Guiguzi (鬼谷子) — the classic of persuasion and maneuver

Guiguzi (鬼谷子, "Master of Ghost Valley") is the strangest and most psychological of the Chinese strategy classics — a Warring-States manual not of armies but of persuasion, influence, and the reading and moving of other minds. It is attributed to a semi-legendary recluse, Master of Ghost Valley (traditionally Wang Xu, 王詡), remembered as the teacher of the two greatest persuaders of the age, Su Qin (蘇秦) and Zhang Yi (張儀), architects of the "vertical and horizontal" alliances. Where Sun Tzu is the strategy of the battlefield, Guiguzi is the strategy of the conversation and the court — and so the "schemer's book" of the jianghu mind.

The chapters

The received Guiguzi falls into three volumes: an upper (捭闔 Opening-and-Closing · 反應 Response · 內揵 Inner Securing · 抵巇 Sealing the Gaps), a middle (飛箝 Flying-and-Clamping · 忤合 Opposing-and-Joining · 揣 Weighing · 摩 Probing · 權 Assessing · 謀 Scheming · 決 Deciding · 符言 Tallying Words), and a lower set of appended esoteric chapters (本經陰符七術 the Seven Techniques of the Yin Convergence · 持樞 Holding the Pivot · 中經 the Central Canon).

Our translation

I. Opening and Closing (捭闔)

In examining antiquity: the sage, dwelling between heaven and earth, is the forerunner of the multitude. He observes the opening and closing of yin and yang to name and define things; he knows the gateway of survival and ruin, reckons the beginnings and ends of the myriad kinds, comprehends the patterns of the human heart, and sees the first signs of change — and so keeps watch over that gateway. Thus the sage in the world, from antiquity to now, follows one and the same Way. Changes are endless, yet each returns to its own: now yin, now yang; now soft, now hard; now open, now closed; now slack, now taut.

So the sage, watching the gateway, examines what should come first and what after, weighs men's resource and ability, and compares the long and short of their skills. Since the worthy and unworthy, wise and foolish, brave and timid differ by degree, one may open (捭) and one may close (闔); one may advance him or withhold him, lower him or raise him — governing all by non-action. Determine what is present and what absent, what real and what empty; follow a man's tastes and desires, and so see his intent. Subtly press what he says and open it back to him, to draw out his true state — prizing above all the grasp of his meaning; then close, and open again, to draw out his advantage. Sometimes open and reveal to him; sometimes close and shut him out. To open and reveal is to accord with his feeling; to close and shut is to test where he differs.

So in opening, one opens to draw something out, or opens to take something in; in closing, one closes to seize, or closes to let go. Opening and closing are the Way of heaven and earth — they move and shift the yin and yang, open and shut the four seasons, and transform the myriad things; turning out and turning back, reversing and opposing, all proceed from this. They are the great transformation of the Way and the very variation of persuasion, and one must foresee their changes, for fortune and ruin and great destinies hang upon them.

The mouth is the gateway of the heart; the heart is the master of the spirit. Will and desire, thought and scheme, wit and plan — all pass in and out by this gateway, and so are governed by opening and closing, by coming out and going in. To open is to disclose, to speak, to be yang; to close is to shut, to keep silent, to be yin. When yin and yang are in harmony, beginning and end keep their order. So talk of long life, ease, wealth, rank, renown, affection, profit, and fulfillment is yang — "the beginning"; talk of death, calamity, poverty, disgrace, loss, frustration, harm, and punishment is yin — "the end." Speak the good to begin a matter; speak the ill to end a scheme.

The Way of opening and closing tests men by yin and yang: with a yang-natured man speak by way of the lofty; with a yin-natured man, by way of the lowly — by the low seek the small, by the high seek the great. By this, there is nothing that cannot be drawn out, nothing that cannot be drawn in, nothing that cannot be done: one may so persuade a man, a household, a state, or the whole world. To make it small, there is no inner limit; to make it great, no outer limit. Yang moves and acts; yin halts and hides. Yang, come full circle, ends in yin; yin, at its extreme, reverts to yang. By yang one seeks yin, embracing it with virtue; by yin one binds yang, applying it with force. Yin and yang seeking each other — this is opening and closing. This is the Way of yin and yang of heaven and earth, and the method of persuading men: the forerunner of all things, the gateway of the round and the square.

II. Response (反應)

The great transformers of old were born together with the formless. By reversing (反) they observed the past; by returning (覆) they tested what was to come — by looking back they knew antiquity and the other, by going forward they knew the present and themselves. Where the principle of motion and stillness, empty and full, does not fit the present, look back to antiquity and seek it there: that a matter, reversed, yields its counterpart-response is the sage's intent, and must be examined.

