📖 Meaning
A military term referring to using concentrated superior forces to annihilate a divided enemy force one part at a time. By extension, it figuratively describes the approach of solving problems or overcoming opponents individually rather than all at once.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from Mao Zedong's 1928 essay "Why Can China's Red Political Power Exist?" (《中国的红色政权为什么能够存在》), in which he urged the Red Army to concentrate its forces to deal with the current enemy rather than dividing its troops, warning that dispersion would allow the enemy to destroy them piecemeal. The phrase was originally a tactical military principle emphasizing the danger of being defeated in detail. Over time, it broadened into a general metaphor for any divide-and-conquer or step-by-step problem-solving approach.
💡 Example Usage
面对多个竞争对手，我们最好采取各个击破的策略。
Facing multiple competitors, we'd better adopt a strategy of defeating them one by one.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 各个击破
- Pinyin: gè gè jī pò
- Literal Translation: each, each, strike, break
- Category: Method
- Characters: 4