The Thirty-Six Stratagems is a collection of specific schemes that gathers the tactics of military practice and popular tradition into thirty-six items. It speaks of how to deal with an opponent from a weak position, and the saying often quoted for it is "in war, deceit is no fault".
The name was already in use in the Southern Dynasties. When Wang Jingze of the Southern Qi rose in revolt he said: "Of Lord Tan's thirty-six schemes, retreat is the best plan." The phrase "thirty-six stratagems" first appears in the Book of Southern Qi.
The book came much later. Around the Ming-Qing transition an anonymous compiler gathered the circulating schemes into a military treatise, arranged as six sets of six stratagems, thirty-six in all.
The name comes from the Six Dynasties and the book took shape in the Ming and Qing, more than a thousand years apart. Today the Thirty-Six Stratagems means this compilation and also the kind of scheme it summarises.
The Thirty-Six Stratagems is the class in the chapter on Strategies on a set of schemes drawn from military practice and popular tradition: the phrase "thirty-six stratagems" first appears in the Book of Southern Qi, and around the Ming-Qing transition an anonymous compiler gathered the circulating schemes into a military treatise arranged as six sets of six.
