Even if a commander with a very low position wants to achieve outstanding achievements, he must also have extraordinary intelligence, and this intelligence must increase with the promotion of his position. From this point of view, our view of the next-level commanders who have a reputation in the military will change. Although they seem to have a simpler mind compared with knowledgeable scholars, shrewd entrepreneurs, and eloquent politicians, they must not be ignored because of their outstanding intellectual ability. Sometimes some people bring the honor they got when they were in a lower position to a higher position, but in fact they don't deserve this reputation in this position. If such people are rarely reused after promotion, then there is no danger of exposing their weaknesses soon, so we can't quite accurately determine whether they deserve a certain reputation. Because of such people, we often underestimate those who might be able to make a big difference in a certain position.
Regardless of the position, as long as you have a certain genius, you can achieve outstanding achievements in war. However, history and later generations commented that the honor of true genius is often only added to those who have the highest position, that is, the famous and famous in the position of commander. This is because this kind of position requires extremely high spiritual power.
To achieve the great goal of the entire war or the large-scale military operations in the war, it is necessary to have a deep understanding of the relationship between war and the country's interests. Here, military and politics are combined, and the military commander also becomes a politician.
People did not give Charlie the Twelve Great Genius title because he did not know how to subordinate the role of force to higher insights and wisdom, and did not understand that he could achieve a more glorious goal. The reason why people did not give Henry IV the title of great genius was because he died before he had time to influence the relations between some countries with his military effect, and he did not have time to show his talents in this higher field and his nobleness in this field. Feelings and chivalry cannot be as effective as they did in the suppression of civil strife.
The commander must understand everything in a general sense and judge everything correctly. You can refer to Chapter One. The military commander should become a politician, but he should not become a pure politician. On the one hand, he must have a general understanding of all political situations, and on the other hand, he must clearly know how to use his military power to serve politics.
Their relationships are diverse and there is no clear dividing line. There are a large number of factors to be considered, and most of these factors can only be estimated according to the law of probability. Therefore, if a commander-in-chief can't see through all of this with his perceptive insight, his observation and thinking will be confused, and it will be impossible to make correct judgments. In this sense, Napoleon summed it up very correctly. Many decisions that the commander needs to make are just like the mathematical problems that require Newton and Euler calculations.
What is required for higher intelligence is comprehensive ability and judgment. The combination of the two develops astonishing insight. People with this ability can keenly grasp the key points of all problems, while people with average intelligence need to spend time. It takes a lot of effort, even exhaustion, to figure out the relationship between the various issues. However, a person with this higher intelligence, that is, a person with this genius vision, cannot be recorded in the annals of history without the emotional and character traits we have mentioned before.
Just knowing the truth cannot generate much motivation, so there is still a big distance between knowing and willing, and between knowing and capable. The most direct driving force for people to take action comes from feelings, and the most powerful supporting force comes from the "alloy" of feelings and intelligence. This "alloy" is the decisiveness, tenacity, tenacity and determination that we have mentioned before.
In addition, if the superb intellectual and emotional activities of a commander-in-chief are not fully demonstrated in all his achievements, and people just believe that he has this kind of power, then it is difficult for him to be recorded in the annals of history.
The processes of war events that people know about are often very simple and similar. It is impossible for people to understand all the difficulties they have overcome in the whole process based on simple narratives. Only in the memoirs written by some commanders or their cronies, or in the special study of historical events, can they find part of the large number of clues that formed the entire event. In addition, most of the thoughts and inner struggles before a certain major action were carried out, some were deliberately omitted due to political stakes.
Finally, if we cannot make a more precise definition of higher spiritual power in theory, but recognize intellectual differences in terms of linguistic habits and general concepts, then we have to ask what kind of intelligence is most suitable for talents. Called a military genius? Through the previous discussion, it is not difficult to see that this kind of person is not so much an innovative person as a person with a deliberate spirit. He is a fully developed person, full of enthusiasm, but also calm, dynamic and quiet. Perfectly unified, we are willing to entrust the lives of our children and the honor and safety of the motherland to such people during the war.
Danger in war
Before people have experienced war in person, they often imagine war as not terrible, even with some romantic colors. Inspired by enthusiasm, rush to the enemy-who cares about its bullets and lives? He closed his eyes in an instant, and walked towards cruel death-I don't know who can escape its clutches. All of this happens when the crown of victory is in sight and the fruit of honor is within reach. Is it difficult? On the surface, this is not difficult, but the moment of death is not like a pulse as people think, but like taking medicine. It must be diluted and melted for a period of time. This period of time is very painful. , However, such moments are rare.
