OFFICE OF THE RECORDS — PATTERN FILE

PATTERN 3-12

ACTIVE
屯 Difficulty at the Beginning
→
否 Standstill

DIFFICULTY resolving to STANDSTILL. Filed under: the surrounded state, the distant alliance, paralysis imposed on the near.

Evidence plate for pattern 3-12 — Befriend the Far, Strike the Near
EVIDENCE — PLATE A · BEFRIEND THE FAR, STRIKE THE NEAR

INDEX ENTRY — ON FILE BEFORE EVERY INCIDENT BELOW

登几上輿，駕駟南遊。合從散橫，燕齊以強。

Mount the stool, board the carriage, drive the four-horse team south: the alliances knit and scatter, and Yan and Qi grow strong.

published fragment: Jiaoshi Yilin, c. 40 BC — the entry predates all surviving copies

LOGGED OCCURRENCES

  1. 4TH-3RD C. BCthe vertical and horizontal alliances

    the vertical and horizontal alliances — the map redrawn by carriage-routes, twice a generation. Filed under the pattern's later run.

  2. c. 270 BCBefriend the Far, Strike the Near

    Chancellor Fan Sui presented the doctrine over the map: gifts travel far, armies travel near. Every li of ground taken adjacent is a li kept; every distant friend is a flank sedated. Filed as ENTRY 021/64.

  3. 1939THE PACT THAT BOUGHT A CORRIDOR

    Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. A secret protocol attached eastern Poland as compensation for Soviet neutrality. The Red Army entered from the east as the Wehrmacht entered from the west. The far friend learned what near meant in 1941.

  4. 2014THE PENINSULA KEPT WHILE GIFTS TRAVELED FAR

    Russia dispatched envoys to three continents offering energy partnerships. At the same time, Russian special forces secured the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. Gifts to the far, claims on the near — doctrine unchanged since Fan Sui.

Cited by card ENTRY 021/64 · Befriend the Far, Strike the Near — The Records, Deck 1.

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