Transcendence 君臨天下
Due to the lack of time and a tight schedule, I'll resort to jotting down the major points that I'd like to discuss about Transcendence.
i. Preface 序
給那些下決心成為霸主的人:
這是一篇被咀咒的文章。If you intend to follow the teachings of this prose, you will have to withstand the powerful consequences that come along with this granted power. Just like 葵花寶典, fully utilizing the way of the Transcendence will bring you power, and so will the possibility of 世人的咀咒。 So, learn it at your own risk.
ii. Of Qualities
That of the Transcendence will not be tolerated to have any worldly desires: no love, no compassion, no truth. These qualities will only hinder the success of the beholder. It is imperative that the Transcendent do not have any sense of affection and love to anyone; he shall remain lonely, without a family and without any blood successor. In fact, it is mandatory that he shall secretly eliminate every blood related member within his family, as they will simply be a hindrance to his power. Had a member remains alive, he/she will pose a threat to your power as they can be a captive to your enemy. If you choose to let him/her go at this point, your reputation will be ruin, and pose a threat to your sustenance of power. Therefore, as mentioned earlier, members of your kinship must be eliminated secretly, and those who are ordered to do this job must also be eliminated for future safety.
The Transcendent must also have no desire for any worldly illusions. What has hindered the past chairs of power and will continue to do so is their desire for fame and wealth. Whether it is intentionally or not, human beings are subjected to a desire to be remembered as part of history. Whatever they do and act simply is a mean to achieve the greater end. Even those who claim themselves as pure, like Christians and Buddists, are under the same effect, except the target whom they intended to be remembered by belongs to another dimension. Perhaps, the only quality that the Transcendent may maintain is his greed for ultimate power and control; although this can blatantly not be done in an extreme fashion. Therefore, if one were able to eliminate these desires, he will be able to focus on the big picture and achieve the goals of Transcendence.
The Transcendent needs not be the epitome of human strength nor intelligence, rather, he must be a man of charisma and mental manipulation. He need not know the ultimate ways of politics nor military strategies; rather he must be a man capable of recruiting, managing, and utilizing his inferiors, as well as the art of manipulating them to die for you. There has been numerous examples of those who succeed due to this sheer quality. The best example can be shown by the founder of the Chinese Han Dynasty: Liu Ban. Because of his excellence of managing his inferiors and his charisma, he became the first peasant to successfully conquer China. Although, major emphasis is being put onto these two characteristics, the privilege to excel in military mind and politics would benefit the Transcendent in governing his state, and further guidelines will be mentioned later on.
The Transcendent must not hesitate to bend and manipulate the truth, or even utilize it as the biggest weapon of his disposal. But it must be imperative that he must fully master his skill or the consequences could be fatal. The more technical aspects of this will be mentioned later on.
iii. Of Charisma and Management
Based on what is called the Heroism theory, the existence of hero can only be achieved in a time of chaos and turmoil; and in time of peace and order, the same opportunities will only result to a 奸雄. There is simply no better time than establishing your Charisma and initial "fame" (or rather, support) in time of war and civil uproar. It is important to understand that a good Transcendent awaits the optimal opportunity and seizes the chance; but a great Transcendent facilities his own entrance and creates his optimal chaos and disorder. How and the ways to facilitate opportunities varies depending on the situations, but the dynamics of chaos simply follows the same pattern (which will be mentioned later on).
The Transcendent must fully master the ways of managing his inferiors. As mentioned in "Ravage of Times", do not use those you suspect; do not suspect those you use. If you have chosen your officers, you must grant them full autonomy in order to achieve optimal performance. Giving your officer autonomy is in fact a very powerful manipulation tool, as the sense of trust that you grant them ensures their loyalty to you. It is very important to pick the best advisors to begin with, based on loyalty first before performance. The carrot and the stick must also be enforce strictly, and there can never be any exceptions or impartialness will lead to internal political breakdown. One would probably asked whether the Transcendent should be loved or feared. Machiavelli's "The Prince" has suggested that it is more favorable to have the one in power be feared than loved, as during periods of potential power struggles those who intend to backstab you will think twice due to the preinstalled fear. A Transcendent, however, should be more loved than feared by the public, but more feared than loved by his inferiors in order to achieve total control.
The Transcendent must be able to see the potentials within his prospects, and not rely solely on the opinion of those around him. Like a jewel crafter, he must be able to not only appreciate the value of the hidden prospect, but also be able to grind them into dazzling jewels. The Transcendent must also be willing to succumb to his sense of pride, and acknowledge that his inferiors are superior to him, whichever aspect it may be.
iv. Of Politics
The playing field of politics has never changed since the beginning of time. The interaction of people and the minds of those being controlled remained unchanged throughout the ages. In fact, the improvement in human intelligence simply made the manipulation of politics much smoother and easier. However, there is one thing that has drastically changed in the playing field: the acquisition of information. The rapid improvement and reliance of telecommunications has facilitated the need of a much quicker reaction time/mind for the Transcendent. What originally required days and months to gather now can be done within days or even hours. Fortunately, the privilege of knowing your enemies and your people simply made the chance of spreading propaganda much easier. Propaganda still claims to be a very effective mode of political control, so long that the Transcendent masters its ways.
