After he had made a successful coup and seized Tenochtitlan and Montezuma he then was called back by Spanish intrigue to port- and Tenochtitlan plan fell apart due to bloody minded subordinates losing control.
Spanish retreat to the port - and begin their long march to take it all back. The ships are disassembled and taken upland to Lake Tenochtitlan and reassembled for the final attack on the Aztec capitol. Never burnt.
If you enjoyed The Golden Thread, check out The Fabric of Civilization. A fair bit of crossover in material, but still equally good (especially listenability in audiobook form)
If I recall correctly, Sun Tzu advised that you bury your chariot wheels to create the mentality of a cornered animal, rather than burn your ships. I could easily see this as an old joke or idiom that doesn't translate (a dog walks into a bar...), after all, why not just disassemble them? Why take all that extra work burying them? As for the ships, scuttling a military vessel to prevent enemy capture is a real thing, the precursor for the scifi trope of "Self Destruct Enabled", but on the shores of a foreign continent? That's a whole lot of top-quality wood and metal that you're wasting right there, for a +1 bonus on your more stupid infantrymen. Not worth it.
And come to think of it, any time I've received this advice during my life, it was coming from individuals trying to sell me on a scam. Yeah, burn my ships before I figure out how your pyramid scheme works, so that I'll be stuck with you no matter what? Funny how I've never heard of a successful company that demanded that their employees render themselves unemployable.
The more I think about it, the more it strikes me as an idiom, probably an old one at the time of Sun Tzu's writing, and not a literal tactic to employed on the battle field. Burning bridges, food stores, and equipment is a recognized tactic - particularly when it's the enemy's equipment (Sun Tzu definitely advised doing this!) - and it's worth treating the immediate situation as if there's no possibility of escape (live each day as if it's going to be your last) - it's got some metaphorical pithiness to it. But would the master of manoeuvre warfare really recommend destroying chariots and ships? "Sorry General, then men are trying to be like water like you said, but first they have to wait for the engineers to dig up those chariot wheels you buried."
Only an idiot would destroy strategic options. There's the opposite idiom, which states you shouldn't burn your bridges. To combine them: "Give each fight your all, as if you've got your back up against a wall; but always have a backup plan, a place to escape to, don't burn all the bridges behind you."
Also, thanks for sending me down the rabbit hole with Sun Tzu's historicity. I'm starting to suspect that he, Mishamoto, and the man who's buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier are all the same person...
Thanks so much for digging into this! Art of War is on my list but I confess I haven't read it yet, so this was very interesting. Re: hearing it from scam artists... that's what pinged my b/s detector originally too -- half the search results I came up with when investigating were from motivational speakers, lol. Re: the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier... there's probably an interesting speculative fiction book one could write based on them all being the same immortal...
Cortes didn’t burn his ships.
After he had made a successful coup and seized Tenochtitlan and Montezuma he then was called back by Spanish intrigue to port- and Tenochtitlan plan fell apart due to bloody minded subordinates losing control.
Spanish retreat to the port - and begin their long march to take it all back. The ships are disassembled and taken upland to Lake Tenochtitlan and reassembled for the final attack on the Aztec capitol. Never burnt.
If you enjoyed The Golden Thread, check out The Fabric of Civilization. A fair bit of crossover in material, but still equally good (especially listenability in audiobook form)
Thanks for the tip -- just added to my list!
Arthas Menethil did it in Warcraft 3 :)
Cripes, meanwhile I don't think I even realized they *made* a Warcraft 3. I was always more of a Starcraft girl.
If I recall correctly, Sun Tzu advised that you bury your chariot wheels to create the mentality of a cornered animal, rather than burn your ships. I could easily see this as an old joke or idiom that doesn't translate (a dog walks into a bar...), after all, why not just disassemble them? Why take all that extra work burying them? As for the ships, scuttling a military vessel to prevent enemy capture is a real thing, the precursor for the scifi trope of "Self Destruct Enabled", but on the shores of a foreign continent? That's a whole lot of top-quality wood and metal that you're wasting right there, for a +1 bonus on your more stupid infantrymen. Not worth it.
And come to think of it, any time I've received this advice during my life, it was coming from individuals trying to sell me on a scam. Yeah, burn my ships before I figure out how your pyramid scheme works, so that I'll be stuck with you no matter what? Funny how I've never heard of a successful company that demanded that their employees render themselves unemployable.
The more I think about it, the more it strikes me as an idiom, probably an old one at the time of Sun Tzu's writing, and not a literal tactic to employed on the battle field. Burning bridges, food stores, and equipment is a recognized tactic - particularly when it's the enemy's equipment (Sun Tzu definitely advised doing this!) - and it's worth treating the immediate situation as if there's no possibility of escape (live each day as if it's going to be your last) - it's got some metaphorical pithiness to it. But would the master of manoeuvre warfare really recommend destroying chariots and ships? "Sorry General, then men are trying to be like water like you said, but first they have to wait for the engineers to dig up those chariot wheels you buried."
Only an idiot would destroy strategic options. There's the opposite idiom, which states you shouldn't burn your bridges. To combine them: "Give each fight your all, as if you've got your back up against a wall; but always have a backup plan, a place to escape to, don't burn all the bridges behind you."
Also, thanks for sending me down the rabbit hole with Sun Tzu's historicity. I'm starting to suspect that he, Mishamoto, and the man who's buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier are all the same person...
Thanks so much for digging into this! Art of War is on my list but I confess I haven't read it yet, so this was very interesting. Re: hearing it from scam artists... that's what pinged my b/s detector originally too -- half the search results I came up with when investigating were from motivational speakers, lol. Re: the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier... there's probably an interesting speculative fiction book one could write based on them all being the same immortal...