Another's speaking is motion; one's own silence is stillness. Follow his words and listen to his phrasing; where they do not match, reverse the inquiry and probe — and his response will surely come out. Words have images (象), matters have parallels (比); by the formless, draw out the sounded. Angling with words to fit the matter wins the man's truth — as one spreads nets at the gathering-places to take beasts, and when the way fits, the quarry comes out of itself: this is the net for angling men. If he will not speak and gives no parallel, then change: stir him with an image to draw out his heart, see his feeling, and follow it to govern him. Repeat, layer, reverse and return, and in ten thousand matters you will not lose the thread of his words.

Would you hear his voice? — reverse to silence. Would you spread? — reverse to gather. Would you rise high? — reverse to the low. Would you take? — reverse to giving. Knowing begins with oneself: know yourself, and afterward know others — and then knowing the other is like the paired-eye fish, seeing his form like light and its shadow, examining his words unfailing as the lodestone takes up the needle. Like yin and yang, like round and square: before the form appears, be round to guide it; once it appears, be square to handle it. Fix yourself exactly beforehand to govern men, and scheme with no outward show, so none sees your gate — this is called the divine.

III. Inner Securing (內揵)

In the affairs of ruler and minister there is the far yet intimate and the near yet estranged: one who, approaching, is not used, and one who, departing, is then sought after. All such things have an "inner securing" (內揵) — a binding made from the very root: bound by virtue, or by faction, or by wealth, or by beauty. "Inner" is to advance one's persuasions; "securing" is to make one's schemes fast. He who would persuade must secretly take the measure; he who would plan must follow the other's grain — privately weighing what is feasible, openly stating gain and loss, to steer his will. Where there is inner non-accord, no plan can be carried out; so weigh what suits the time and seek the change — to seek inner accord by change is like a socket taking the bolt.

See the ruler's planning, and know his will. The far-yet-intimate has a hidden bond of virtue; the near-yet-estranged, wills that do not accord; the one approaching but unused, plans that do not land; the one departing but then sought, counsel proved right by events. So: to act without seeing the kind of the matter is to meet rejection; to persuade without grasping the feeling is to meet blame. Grasp the feeling, then fashion the technique — and one may come out or go in, bind fast or open up. Would you join? — use the inner; would you part? — use the outer. But if the ruler above is benighted and those below in disorder, then secure yourself and reverse away — inwardly self-possessed, outwardly not lingering, persuade and fly off. Turning in a ring, adapting to change, so none knows what you do: to withdraw is the great propriety.

IV. Sealing the Gaps (抵巇)

Things have their nature; affairs have joining and parting. A xi (巇) is a crack; a crack becomes a fissure; a fissure becomes a great gap. When the crack first shows a sign, it can be countered (抵) — and sealed, or pushed back, or stilled, or hidden, or seized. This is the principle of countering the crack. When a matter turns perilous, the sage knows it and alone keeps himself safe; for trouble is woven from the tip of an autumn hair, then brandished at the base of Mount Tai.

When the realm falls into confusion — no enlightened ruler, lords without virtue, slanderers thriving, the worthy unused, the sage in hiding, ruler and minister deceiving each other, the state crumbling like earth and shattering like tile — this is the "sprouting of the crack." Seeing it, the sage counters it by method: if the age can be set in order, he counters and seals the crack; if it cannot, he counters and seizes the opportunity — now to reverse it, now to overturn it. The Five Emperors sealed; the Three Kings seized; and in such times the one who can counter holds the upper hand. From the very joining and parting of heaven and earth there must be cracks, which cannot go unexamined — examine them by opening and closing, and he who can use this Way is a sage, the envoy of heaven and earth: when the age offers no crack, he hides deep and bides his time; when it offers one, he plans for it.

V. Flying and Clamping (飛箝)

In gauging resource and weighing ability, the aim is to summon the distant and draw near the close. First examine sameness and difference, tell right words from wrong, see inner and outer speech, and settle who is close and who distant; then weigh the man, and once you have his framework you may summon, seek, and use him. Draw him out with "hook-and-clamp" words, then "fly and clamp" him — speech now agreeing, now differing. For one not easily won: summon him and then pile on pressure, or pile on and then break him down; serve him with wealth and fine things, or set up a position to hook him, or watch for the gap and clamp him (the work of "sealing the gaps").

