No Comparison between the Two

During the Warring States Period, wars happened frequently among the feudal lords, resulting in the political activities of“Longitudinal Union” and“Horizontal Association”. The former means that weaker nations united together to attack the stronger ones; and the latter means the weaker nations associated with the stronger ones to attack other weaker powers. Su Qin was one of the most famous agitators. Though he failed to persuade Qin State and Zhao State to follow his“Longitudinal Union” strategy, he gained a certain amount of pecuniary aid from Yan State. So once again he went to Zhao State and was summoned by Su Hou, the ruler of the state.

Su Qin analyzed the whole situation for him, and then said,“If Zhao fights against Qi State or Qin State, your people will not be able to live in peace. If you ally with Qi to attack Qin, your people will also not be able to live in peace. If you keep a friendly relationship with Qin, Qin will take this advantage to weaken Han State and Wei State. Being friendly to Qi, Qi will also take this advantage to weaken Chu and Wei. On condition that Han and Wei are weakened, they will compromise by ceding their territories and become weaker. Then, your majesty will be cut off from any help.

With a territory stretching two thousand li in length and breadth, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, thousands of chariots and steeds, food available for several years, Zhao is no weaker than any other countries to the east of the Taihang Mountains actually. To the west, south and east,surrounding mountains and rivers protect Zhao; to the north, Yan is too weak to threaten Zhao. In fact, Qin hates Zhao mostly. But why does it not attack Zhao? That is due to Han and Wei who will attack it in the back. So Han and Wei serve as the southern barriers of Zhao. However, since Han and Wei are within easy reach of Qin, they will yield to Qin when they cannot resist. What I am concerned with is that once Qin gets its trouble back resolved; it will launch a war against Zhao.

I have observed that the total amount of the territories of all the vassals is five times as that of Qin, their troops ten times. Uniting as a whole, they are able to march to the west and defeat Qin. Yet nowadays, all states submit themselves to Qin. Defeating others and defeated by others, submitted by others and submitting to others, can they be compared with each other?”

Therefore, Su Hou followed Su Qin's advice and presented him a lot of largess, sending him to persuade other states to join the“Longitudinal Union”.

This idiom means that different matters can neither be mentioned at the same time and be placed at the same level, nor be compared with each other.