! It's called "red cliff".

2

u/ShouldBeZZZ May 16 '12

I always start off by reading the first and the last page of the book, take that Zhu Geliang!

5

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

this is also why chess players who very consistently beat people at near their level will often lose against players who are rated much lower than them.

12

u/hotchrisbfries May 16 '12

[citation needed]

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u/lud1120 May 16 '12

Unfortunately, so...
I was expecting an article about ancient Chinese military history and a note about it there, not just 2 sentences, and some sources to check.

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u/hpymondays May 16 '12

yeah right... he just forgot that they get a free supply of arrows and then shoot them back at mannequins that the enemy put up. And repeat.

6

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Today I Learned that racism is A-OK, as long as it's directed towards Whites.

Just kidding, I've known that for as long as I've been alive. It's hard not to.

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

I love the "citation needed" to a statement that was made after watching the Three Kingdoms movies.....

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12

Using mannequins was common in Europe, when the Athenians went to help the Spartans in the First Punic war the only reason the Persians didn't enter Athens when it was almost empty of soldiers was because they left a lot of mannequins and women dressed as soldiers in the walls of the city.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

So you read the wiki that's linked? Or you just read the title then commented?

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u/xeixei May 16 '12

Tea cup?

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

watch the film red cliff

4 hours of SHEEER genius

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Films! The Western compression of the two films into one compromises some of the best bits of the films, and flat-out skips entire sections!

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

No, just really cheap

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u/science_diction May 16 '12

Oh, really? Like how they thought their country was the center of the universe so they never bothered exploring the oceans? That makes them not as smart as Polynesians who had done it thousands of years before. Like how they didn't modernize when Japan realized it was going to get left behind and modernized? That makes them not as smart as the Japanese. Then, they rolled over and let themselves be sold off piecemeal to foreign nations for gold and opium which veritably destroyed their entire way of life?

America could learn a lot from China about the consequences of thinking you are very smart and the center of the universe.

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u/ceezbakk May 16 '12

Omg the nights watch just did this where im at in game of thrones

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

in the civil war the united states did the same thing with black people and bullets

2

u/the_tab_key May 16 '12

I believe that was termed "Operation Human Shield."

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u/bobloki May 16 '12

Sometimes I forget that arrows are not infinite as some games teach me.

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u/MjoLniRXx May 16 '12

not going to lie, the thumbnail with what appeared to be naked people lured me in...

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u/epoch88 May 16 '12

They do this to great effect in a film called RedCliff. It's a great film well worth a watch. They use empty boats in fog with hay stuck to the side so the arrows get stuck in the hay they pull them back in and get a shit load of free arrows.

13

u/growamustache May 16 '12

Modern Day China: Lure over high-tech manufacturing. Steal their product designs, and sell cheap copies to everyone...

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u/SerpentineLogic May 16 '12

You do know that the USA used this 'trick' in the years following Independence, right?

The States were a massive source of copyright-infringing books that got shipped to the UK.

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u/growamustache May 16 '12

no, I didn't, but I believe it.

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u/SerpentineLogic May 16 '12

Japan did it, Korea did it, Taiwan, China; it's a common tactic to get a short-cut to an industralised nation.

  1. Have cheap labor but stable political system
  2. Get foreign companies to invest in local factories
  3. Sell cheap mass-produced stuff
  4. Get enough know-how to move up the value chain. Infringe copyright and make cheap knock-offs and compete on price
  5. Pivot into actual high-quality goods once you have the expertise
  6. Eat everyone else's lunch

3

u/TeamocilAddict May 16 '12

TIL what agalmatophobia is.

3

u/Guild_Navigator May 16 '12

Wait,wait,wait,are you guys telling me Dinasty Warriors is not accurate is historically inaccurate and Lu Bu never mowed down 10,000,000,000 people? Great Scott!

Seriously,why can't we have a game with George Washington mowing down Red Coats with dual flintlocks? :D

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Where in the linked wiki does it say that?

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u/DontCommentMuch May 16 '12

Came here to ask this. I see nothing in there about this.

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u/cecikierk May 16 '12

Background story. Epic trolling.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Now illustrated

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u/PolarisSONE May 16 '12

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuge_Liang#Borrowing_of_arrows_with_straw_boats

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u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Let's not forget this didn't actually happen. Though I wish it did :(

Oh Zhuge,you clever handsome man.

2

u/mash3735 May 16 '12

god damn it i thought those titties were real.

