19. Remove the Firewood Under the Cooking Pot
“Remove the firewood under the cooking pot” is a phrase where you try to interfere your enemies day to day operation in order to win, for how can one cook when the firewood is gone. Hinder your enemy’s daily routines, duties, supplies and equipments in order make your enemies weak and vulnerable. Sabotage their business indirectly in order to throw confusion and weaken the enemy to a state where you can directly compete against them.
Remove things that can hurt the enemy. Steal the enemy’s resources to hinder the enemy. Seize the enemy’s morale in order to slow down the enemy. Take the enemy’s most able people to stop the enemy. This stratagem is all about removing things that can turn against your enemy. That is what it means to “remove the firewood under the cooking pot“.
