Stratagem No. 28 第二十八计 Proximate stratagems (并战计)
Lure them onto the roof, remove the ladder
Literal
Go up onto the roof and pull away the ladder.
Help them up to a high place they already want, then take away the ladder so they cannot get down or get help.
Source line
假之以便，唆之使前，断其援应，陷之死地。遇毒，位不当也。
Traditional 假之以便，唆之使前，斷其援應，陷之死地。遇毒，位不當也。
Offer them a convenience, coax them to go forward, cut off their support, and drop them onto deadly ground. He meets with poison; his position is not the right one. This is the hexagram Shihe (Biting Through).
Icons working translation — draft, pending review
The image is the third line of Shihe (Biting Through): he bites dried meat, meets poison, and the harm comes because he stands where he should not. You built the ladder; once they are up, the meal is poison, because the supports they would need have been cut.
三十六计 · Chinese Wikisource edition (public domain)
Meaning
Lure them onto the roof and remove the ladder means you do not drag an enemy onto bad ground by force. You offer a convenience they already want, you encourage the step, and only then do you cut the supports: the reserves, the road home, the allies who could still pull them down. The commentary’s word for the coaxing is profit. Profit will not move them unless the path also looks easy. So the ladder has to be real enough to climb. A purely imaginary bait is a different stratagem. This one puts a usable stair in place and then owns the stair.
The victim’s position, in the hexagram, is ‘not the right one’. They are on a roof that was never their ground, eating what looked like a meal. Deadly ground, in the classical line, is not a metaphor for feeling committed. It is the military fact that retreat and reinforcement are both gone, so the army can only fight where it stands, on worse terms than the climb suggested. Used against you, the first sign is a friend unusually eager to help you advance.
The story
Murong Chui and the road to Fei River, 383 淝水之战
History
Fu Jian of Former Qin had spent years building the largest state in the north, and he wanted the Eastern Jin. Most of his own ministers, Fu Rong among them, told him the invasion was a roof he need not climb. Murong Chui did not. He was a Xianbei prince of the fallen Former Yan, serving Qin with a private future in mind, and he encouraged the war and offered his service in it. The stratagem commentary sets Yao Chang, a Qiang leader also in Qin service, beside him as one of the men who urged the campaign. The histories are explicit about Murong Chui’s voice in council. Yao Chang is clearer in what he did after the ladder broke.
In 383 Fu Jian led a very large army south and was routed by the Eastern Jin at the Fei River. He did not need a conspirator to design that particular disaster. He needed to be committed, against his own nobles’ advice, so that a setback would leave him without a united army. Murong Chui asked leave to go north and settle the disturbances, and in 384 founded Later Yan. Yao Chang rose in the west the same year and founded Later Qin. Fu Jian was captured and killed in 385. The convenience had been the conquest he already wanted. The removed ladder was a Qin army that could no longer police its own generals.
Fu Jian’s invasion, the defeat at the Fei River in 383, and the risings of Murong Chui and Yao Chang are in the Jin shu and the Zizhi tongjian, and the commentary names both men as urgers while the council record is clearest for Murong Chui.
Sources
- Jin shu 晋书, records of Fu Jian, Murong Chui and Yao Chang
- Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian 资治通鉴, Taiyuan 8 (383) and after
Myth check
Often confused with burning your own boats, the resolve of an army that traps itself, this stratagem removes someone else’s ladder. A popular story of Liu Qi taking Zhuge Liang up a tower and hauling the ladder away, to force a piece of advice, is a later anecdote about a conversation, not this military line, and it is not in the Art of War.
Modern application
The pattern in a firm or a coalition is a sponsor who applauds your boldest expansion, offers the introduction, the capital, or the troops, and is strangely relaxed about what happens if it fails. The expansion is the roof you already wanted. Their calm is the clue that your failure is one of their outcomes, not only yours. Read the downside from their chair before you climb: if the project dies, do they inherit your people?
It is also a way ambitious plans get isolated. A team is encouraged into a public commitment, and then the reserve budget, the legal cover, or the senior sponsor becomes ‘unavailable’. They are on the roof. The meeting that approved the climb will not discuss the ladder. The practical test, before the commitment is public, is to ask who still has the power to bring you down if the first step goes badly, and to get that name in the room.
Takeaways
- Distrust a friend who loves your riskiest plan.
- Secure the way down before the way up.
- Ask who inherits your people if you fail.
How to counter it
When an ally urges you forward and is vague about reserves, reinforcements, or what they will do if you stall, treat the encouragement as the ladder, and write the exit and the support into the plan before you accept the help. A plan with no way back is their plan.
Questions
What does lure them onto the roof and remove the ladder mean?
It means offering someone a real convenience towards a goal they already want, encouraging the advance, and then cutting the support that would let them retreat or be reinforced. The hexagram calls the result poison met in the wrong place. The ladder has to be usable. A purely fake bait is a different trick. This one owns the stair.
Did Murong Chui cause the defeat at Fei River?
He encouraged Fu Jian’s invasion of the Eastern Jin in 383, against heavy opposition at court. He did not need to script the rout. He needed Qin committed, so a failure would loosen Qin’s hold on its own generals. After the defeat he founded Later Yan. Yao Chang founded Later Qin. The commentary names both; the urging is best attested for Murong Chui.