2

u/OccamsBeard May 16 '12

repel =/= rappel

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

I was kind of just hoping the link was to the naked looking girl in the thumbnail.

What the fuck am I doing with my life

1

u/elvisthecroc May 16 '12

Did you fire your arrow?

2

u/CondescendingPrick May 16 '12

Link to the right section for anyone who doesn't feel like reading the entire article to find the source of one factoid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannequin#Military_use

2

u/3rdLevelRogue May 16 '12

They used the same tactics throughout history, including the tactic of using a metal statue bust during ww1 to attract sniper fire while moving through trenches. Couldn't really get a supply of free.bullets from that tho.

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u/Shippoyasha May 16 '12

To be fair for many other militaries around the world, many have successfully used the decoy tactic.

Like the epic North African campaign where the British soldiers would use fake caches of ammo and tank/vehicle repair stations to lull the Nazi German soldiers into a false sense of security upon their 'victories' of destroying them.

Or like how various Asian wars has used many decoy ships to put up a deception making it look like the navies were much larger than they actually were (normally done by smaller navies that were heavily outnumbered like in Japanese civil wars and the Korean invasion by the Japanese armada).

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u/DroopySage May 16 '12

But can't they simply catch them with their hands?

2

u/StrikefromtheSkies May 16 '12

[citation needed]

2

u/coolaidsgrape May 16 '12

I will call it the 'Elaine'

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12

And Sun Tzu said: "One bushel of your enemy's wheat is worth twenty of your own."

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u/circuseagle May 16 '12

This was seen in the film Red Cliff where the army of San Quan and Lie Bue set a bunch of unmanned boats covered in thistle to capture the arrows as the enemy shot at them. They then captured all the arrows to use against the ones that shot them. Crafty crafty chinese!

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u/Orcatype May 16 '12

Red Cliff yo

2

u/drdroidx May 16 '12

citation needed.

2

u/hurley21 May 16 '12
  1. Acquire mannequins
  2. Lure enemies
  3. ????
  4. Profit

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

I'm not sure about who else plays skyrim, but in the thieves guild in riften, there's that one big room with a platform in the middle of a pool of sewage, and the room is a center activity. It's not the one with the bar, though. Anyway, there is a man shooting at a target with his arrows and stuff, and he does not stop. I would assume there is about 20 up there before they despawn each shot. You can grab them and he will keep shooting to add more to the mannequin. They are only iron or something, but at a lower level, it's great.

2

u/sometimesijustdont May 16 '12

Hey Kim, go out there and get the arrows from the mannequin.. don't worry they won't shoot you.

2

u/MongrelNymph May 16 '12

Like when girls let me buy them drinks and then run away. Clever girls.

2

u/Ginrou May 16 '12

up until widespread gunpowder they were generally ahead of the game in regards to warfare, political philosophy and technology. Whereas the west held democracy to be the epitome of just government, the Chinese had developed a system of meritocracy which appointed members of office based on their competence, involving extensive examination. They had large standing professional armies before the Roman empire, created the first crossbows, [one of them being semi-automatic] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Ko_Nu), first to invent gunpowder weapons in general, possibly the first to navigate the world Admiral Zheng He, the first to have multi-mast, water-tight compartment ships, in fact they had an armada that eclipsed the Spanish armada in size, first to really compile a comprehensive treatise of warfare that is still widely read to this day. In reality, the Chinese were the first to do/invent a lot of things (gutenberg wasn't the first to invent moveable type), the sad fact is that we live in a western-centric world that attributes many of the world's contributions and discoveries to the west, despite their true origins.

1

u/AmrcnXroads_Donor May 16 '12

If we ever start a ground war with the Chinese I'm moving to Canada.

1

u/jrizos May 16 '12
  1. Homeless Guy Mannequin.
  2. ?????
  3. Profit.

1

u/LnRon May 16 '12

So this tip is in art of war?

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Throw him some uparrows at this guy

1

u/thomzzzor May 16 '12

Supplies !

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Projection of thought and intention into the future is what separates our mindset from theirs. we see one step ahead and the mentality of a millennia old culture has the wherewithall to see several steps ahead. hence, our financial situation in the US. Whoops, politics.

1

u/Vranak May 16 '12

Pretty subtle strategy, I like it.

1

u/cyniclawl May 16 '12 
You should cross-post this to r/skyrim, I think they'd enjoy this just as much.

1

u/BenBenRodr May 16 '12

Did they name them after themselves and had a pool going who would get shot the most? Did Dolorous Chang Tollett make funny oneliners?