Now, let us accompany those who have never been to the battlefield to experience it on the battlefield. As we approached the battlefield, the rumble of cannonballs became louder and louder, mixed with the howling of cannonballs, which attracted the attention of the first comers at this time. Cannonballs began to fall around us. We rushed to the commanding heights of the commander. Here, shells fell one after another nearby, and grenades continued to explode. The harsh reality broke the naive fantasy of the first comers. In a blink of an eye, an acquaintance fell down-a grenade fell in the crowd, causing a riot-people began to feel uneasy, even the bravest were a little uneasy. We continued to move forward and came to a division commander, where the fierce battle was unfolding like a dramatic scene. Here, the enemy's shells fell one by one, and the roar of our artillery made people feel more disturbed. We went from the commander's side to the brigade commander's side. The brigade commander was recognized as a very courageous person. He carefully hid behind hills, houses or trees-obviously, the danger is getting bigger and bigger. It's getting closer. Grenades fell on the roof and in the fields one after another. The shells roared in the air and flew over our heads and around us. At the same time, there was the screaming of the shells. We continued to move forward and came to the infantry unit that had been fighting for several hours of firepower. There was the swish of bullets everywhere, short and sharp, and the bullets were close at hand, some from our ears, heads, and chests. Swept forward. Seeing the wounded soldiers and the lives of death, our beating heart is even more saddened.
Exposing to the above-mentioned different degrees of danger, people all feel how different the light of thinking is here from when they were thinking out of thin air. When a person is exposed to the initial danger, he still has the ability to calm down and act decisively. He must be a different person. It is true that habits will quickly dilute these impressions. After 30 minutes, we may be indifferent to everything around us. Some people have more people with this indifferent mood, and some people have fewer people. In any case, the average person cannot be completely calm in this situation. It can be seen that it is not enough for a person to have ordinary spiritual power here. If the greater the responsibility he is required to bear, the more the situation will be. In this difficult situation, if all activities want to achieve the same effect as indoor activities, people must have great, indomitable, natural courage, and a strong sense of honor, or long-term dangerous experience.
Danger in war is a kind of resistance in war, and holding a correct attitude towards it is necessary to make understanding conform to reality, so we have to mention it here.
Exhaustion in war
If a person is asked to judge things in a war when his limbs are numb or thirsty, hungry or exhausted, then the chances of getting an objectively correct judgment are too small. However, these judgments are at least subjectively correct, because they accurately reflect the relationship between the judge and the thing being judged. We have seen that people who witnessed the unfortunate incident, especially when he was still on the scene, often made pessimistic and negative judgments about the incident, or even exaggerated it. This is not difficult to understand. It can be seen that fatigue can have a great impact, and it should be highly valued when judging fatigue.
In war, many things cannot strictly regulate the limits of their use, especially physical strength. If physical strength is not abused, then it is the coefficient of all strength. No one can say exactly how much fatigue the human body can withstand, but just as only the strong arm strength of an archer can pull the bowstring tighter, in a war, only a strong commander can make the most of it. The energy of your own army. For example, after a big defeat, an army is in desperate situation, like a wall about to collapse. It can only be out of danger after enduring great fatigue. This is a situation; a victorious army is inspired by pride. Next, willing to follow the commander's arbitrary dispatch, this is another situation. The same is enduring fatigue, but the former evokes sympathy at most, while the latter makes people admire, because it is more difficult to do so.
Therefore, inexperienced people will also see that fatigue is one of the many factors that secretly restrict intellectual activity and consume emotional power.
Although what I'm talking about here is only the question of the commander asking the army and the commander to ask his subordinates to bear hardships, that is, whether they dare to demand and are good at asking the army and his subordinates to bear hardships, the question of the commander himself should not be ignored. We have carefully analyzed the war, and we should pay attention to the remaining important issues of this time.
The problem of fatigue is discussed here because it is like a danger, and it is also one of the most important causes of resistance; at the same time, it does not have a certain measurement standard, just like elastic objects. As we all know, the resistance of elastic objects is very difficult to calculate accurately. of.
In order to avoid abusing the above-mentioned arguments and avoid overemphasizing various difficult factors in war, we are born with a sense of guiding judgment. Just like when a person is slandered and abused, talking about his weaknesses will never bring any benefit. Only after he successfully refutes or fought back such an attack, mentioning his weaknesses seems to turn into a strength. . Any military commander or any army’s method of portraying dangers, difficulties, and fatigue cannot eliminate the shame of failure; however, at the moment of victory, these dangers, difficulties, and fatigue can add infinite glory to them. . It can be seen that our feelings prevent us from drawing seemingly fair conclusions that are easy to draw because our feelings are a higher judgment.
Intelligence in the war
Intelligence refers to all the materials we have about the enemy and the enemy country, and it is the basis of all our plans and actions. As long as we carefully consider the nature of this foundation and its unreliability and variability, we will immediately feel how dangerous this "building" is in war, and how easy it is to collapse and bury us in it. Under the tile. Although all the books say that reliable information should be trusted, but they have to be suspicious. This is just a kind of masturbation retreat that the author of the book came up with when he couldn't figure out a better explanation.