There are circumstances in which you must sacrifice short-term objectives in order to gain the long-term goal. This is the scapegoat strategy whereby someone else suffers the consequences so that the rest do not.

In the Warring States period, Qi commander Tian Ji always lost in his horse races with one of the princes.

Sun Bin suggested that he pit his weakest horse against the prince strongest horse, and his strongest horse against the prince's average horse, and his average horse against the prince's weakest horse. As a result, Tian Ji lost one race but won two.

In the year 353 BC, Sun Bin's use of the "besiege Wei to save Zhao" strategy sent the Wei troops rushing back to defend their state. The Wei troops split into three columns of left, centre and right in their return journey. Its left column was strongest and right column weakest.

Tian Ji decided to adopt the same strategy as in the horse race so that he could defeat two columns and suffer only one setback.

Sun Bin said, "It's not enough to win by matching the strength of forces. We can make use of our total numerical strength to annihilate the enemy. We can send our weakest column to fight Wei's strongest. Our average can fight with Wei's average column. With the advantage of terrain we can win if we know how to stall for time."

When Tian Ji asked how they could win, Sun bin said, "Send our best column to quickly destroy their weakest column.

Then our best can join our average column to annihilate their average column. Finally, our best and average columns can join our weakest column to wipe out their strongest column."