To use this on the realm, gauge the times' waxing and waning, the breadth of the land, the abundance of people and goods, and among the lords — who is close, who distant, who loved, who hated; learn what each holds dear, hook his likes with flying-and-clamping words, and clamp him to you. Used on a man, make his wit and temper your pivot, meet and follow him, and bind him: go out empty and come back full. So bound, he can be clamped to go with you or against, drawn east or west, made to turn and turn back — and though he turns away, brought round again without losing the measure.

VI. Opposing and Joining (忤合)

In all hastening-to-join and turning-back, the plan has its fitting accord; transformation turns in a ring, and one controls according to the matter. The age has no constant noble; affairs have no constant master. The sage has no fixed ally and none he refuses; he succeeds in the matter, accords with the scheme, and makes himself its master. To join with one is to part from another — a scheme cannot be loyal to two — so there must be opposing-and-returning: returning to this is opposing that. Gauge the realm, the state, the household, or your own talent and force, and ally accordingly; great or small, advance or withdraw, the use is one.

The good "turners of allegiance" of old embraced the lords, moved in the ground of opposing-and-joining, and only then sought accord: Yi Yin went five times to Tang and five times to the tyrant Jie before he joined Tang; Lü Shang went thrice to King Wen and thrice into Yin before he joined King Wen — they knew the "clamp" of Heaven's mandate, and returned without doubt. Without toiling the mind one cannot trace affairs to their source; without keen gift one cannot use troops; without true loyalty one cannot know men. So in opposing-and-joining one must first measure one's own talent and wit, and ask whom one does not match — then one may advance or withdraw, go lengthwise or crosswise.

VII. Weighing (揣)

The good users of the realm must weigh the realm's power (權) and estimate the lords' circumstance (情). Weigh power inexactly, and you miss the measure of strong and weak; estimate feeling inexactly, and you miss the motion of the hidden and changing. "Weighing power" is to reckon great and small, many and few, wealth and want, the ease and danger of the ground, the worth of ministers, the temper of the people's shifting allegiance — who is safe, who in peril, who can be turned.

As for estimating feeling: at the time of a man's great joy, go and push his desires to their limit — having desire, he cannot hide his feeling; at the time of his great fear, push his loathing to its limit — having loathing, he cannot hide it; feeling must come out in its change. If you cannot read his change, set him aside and ask those close to him what he rests upon. The feeling that changes within takes form without — so by what is seen, know the hidden: this is "sounding the deep and probing the feeling." So plan a state by weighing power, persuade a ruler by estimating feeling. Though one have the Way of the former kings and the schemes of sages, without estimating the hidden feeling there is nothing to seize on — this is the great root of planning and the method of persuasion. It is the hardest thing to keep watch over; speech must time its scheming.

VIII. Probing (摩)

Probing (摩) is the art of "weighing"; the inner response is its master — and its use must be hidden. Subtly probe a man by what he desires, sound and explore him, and the response will surely come; then subtly withdraw — "stopping the pit and hiding the trace" — concealing your look and your feeling so none knows, and so accomplishing the matter without trouble. The probing is here, the response there. The good probers of old were like one who holds a baited hook over a deep pool and casts — and surely takes the fish. So he masters affairs and daily succeeds, yet none knows how; he masters war and daily wins, yet none fears him. The sage plans in the dark — so it is called divine; he accomplishes in the light — so it is called bright.

Daily success in affairs is the accumulation of virtue — the people are content and know not how they profit; daily victory in war is to "fight without contending and without cost," so none know how they are subdued. Probe by calm or by uprightness, by joy or by anger, by name or by conduct, by purity or by trust, by profit or by humility. What the sage alone uses, the multitude all possess — but they fail, because they use it wrongly. Of planning, none is harder than thoroughness and secrecy; of persuasion, none than being fully heard; of affairs, none than certain success. As firewood brought to fire — the dry kindles first; as water poured on level ground — the low is soaked first: things of a kind answer one another by their force. So probe a man by his kind; if he does not respond, probe him by his desire; and where even that fails — this is called the solitary Way. He who grasps the incipient is never late to fulfillment.

IX. Assessing Words (權)

To persuade is to please; to please is to give him something; to dress words is to embellish, adding and subtracting. Beware the flawed kinds of speech: flattery that fawns and feigns loyalty; profusion that feigns wisdom; bluntness that feigns courage; grieving words that feign trust; quiet words that feign winning. So the mouth is the trigger by which feeling is shut in or let out, and the eyes and ears are the heart's aids, by which treachery is spied out. To the eyeless one cannot show the five colors; to the earless one cannot tell the five tones — where there is nothing to open a thing to, do not engage it. "Many mouths melt metal" — speech has its taboos.

