Paper tactics

Zhao Kuo was the son of Zhao She, one of Zhao's finest commanders. The son read his father's books thoroughly and could recite and dispute tactics. He argued with people and won. He believed he was better than his father, and his father agreed about the arguing.

Before Zhao She died, he told his wife: our son talks about the command of armies as if it were nothing. If Zhao ever appoints him, the defeat will begin with him.

Zhao did appoint him, when Qin attacked. His mother went to the king and asked that if he failed, their family wouldn't be punished with him. The king agreed.

Zhao Kuo went out, directed the army exactly as the book said, was cut off from supplies, and was killed with most of his force.

The lesson usually drawn is that reading is not experience. What strikes me is the father's specific complaint: the boy was fluent, not that he was careless. It was the fluency that frightened him. Talk that costs nothing is the sign that nobody has been in the field.

I write for a living, so I have to be careful here. The test I use: can I name the last time I could not fix something, and what it cost?

If you're about to give someone a model of their situation, name the place the model came apart for you.

MOJOWAY asks for the specific case, which is where fluency in a theory gets caught.