Work Like a Sage Statesman
What we can learn about navigating office chaos from the great Zhang Liang
If you think your boss is bad, imagine working for someone with a literal god complex. If you think your job is stressful, imagine if your boss could take off your head at any time. Oh, and the fate of hundreds of millions of people hang on your ability to persuade a guy so out of touch with civilian life that he doesn’t even know how to button his own buttons (as was the case with China’s last emperor, Pu Yi). On top of that, there are the factions at court for whom corruption is at once an unavoidable way of life and an infraction punishable by execution and the deaths of the violator and everyone in his family. Envy not the life of the Chinese Mandarin!
Well, if it’s one thing millennia of Chinese intrigues and politics has left us, it’s thousands of disaffected and disgruntled bureaucrats, each with their own strategies for how to handle the biggest boss in the land. Some, like Jiang Ziya, wrote treatises on how to overthrow them. Others, like Lao Tzu, wrote books on how to quit for good (a kind of FIRE for the pre-modern bureaucrat). Some learned how to become the emperor’s favorite at court. Others, like Zheng He, the first Chinese man to discover America and help kick off the Renaissance, learned that the best way to curry favor was through accomplishments as far away from court as possible. But perhaps the most famous and most fortunate of imperial servants is Zhang Liang, who went from the scion of a failed house in a failed kingdom on the run from imperial authorities to the kingmaker of one of China’s most successful dynasties of all time. Here’s what we can learn from this sage statesman.
Zhang Liang came from aristocratic stock. While his relatives were aristocrats to a minor kingdom during the Warring States period, the kingdom would be conquered and he would lose his family wealth trying to reestablish his homeland. At one point, he even hired a strongman and had an enormous 160-pound hammer forged for him to hurl at the conquering emperor Qin Shi Huang during an inspection. When the carriages passed through and the hammer crushed its target, Zhang Liang found to his dismay that they had gotten the wrong carriage and narrowly escaped with his life. Soon afterward, Qin Shi Huang died from ingesting poisons he mistook to be the elixir of life and his dynasty went with him. In the aftermath, Zhang Liang was indeed able to see the restoration of his kingdom.
Qin Shi Huang, as far as asshole bosses go, it doesn’t get much worse than burying subordinates alive
However, here Zhang Liang learned two valuable lessons: sometimes one has to let go of one’s dream to see the value of reality right in front of them. Secondly, leaders matter more than organizations. Zhang Liang would find that the kingdom he helped restore simply could not stand up to the brutal warlord Xiang Yu, who bullied Zhang’s king out of his title, then had him murdered and replaced with a puppet. Not long afterward, Zhang would choose to side with Xiang Yu’s greatest rival, the charismatic and far more honorable Liu Bang. Once, when Xiang Yu’s cronies planned to have Liu Bang killed by a sword dancer during a feast, Zhang Liang got multiple people to intercede on Liu Bang’s behalf. Then Zhang distracted the tyrant Xiang Yu while Liu Bang went to the bathroom and never came back.
Zhang Liang’s advice helped Liu Bang overcome incredible odds and multiple defeats to achieve ultimate victory over Xiang Yu and the Han Dynasty. It was a golden era in Chinese history so beloved that the Chinese people still refer to themselves as the Han people. In addition to all the great things he did for China, one of Zhang Liang’s greatest feats was the preservation of his own life to a ripe old age. This is something many who help a dynasty’s founder to power fail to achieve.
Many are wiped out by political intrigue from rivals at court or, as in the case of Liu Bang’s most decorated but overreaching general Han Xin, are wiped out by the emperor himself. Being Liu Bang’s greatest general, Han Xin’s men were more loyal to Han Xin than they were to Liu Bang. As the general grew in power, he began lording that over Liu Bang. He demanded rich lands and fancy titles, refusing to come to the battlefield until they were promised to him. Then, during another crucial battle, Han Xin absented himself again and caused Liu Bang a serious and near-fatal loss. The reason? His promised lands had yet to be delivered. These humiliating defeats the would-be emperor never forgot. After the war was won, rumors that might have stayed mere gossip about Han Xin plotting rebellion seemed plausible in light of his past. Eventually, Han Xin was brought forth on trumped-up charges, stripped of all titles, tortured, and executed.
Liu Bang, the first emperor of Han and a much nicer guy to be around than his predecessor
Unlike Han Xin, Zhang Liang did not take a position after Liu Bang became emperor, recognizing that true power lies in influence. Because he didn’t demand new titles or “his fair share” of the spoils as credit for his efforts, he was one of the few key people who Liu Bang truly listened to and trusted. Because he had no official department in which to pull strings, hangers-on and sycophants stayed away, which meant his advice wasn’t being influenced by outside forces. For example, when the emperor walked in on his subjects having a secret meeting, he could get Zhang Liang’s honest opinion. When Zhang Liang confirmed the emperor’s worst suspicions and explained that the men were conspiring to rebel against the throne, Zhang himself remained unstained.
Zhang Liang knew something that we take for granted today: nearly everyone dislikes their boss on some level. But now the emperor faced the same problem that has faced conquerors like Cyrus the Great before him and Julius Caesar afterward: what to do with the followers of the men you’ve defeated? For these were men who were resentful because they were afraid. They feared that the emperor would never advance them far enough, would forever view them with suspicion and that if they didn’t act on their conspiracy first, then the emperor would act on his.
How was Liu Bang to deal with such a threat?
Name your most hated subject, and shower him with riches and a noble title. This would show your subjects that you can forgive even your worst enemies. It also shows that you are solely focused on merit. It’s a move not unlike inviting the previous employees of a newly-acquired company to sit on the new board.
The move worked, and Zhang Liang took advantage of his non-position in this new era of peace to retire and practice Taoism.
Years later, Zhang Liang would be called upon to help advise the prince regent while Liu Bang went on his final campaign to put down an uprising. When the emperor returned and wanted to replace the prince regent with a different son, Zhang Liang protested but was ignored.
Realizing that this was his cue to leave but not wanting to offend the man who could remove his head, Zhang Liang feigned illness, recommended his replacements, and retired for the last time. Eventually, his replacements would convince the emperor to follow Zhang Liang’s desires and keep the prince regent, a nice final touch to a deftly-managed career.
One of the few influential men to achieve great success during tumultuous times and die of natural causes, Zhang Liang won on all levels. While it is said he retired to practice Taoism, you might argue he had practiced it his entire career. Largely without title, status, or armies, he won precisely by following the Taoist ideal of Wu Wei: doing what was necessary without seeming to be doing anything at all.
During a time fraught with danger, Zhang Liang found a way to thrive by becoming indispensable to his lord. And when there was nothing to be done for his lord, he found another who would do what was best for himself and the country. Finally, rulers are who they are, and their concerns are more numerous than you would think. So when Zhang Liang’s chosen ruler refused to listen to his advice, Zhang Liang didn’t try to twist his arm but chose instead a way to retire in peace. Above all else, Zhang Liang teaches us to be flexible and to adapt to others’ needs. Those who wish to win any game would do well to follow this sage’s example.