The wise man uses not his own weak points but the fool's strengths; speaking of advantage, he follows a man's strengths, and speaking of harm, avoids his weaknesses — as the armored insect defends with its hardness and the stinging insect strikes with its venom. So the art of speech: with the wise, rely on breadth; with the discerning, on the essential; with the noble, on power; with the rich, on loftiness; with the poor, on profit; with the lowly, on humility; with the brave, on daring; with the foolish, on sharpness — yet men commonly do the reverse. To speak all day without losing the kind, so affairs stay in order; unchanged all day without losing the master-thread — so wisdom prizes not being reckless, listening prizes acuteness, and words prize the unexpected.

X. Scheming (謀)

In all scheming, find the cause a matter rests on, to seek out its feeling; grasp the feeling, and set up the three standards — high, middle, low — and from their combining the extraordinary is born, which none can block. Gauging talent, weighing ability, and estimating feeling are the "south-pointing chariot" of affairs. Mutual profit makes intimacy, mutual loss estrangement; a wall collapses at its crack, a tree breaks at its knot — each at its weak division. Change gives birth to affairs, affairs to schemes, schemes to plans — so a hundred affairs are one Way.

Judge men by the matter: the benevolent, who make light of goods, cannot be lured by profit but can be made to spend; the brave cannot be cowed but can be set to hold danger; the wise cannot be deceived but can be shown the Way. The strong is built up from the weak, the straight from the crooked. By a man's doubt, change him; by what he sees, affirm it; by his force, complete it. In using schemes, the public is not as good as the private, the private not as good as the bound (a sealed compact without a gap); the orthodox is not as good as the extraordinary, which flows on unstopping. Do not force on a man what he does not want; do not instruct him in what he does not yet know — learn his likings and follow them, his loathings and shun them; by the hidden (yin) Way, take by the open (yang). Affairs prize controlling others and not being controlled — to control is to hold the power; to be controlled is to have one's fate held. So the sage's Way is hidden, the fool's open; for the wise, affairs are easy.

XI. Deciding (決)

In all deciding, one is brought in by another in doubt — who loves a decision for its good fortune and dreads its trouble. The sage accomplishes by five means: open kindness (yang virtue), hidden injury (yin), trust and sincerity, concealment, and the plain ordinary — the plain being the pivot, the rest applied subtly. Then measure against past events, test against things to come, check against the ordinary — and if it accords, decide. Decide what is dangerous but brings a fair name; what is easily done; what is hard yet forced by necessity; what rids of trouble; what follows good fortune. To decide feeling and settle doubt is the foundation of all affairs — to order disorder by the correct and decide success and failure is a hard thing; so even the former kings used the yarrow stalks and the tortoise-shell to help themselves decide.

XII. Tallying Words (符言)

The closing chapter turns to the ruler himself, in nine counsels:

• Position — be calm, unhurried, upright and still, the mind empty and the intent level, awaiting the enemy's decline.

• Clarity — see with the eyes of the whole world, and nothing is unseen; hear with its ears, and nothing is unheard; think with its mind, and nothing is unknown — converging like spokes to a hub, the clarity cannot be blocked.

• Virtue — do not stubbornly refuse people; grant access, and they keep guard for you. A high mountain can be scaled, a deep pool fathomed — but the upright-and-still virtue of the divine-bright, none can reach its limit.

• Reward — in reward prize trust, in punishment correctness; what is rewarded on true evidence transforms even what is unseen.

• Inquiry — constantly ask where trouble lies (where is "Mars" among the four directions?).

• Adaptation — reward the good and punish the wrong, but follow men according to what they seek, and you are never wearied; following natural principle, you endure long.

• Comprehensiveness — the ruler must be all-encompassing; not so, the ministers breed disorder.

• Vigilance — a far-seeing eye, a flying ear, planted brightness: to know beyond a thousand li, into the hidden and faint, so no treachery escapes.

• Name — act according to the name (the role), and the substance settles; name and substance give birth to each other — a fitting name is born of substance, substance of principle, and all, at last, of harmony.

The Appended Lower Volume

A set of appended chapters of debated authorship, shifting from the art of persuasion to inner self-cultivation — the Daoist conditioning of spirit, will, and intent that the strategist's work is held to require. The seven "techniques" are each "modeled on" (法) an emblematic creature. Rendered here in faithful sense; the densest cosmological passages are lightly compressed.