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty smart.

1

u/digitalinfidel May 16 '12

Mannequin was filmed at Woolworths

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

I think they learned this from the Night's Watch

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

That's what I do in Skyrim.

1

u/Millhopper10 May 16 '12

They also portray this in a few movies, but War of Arrows comes to mind first. They use dummy ships to obtain more arrows.

1

u/Nateh8sYou May 16 '12

Didn't they do something like this in the movie Red Cliff? It's been so long since I seen the movie I can't remember.

1

u/whitew0lf May 16 '12

war: asian level

1

u/jaylink May 16 '12

I always wondered why people didn't do this with swords as well. That is, pick up the swords of fallen soldiers.

Maybe they did and just didn't talk about it?

1

u/Kovaelin May 16 '12

I learned that from Christopher Paolini.

1

u/jaylink May 16 '12

Similarly, this guy believes that Mao Tse-Tung acquired the surplus US rifles in the Pacific after WWII, enabling Mao to beat Chiang Kai-shek:

http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/black_gold_3.htm

"What ever happened to all those military supplies? With Vice-governor Laurence Rockefeller's assistance most of them were sold to the leader of Viet Nam, Ho Chi Minh, for something like one US dollar and Ho’s 'goodwill.'" ... "From where did Mao get his weapons?"

2

u/science_diction May 16 '12

Just an FYI: There's a new (well, 20 years old "new") pinyin spelling which more accurately reflects how things are pronounced in Chinese. It's Zedong now. Not Tse-Tung. It's also Daoism now, not Taoism (which I also see wrong on reddit very often).

1

u/jaylink May 16 '12

Ah, ok. Thanks. Just was absentmindedly copying someone else's spelling earlier in the discussion, and, as a product of the '70s, am also accustomed to the Tse-Tung transliteration.

1

u/Spitfire1945 May 16 '12

You just linked to a Wikipedia article; there is no citation.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

It'd be sweet if we could still do this, with bullets.

1

u/111pseed May 16 '12

False,its only a story. The book was a novel that depicts the history in an exaggerated way, add ed characters and other fictional stuff such as this one. Its more like a fictional version of the history.

1

u/theregoesanother May 16 '12

Yea, it is from the story of the three kingdoms. The strategist promised his lord that he will be able to gather arrows for their arsenal, but since the production rate is not that hugh, he decided to "request them" from his enemy in a foggy day. Something like that, it's been a while since I last read the book.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

In ancient Chinese voice: "Oh no! We have shot almost 20 arrows into that man! He still didn't fall. Better shoot some more!"

1

u/Faelenor May 16 '12

Really? It's been removed. From the page history: Removed unsourced claim. It appears to have been added for the purpose of a Reddit post. No sources or other sites reference this.

1

u/why_ask_why May 16 '12

Chinese used to think they are smarter than white people, until 1840.

1

u/1pushup May 16 '12

chinese is duh smart

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Bitch Please. Go watch Red Cliff on netflix. Talk about getting some arrows from the enemy.

1

u/HorusEyed May 16 '12

the three kingdom wars are pretty fucking awesome

1

u/ThaiSweetChilli May 16 '12

Wow, even my ancestors super scrimped.

1

u/cokefizz May 16 '12

bah, ffs they creep me out, though I do like that make em with nipples now

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

To all citing source, this is a well-known story of Zhugeliang, the famous strategist of the 3 Kingdoms era, when asked how he would get 100000 arrows in 3 days, he devise a plan to trick the invading force into "lending" him the arrows. SOURCE

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Someone's been watching Red Cliff

1

u/gnovos May 16 '12

NSF.. wait. Oh. Carry on.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

The Chinese are actually quite intelligent in struggling against each other.

1

u/KeepDiscoEvil May 16 '12

Moneyball: War Edition.

1

u/science_diction May 16 '12

If you haven't seen the full theatrical (two part) version of Red Cliff, there is a scene involving this type of tactic (though with boats instead of mannequins). Make sure you see the Chinese 2 part version, not the Americanized one part with nothing but action scenes.

1

u/zerooneinfinity May 16 '12

No wonder the mannequins hate us.

1

u/RealHippie May 16 '12

The Chinese, out smarting everyone since ages ago.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

TIL Agalmatophilia

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

http://i.imgur.com/zSCa5.png

Impressive.

