Why did Lu Xun return to the Army (Game Theory tricks)

In the dynamic game of successive moves, the strategy of each participant must be based on the prediction of the other strategy. However, in real-world games, there are usually not two participants. At this time, in addition to predicting the opponent's actions, we must also make a clear estimation of the third-party strategy.

 

In The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, there is such a story. Lu Xun, General Dongwu, joined the army and defeated the Sichuan army. Then, the Army hit tens of thousands of troops. Wu had been chasing fish, and suddenly saw a rock pile in front of it blocking the road. A burst of gas rushed up, but there was no soldiers. Lu Xun asked the local people, an old man told them: "This is called the fish belly Pupu. When Zhuge is shining, stones are arranged on the beach ." Lu Xun was surprised, so he took a person to watch in the dark, and suddenly the storm was raging. Lu Xun returned to the village and sighed: "Kong mingzhen" Wolong! I cannot beat him !" He hurriedly ordered the class teacher.

 

However, today we can only look back at this story as a beautiful legend. In fact, at that time, Lu Xun gave up the pursuit of the Sichuan army. The well was not Zhuge Liang, but Cao Yu.

 

At that time, Wei, Shu, and Wu were like three gunmen with different strengths. They had to be careful with the third party before the fire began. At that time, the xishu army was almost completely annihilated and became a relatively weak party, facing the danger of being intruded by Wu and swallowed up. If there was no such thing as Cao Wei at that time, and both countries were isolated from the outside world to some extent, it would be almost impossible to prevent the growth of Wu military.

 

However, despite the danger of destruction, the existence of Cao Wei constitutes a necessary constraint. During the Wu Shu war, this principle was "the enemy of the enemy is my friend ". For this reason, although Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang have been making the Northern Expedition Cao Wei as their main strategic goal, what is the real situation? When the General Huang Quan's road to SHU is cut off and forced to surrender to Cao Wei, liu Bei did not show much resentment, and even said: "Huang Quan was cut off by Wu Bing on the north shore of the river, and he had to drop Wei for no reason. It is a token of negative authority, and a non-authority of negative authority. Why should they blame their families ?" These words have exposed his real thoughts.

 

If Wu had to attack shuguo by a long drive, Wu had to dispatch troops from the border between the northern region and Cao Wei. Although Cao Wei will not rashly intrude into a fully armed Wu Guo, if Lu Xun's army goes deep into shudi, it will be hard for Cao Wei to resist this temptation, he will never let go of a great opportunity to kill this troublesome neighbor who had left his father running away from Chibi. Lu Xun (in fact, the decision makers of Wu Guo should also) uses reverse reasoning. It is expected that once they attack the Shu State, the CAO Weijun will inevitably go south, so they will return quickly. Soon, he heard of the news of Cao Wei's dispatch of troops.

 

The significance of such stories is that the game can achieve better results by giving up its own attack opportunities. The old man said: "Fu Wei does not dispute, so the world is able to compete with it ." It contains profound game theory wisdom.

 

We will see the same example during the four-year U.S. presidential campaign. As long as there are a large number of competitors, top-notch players are often overwhelmed by repeated attacks by medium-level players. When other people fight each other and exit the election campaign, the situation will be more favorable.

 

Therefore, your chances of survival depend not only on your skills, but also on the people you threaten. A participant who does not threaten anyone may survive because of the fact that a strong competitor kills each other. As mentioned above, although a gunman is the most powerful, he has the lowest probability of survival. The probability of survival of the strongest person is just a little bit! The gunman, however, has the worst shot method, can achieve a higher probability of survival if they adopt the best strategy.

 

However, a false sense of security may occur if you only keep thinking with three opponents. After all, the triangular relationship is still a relatively simple model. Now let's take a look. What if three enemies can reach a stable state?

 

Now, in the preceding examples of Wei, Shu, and Wu, we add the Liaodong Gongsun yuan. If Cao Wei wants to beat Wu Guo, he may be attacked by Gong sun yuan. If the power of Gongsun yuan was strong enough at that time, it was indeed a serious threat to Cao Wei. In this case, Wu does not have to worry about Cao Wei's invasion, because Cao Wei did not dare to care about it when he thought of Gong sun yuan. Therefore, it is impossible for Xi Shu to count on Cao Wei to suppress Wu's ambition to swallow up. However, at that time, Gongsun yuan was overwhelmed, and the chain of reasoning was interrupted by Cao Wei, and xishu eventually achieved security.

 

On the surface, this example shows whether a country will be attacked or not, depending on whether the number of nodes in the chain of potential intruders is an odd or even number. However, its practical significance lies in that a situation analysis closer to real life can take into account the complex relations between countries. In this way, more details are obtained to determine the extent of a country's attempt to intrude into other countries.

 

However, there is another important conclusion: the outcome of the game depends largely on the number of participants. The more people you participate in, the worse the number of people you participate in, even in the same game. However, the conclusion that two hostile countries cannot coexist peacefully and three hostile countries can restore stability does not mean that four hostile countries will be more peaceful. In the example of the Three Kingdoms, the four results are the same as the two.