In dealing with the public, the Transcendence must understand important element of unexpectance. To further understand this, you must first know why people behave the way they do. The major reason why people fear death is the fact that it is of no reliable reference as to what it unfolds; simply no one can be sure what would happen when they die. Fortunately, the early civilizations has unanimously done us a great service of instilling a negative consequence of death, as it has a connotation of something that is uncertain and very likely to be less favorable than the present. This is one of the major reason why religion tends to be so successful, as it tends to direct people into a new hope that dying in a given condition will allow them to have a more favorable "consequence." This ultimately, allowed religion to manipulate people into behaving the way it wishes to, since not fulfilling these conditions will bring them an unfavorable end. On the other hand, what brings people into the state of bliss is the occurrence of a favorable, yet unexpected experience.
Therefore, the key of total manipulation of people relies on the key of unexpectance. The Transcendent must ensure that his policies and changes must remain as secretive and intransparent as possible. Revealed at a perfect time, a beneficial revelation will greatly boost your social-support and control. On the other hand, the Transcendence must instill fear within the population, leaking out partial rumors about non-social friendly policies but never fully reveal them until the perfect moment arise. Perhaps, it is favorable if a condition is attached to the policy, as total submission to this condition will facilitate a favorable outcome.
In dealing with the counterforce of religion, there are a few ways to make these organizations succumb to the government. First of all, it is greatly advised that the government must not succumb to the religious factions demands and grant them power and control over the people. Segregation between government and religion must be mandatory, as power struggles between the two powers will facilitate social disorder, providing an opportunity of a new Transcendent. In most cases, those who hold higher offices in these organizations are never the most zealous followers of respective religion. Once the Transcendent is able to manipulate these higher office and ally with them, through wealth, pseudo power, or fame, a balanced equilibrium can be achieved. Another possible way to deal with these organization is to install ticking political time bombs into their office of power, eventually causing internal political struggle and break down their image and importance gradually. Although these religious organizations must be dealt with, the government must still show total religious freedom on the surface of governance.
If the situation permits, the Transcendence is better off becoming the man behind the scene, while maintaining supreme power. The benefit of a puppet leader is that he can be the scapegoat of social-unfriendly policies. Furthermore, it grants the Transcendent the much needed freedom to exercise his power and behind the scene executions, whether political or physical.
v. Of Military
Perhaps to this day, the mechanics of warfare has drastically changed due to the arise of technology. However, the principles of warfare has never changed since the dawn of time: The ones who fight and plan every single skirmish, battle, and war are still blood and flesh human beings. And the success of military struggle is determined not by the strength of the army, but rather its morale during battle. The side who succeed in manipulating morale becomes the winner of each fight. If one is able to maintain high morale within its army, he will have a 50% chance of winning the battle. Those capable of controlling the morale of not just himself but also those of his opposition are the true masters of warfare.
A war is not simply fought on the battlefield, but within both friendly and enemy territories. A successful military corp shall never draft any reinforcements. The recruitment of military force can easily be achieved through the manipulation of propaganda and education of nationalism. Voluntary recruitment is necessary to achieve optimal morale within the army. But the most important factor for victory is the breakdown of enemy morale. There are a couple of ways in achieving this but I will not go into much detail about them. One of the possible option is to boost the opposition's morale to maximum capacity. Those who achieved maximum morale will have the least will to die and a surprise military maneuver is capable of breaking them down to abyss and cannot be recovered. Another possible way is to instill fear and insecurity within the opposing force. This can be done by staging internal strikes or inciting internal uproar within enemy territory, and spreading rumors about possible threat to the opposing officers' families.
However, the major motive of warfare lies in the the economic value behind the strategic targets. Almost every single war that are fought up to this date involves important economic significance. The invasion on Iraq is simply a way to maintain a grip on important economic resource; even the American revolution is fought to obtain economic independence over Britain and allow trading to other favorable nations. There is simply no need for actual military struggles on the battlefield, as modern wars can be fought on the economic market. Mastering the economy of your own nation and that of the enemy will allow you to win wars without actually fighting them.
Unfortunately, in order to obtain peace, war is the only viable option. Human beings have an innate nature of taking things for granted and will never understand its importance until the things are taken away from them. They will simply never understand the true beauty of peace until war takes it away from them. To add to this misfortune, human beings will eventually forget about the beauty of peace when it is in place for too long. Without the occurrence of World War II, there would never be the formation of a United Nations. Without the occurrence of World War I, the unhealthy alliance and military race would have eventually erupted to a even bigger tragedy. Without the American Civil War, there will never be a realization of the need to slavery freedom and human rights. Without the occurrence of racial massacre and elimination, there will never be a realization of a need for racial equality and justice. One might argue that the examples of Gandhi and Luther King Jr. suggest that there is a possibility of pacifist path of attaining peace. However, the only way of attaining total peace is through a even more destructive war. A World War III or even IV will simply be inevitable.
Unfortunately time is running out and this is as far and it can go.