There are countless of case in Chinese history whereby beautiful girls (beauties) were used as 'weapons' to seduce and mesmerize the enemy, until the enemy indulged in pleasure and relaxed their guards in warfare, thus allowing the attacker to win the warfare.

The most classic case of 'beauty scheme" took place during Spring/Autumn period of the battle between Wu and Yue. In order to buy peace, king of Yue (Goujian) sent several beautiful girls to the king of Wu (Fuchai) to beg for peace. Later, Goujian even sent Xishi (a great beauty) with the mission to seduce, act as spy and mesmerize Fuchai. Slowly, Fuchai relaxed his guards against Yue, allowing Yue to defeat Wu later on.

What are the other cases of using beauties to seduce the enemy in chinese warfare? How effective do you think this strategym work?

It has been said that even a hero cannot withstand the seduction of a beauty (英雄难过美人关）. Do you think this is true?

It really depends.

Some guys just want to get laid, so if you try to use beauties to seduce them, well you seduced them but they won't fall for the girl; if you got lucky, you hit jackpot when your target became truly attached to your beauties and only then would it work.

Besides, in my opinion, Fuchai was done for either way with or without Xishi. If I was constantly reminded of how humiliated I was and sleep on grass [or... harder then grass] and eat pig food [I think . . .] how could I not work hard to increase my strength, while Fuchai was busy spending money and human resources to be one of the 'powers' and squandering Wu's advantage, Yue was gaining an huge advantage by allowing the people to recover and babies to grow up [and more importantly, man to father more children].

My opinion is that people aren't just balls enough to admit men sometimes screw up so bad that even great people can make stupid mistakes, so we have to blame it on someone else, like, XiShi, or Chen YuanYuan, or Yang YuHuan, or etc etc.

Unfortunately, the Wu-Yue part of the story is most certainly late and apocryphal... The Zuozhuan doesn't mention it, the Shiji doesn't mention it, there is one short sentence in the Guoyu which mentions that women were offered, but that's pretty much all you will find. A beauty named Xishi is mentioned in Warring States texts (notably Zhuangzi and Mencius), but without reference (I know of) to the Wu Yue conflict.

Like many other embellishments, Xishi seems to be first added to the story in Eastern Han novels (Wuyue Chunqiu and Yuejueshu).

In my opinion, the story of Xishi belongs to a relatively common theme in chinese history (or, rather, historical novels): that many great kingdoms are ruined because of women. From Baosi, who cause the downfall of the Western Zhou, to Xishi in Wu, the story of common in novels. Ancient historical texts have similar (albeit less conclusive) instances : the lady of Zheng who opened the doors of the capital to her rebel son, or that lady if Lu who had intelligence with her family in Qi, ....

Francois

So... would Wuyue Chunqiu like, historical fiction? haha.

In my opinion, this is less of a trick of combat itself, but it a part of political strategy to warfare, so I think that this belongs more in General Discussion.

It was not something I think was used regularly in every engagement, but it was suitable to dealing with certain men. It really depended on the target.

Yes, that is probably so, even though many of the examples cited in the classical texts suggest seducing the enemy general on the eve of the battle to tire him out.

In espionage, the use of "honey traps" is well known, and obviously still practised more than most would imagine.

You really need to question whether or not this was done?

Most men have an Achilles Heel and it is on their third leg.

Hey, we can't help it either.

Unfortunately, as Francois pointed out, the most famous case of the "beauty scheme" in Chinese historical lore (i.e. Xishi and Fuchai) is probably apocryphal. So, I would add, is the next most famous case - that of Diaochan, Dong Zhuo, and Lu Bu.

However, this sort of scheme is mentioned among the twelve methods of 'civil offensive' 文伐 (i.e. non-martial warfare) in the Liutao 六韬 chapter 'martial stratagems' 武韬:

"support [the enemy ruler's] dissolute officials in order to confuse him. Introduce beautiful women and licentious sounds [i.e. music] in order to befuddle him. Send him outstanding dogs and horses in order to tire him."
(Ralph Sawyer's translation)

So we can infer that it was considered a part of warfare as early as the Warring States, when the Liutao was probably written.

This is more or less the advice Fan Li gives to king Goujian after he has been defeated by Wu. The Zuozhuan and Shiji do not mention women specifically, the Guoyu does.

In my opinion, this stratagem suggests inciting decadence in the enemy state, and women, like music and hunts, can do this (in the minds of the Confuceans who wrote or edited these texts, probably in the late Warring States and early Western Han...).

Francois

Hmmm........this thread reminds me of the most well-known femme fatale in modern times - the Dutch courtesan known 'Mata Hari'(real name Margaretha Geertruida "Grietje" Zelle),who was executed, by firing squad, for espionage during WWI:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mata_Hari

What does Master Ghost Valley have to say about the topic? He has probably read more of the classical military texts than anyone.

Unfortunately, there are no records of beautiful female secret agents or assassins in ancient China. It's very likely they were used (it doesn't take much imagination to think of using sex to get past the enemy's defenses), but the historians probably considered it shameful to rely on women of questionable virtue to achieve one's strategic aims.