The Seven Techniques of the Yin Convergence (本經陰符七術)

• Flourishing the Spirit, modeled on the Five Dragons (盛神法五龍). In the flourishing spirit are five energies, and the spirit is their chief, the heart their dwelling, virtue their greatness — all returning to the Way, source of the divine-bright. By virtue one nourishes the five energies; when the heart can hold the One, one gains the art (the Way of heart-and-energy). He who receives his nature from Heaven complete is a "true man," one with Heaven; he who knows it by inner refinement is a sage. Spirit at its fullest, one can then nourish the will.

• Nourishing the Will, modeled on the Numinous Tortoise (養志法靈龜). The will is the servant of desire: many desires scatter the heart; the heart scattered, the will declines; the will declined, thought cannot get through. So make heart-energy one, and the will stays firm. Inwardly nourish the will, outwardly know men — and the start of it lies in settling oneself: oneself settled, the will is solid, the awe-force undivided, the spirit standing constant guard.

• Solidifying the Intent, modeled on the Flying Serpent (實意法螣蛇). The heart would be calm and still; the thinking deep and far — then divine plans arise and schemes are completed, and neither can be confused or breached. Still the five organs by non-action, hold the true One unmoved, and one can look inward, "listen in reverse," and settle the will — so that, in the words echoed from Laozi, "without going out the door, one knows the realm; without peering through the window, one sees the Way of Heaven."

• Distributing Awe, modeled on the Crouching Bear (分威法伏熊). To distribute awe is the covering of the spirit: still the intent, firm the will, and the spirit returns to its dwelling, so the awe-cover is full; full, the inner is unbreakable, and one can divide another's awe and move his force — taking the empty with the full, as a full measure against a single grain. Bend one finger and watch the rest in turn; discern leading and echoing, and the awe can be divided.

• Dispersing Force, modeled on the Bird of Prey (散勢法鷙鳥). To disperse [the enemy's] force is the spirit's agent, and its use must follow the gap and move. Inwardly refine the five energies, outwardly watch the empty and full; await the gap, and moving, the force is divided — for force is the deciding of gain and harm, the awe of adapting power.

• Turning the Round, modeled on the Fierce Beast (轉圓法猛獸). "Turning the round" is the inexhaustible plan, requiring the sage's heart to plumb unfathomable wit; schemes take form now round, now square, now yin, now yang. The round is for joining speech [adapting]; the square is for settling affairs — turn the round to seek its accord.

• Reducing and Sharpening, modeled on the Numinous Yarrow (損兌法靈蓍). This is the deciding of crisis and danger: sharpening (兌) is to know it; reducing (損) is to act on it. Examine words and fit them to the matter; meet the difficulty or the ease, then plan, taking the natural Way as substance. The good user of it is like releasing pent water from a thousand-fathom dike, rolling round boulders down a ten-thousand-fathom gorge — his force-and-position make it so of necessity.

Holding the Pivot (持樞)

Holding the pivot means: spring births, summer grows, autumn harvests, winter stores — this is the correctness of Heaven, which cannot be violated and opposed; he who opposes it, though he succeed, must fail. So the ruler too has his Heaven-pivot — to birth, nourish, complete, and store — and this too cannot be opposed; he who opposes it, though he flourish, must decline. This is the great guideline of the Way of Heaven and of the ruler.

The Central Canon (中經)

The Central Canon turns to helping and handling people of every condition. One reads a person by form and bearing — yet the truly self-possessed (whose eyes look on nothing wrong, whose ears hear nothing depraved) cannot be read by appearance, so one shuts off the approach and withdraws. Its methods: knowing the tone from the sound (mismatched energies, like discordant notes, will not bond); resolving feuds by setting the strong against the strong; binding the departing so he leaves still thinking of you; catching faults in speech, alarming a man with his taboos and then reassuring him to win his trust; capturing the heart of the learned by praise and astonishment, and warning the dissolute that their course is death; and keeping right — probing the heart to govern the inner from without. The sage prizes this subtle Way for one reason above all: that it can turn danger to safety, and save the perishing.

See also

The Art of War (孫子兵法) — the strategy of the battlefield

The Book of Five Rings (五輪書) — the strategy of the sword

Source Texts — the manuals and classics of the martial canon

Sources

[1] 鬼谷子, the public-domain Chinese original with Tao Hongjing's commentary — Chinese Wikisource (zh.wikisource.org/wiki/鬼谷子) and the Chinese Text Project (ctext.org/gui-gu-zi). English on this page is the wiki's own CC0 translation of the base text.

[2] Guiguzi, English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiguzi) — the attribution to the Master of Ghost Valley, the link to Su Qin and Zhang Yi and the School of Diplomacy (縱橫家), the disputed dating, and the modern translations (e.g. Cleary; Broschat) linked rather than reproduced.