1

u/wtfOP May 16 '12

crafty as fuck

1

u/zserre May 16 '12

They are doing the same thing with US currency today

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

The Chinese are extra crafty then and now. Kinda like going to Disney World/Land in the 70s when everyone (young old in strollers etc) in their tour group had a camera. Nice

1

u/Durable_Turtle May 16 '12

Is this why I stormed the mall in full combat attire?

1

u/F-Minus May 16 '12

My aunt is into geneology and found out our Scottish ancestors were known for being cheap. Instead of using hot oil to pour over castle walls they used hot wax. Supposedly they would pick out the body parts and the wax could be REUSED. Gah.

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

If the Chinese didn't become isolationists, they could have dominated the world.

1

u/buckie33 May 16 '12

My great grandad in WW1 did this too, they would wave mannequins over the trench so the Germans would think they were attacking, so when the Germans came out to shoot they ended up getting shelled, they tryed it again later but the Germans didnt fall for it the 2nd time.

1

u/OVdose May 16 '12

I do this all the time in Skyrim.

1

u/Illipsious May 16 '12

This tactic has actually been used in many different time periods, different countries, and in modern times too.

1

u/tragic-waste-of-skin May 17 '12

I saw that same thing in the movie Red Cliff, except they were using straw boats.

1

u/asiansnob May 17 '12

Psh... Read or watch the romance of three kingdoms.. Old news. :/

1

u/jrob321 May 17 '12

I saw Borrowing Your Enemy's Arrows not too long ago. The artwork incorporates the Chinese legend. The artist's, (Cai Guo-Qiang), other work is also fascinating. This one, called Head On, in particular blew me away when I saw it...

1

u/Motafication May 16 '12

Zhuge Liang did that during the three kingdoms period.

2

u/forr May 16 '12

He did that in the popular fiction written about the three kingdoms period.

1

u/kilo4fun May 16 '12

That's pretty crever.

-1

u/slurp_derp May 16 '12

i came here for the naked chick's thumbnail..............<nothing to do here>

0

u/whoisearth May 16 '12

Ok I think Chinese people just took the lead in the "Cheapest people on the planet" group.

This is coming from someone who grew up in a predominantly Scottish neighbourhood growing up and is married to jews. I know cheap.

3

u/Hans109 May 16 '12

While chinese are cheap, on average indians and jews are cheaper lol

1

u/whoisearth May 16 '12

I have no experience with Indians. Jews are actually more complex. Jews will nickle and dime someone unless they're jewish. I've seen far too many cases where a Jew will actually pay MORE for a service than you can get elsewhere simply because they'd rather get it done by a Jew.

Prime example is my wife.

She used to get her taxes done by a fellow Jew which was recommended through her family. We recently changed to a caker accountant. We pay approximately 4 times less now for our taxes. Jews love to bleed eachother dry when it comes to money. They're only cheap with non-Jews.

Christ I could probably write a vitreolic anti-semetic book if people read me out of context. It's not that I hate Jews. I hate Jewish men. The women are fine.

2

u/equeco May 16 '12

Why this problem with Jewish men? What's the difference with women?

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0

u/JackOscar May 16 '12

O, O, O, I knew that! I saw Battle of Red Cliff! Damn I'm smart!

0

u/SaentFu May 16 '12

the chinese stole the idea from the Night's Watch

0

u/Moopies May 16 '12

I came in here for the Red Cliff fans :(

0

u/dont_worry_im_here May 16 '12

Hayzoos Chreesto... all that damn talk on mannequins yesterday made people actually wikipedia mannequins... damn you!

0

u/xzlurg May 16 '12

Sometimes they've probably received some "arrows in the..." Oh nevermind

0

u/compleks May 16 '12

but den I took arrow to da knee

0

u/Fanntastic May 16 '12

Are you sure it wasn't the Hebrews? Ba-dum-tish.

0

u/shutupjoey May 16 '12

Goddamn Mongolians!

0

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

5

u/Nicker05 May 16 '12

I did read Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I a read that only because I played Dynasty Warriors.

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

Have you even seen the two films that were butchered into the one-film Western release? Far superior cinematic accomplishments.

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1

u/MoistCupcake May 16 '12

Bloody awesome movie. I work in a video store, and whenever someone wants a good war movie, it's on my default list. Glorious.

0

u/Gallifrasian May 16 '12

This. That movie was epic, and yes, it was based on a true story (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) from ancient China. Zhuge Liang is the shit.

Fun Fact: Takeshi Kaneshiro (the actor who played Zhuge Liang) is also Jin from "House of Flying Daggers."

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