So, all those beauties who are named on Chinese websites as "the first female spy in Chinese history" - Moxi 妺喜, Xishi, and Diaochan - are really no more than products of later legend.

Actually, I should probably make some more analysis of the Moxi legend, since it is not so well known but is a good example of how stories can change in the process of being retold.

The Moxi story makes its earliest known appearance in Guoyu:
《晉語一》: "昔夏桀伐有施，有施人以妹喜女焉，妹喜有寵，于是乎與伊尹比而亡夏。..."

Some later readers probably took this to mean that Jie's favourite concubine Moxi acted as an agent and collaborated with Yi Yin to subvert the Xia state. The story was further modified and embellished in the Lushi Chunqiu:
《吕氏春秋·慎大览》：“桀为无道……（汤）欲令伊尹往视旷夏，恐其不信，汤由亲自射伊尹。伊尹奔夏三年，反报于亳，曰：‘桀迷惑于末嬉，好彼琬琰，不恤其众，众志不堪，上下相疾，民心积怨，皆曰：‘上天弗恤，夏命其卒。’汤谓伊尹曰：‘若告我旷夏尽如诗。’汤与伊尹盟，以示必灭夏。伊尹又复往视旷夏，听于末嬉。末嬉言曰：‘今昔天子梦西方有日，东方有日，两日相与斗，西方日胜，东方日不胜。’伊尹以告汤。”

Here, Yi Yin is sent as a spy to Xia, and to make his defection to Xia look more convincing, Tang shoots at him with a bow. Yi Yin returns and reports to Tang, after three years, that Jie is spending all his time on Moxi and "loves her jade-like complexion" (好彼琬琰), such that the people are getting discontented. Yi Yin then goes to Xia to spy again, and this time he talks to Moxi, who tells him about Jie's recent dream. The symbolism of the two-suns dream is supposedly about the west triumphing over the east, but although this symbolism applies to Zhou's later victory over Shang, it does not apply to Shang's victory over Xia since Shang was to the east of Xia! (the confusion in the story is pointed out on this webpage: http://blog.19lou.com/?uid-10068760-action...e-itemid-791551 )

The latest version of the story is in the Bamboo Annals:
《古本竹书纪年》：“后桀伐岷山，进女于桀二人，曰琬、曰琰。桀受二女，无子，刻其名于苕华之玉，苕是琬，华是琰。而弃其元妃于洛，曰末喜氏。末喜氏以与伊尹交，遂以间夏。”

Here, Moxi is a spurned first wife of Jie who collaborates with Yi Yin to subvert Xia, while the phrase wanyan 琬琰 that described her face in Lushi Chunqiu becomes two new concubines named Wan and Yan, who steal Jie's affections from Moxi.

But if we look carefully at the context of the line 與伊尹比 in Guoyu, we see that it does not connote collaboration at all - instead, 與XX比 simply works as a way to link the two individuals seen as playing the biggest role in the falls of Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou. One of the pair in each case is always a beautiful woman taken as a war prize and then favoured by the last ruler (Moxi, Daji, Baosi), while the other in the pair is always a man, but the role played by the man varies from case to case. In the Shang case, Jiaoli 膠鬲 is a Shang minister whom King Wu of Zhou secretly co-opts on the eve of his attack on Shang (武王即位，觀周德，則王使叔旦就膠鬲於次四內，而與之盟曰：“加富三等，就官一列。”為三書同辭，血之以牲，埋一於四內，皆以一歸。 - see http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/呂....AA.A0.E5.BB.89 as well as the related story in http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/呂....B2.B4.E5.9B.A0 ); in the Western Zhou case, Guo Shifu 虢石甫 (also known as 虢石父) is a sycophantic, corrupt, and highly unpopular minister in the court of King You (幽王以虢石父為卿，用事，國人皆怨。石父為人佞巧善諛好利，王用之。- see http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷004 ), who presumably contributed to the political decline of Western Zhou. But Jiaoli is not known to have collaborated with Daji to support the Zhou, nor is Guo Shifu known to have collaborated with Baosi to support her bid to make her son Bofu 伯服 the crown prince.

So in my opinion, the Bamboo Annals is inaccurate, and Moxi cannot be taken as a spy rather than just a typical 'bad last ruler's bewitching concubine'. Indeed, that is how she is presented in Liu Xiang's Biographies of Women 列女传 and Huangfu Mi's Chronicles of Emperors and Kings 帝王世纪, both of which stick more closely to Confucian norms regarding the negative role of women in the downfall of a state:


http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/妺喜

Sorry for my poor English, what does "apocryphal" mean?

Here, late addition to a text or story, possibly part or all fictional. Basically, the story of Xi Shi only appears in late (Eastern Han) retelling of the WuYue story, which are known to be moral or epic novels (Wuyue Chunqiu and Yuejueshu), and not quite history books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocryphal

Francois

not very effective, since those are rare cases, and usually just charging in is much faster.
most of them like Yun said, are bs stories.