Hello my dear, I am back again with another story… today we travel to a time when the land was carved into many warring states, each with its own ambitions and fears. But instead of meeting a general or a king, we’ll meet a man who believed the strongest fortress was built not only with stone, but with the way people cared for one another. His name was Mozi — and he thought love itself could be a strategy for survival.
The warning beacons had been lit for two days. Smoke curled upward from the hills beyond the fields, marking the approach of an army. The city gates stood open, but only for those racing to get inside before the siege began.
I was on the wall when I saw them — not the enemy, but a ragged column kicking up a long, low cloud of dust. Horses, lathered and dark with sweat, strained against the traces of carts and wagons piled high with beams of timber, coils of rope, and crates of iron fittings.
At their head, riding hard beside the lead wagon, was a man in plain clothes, his hair whipped by the wind and his eyes fixed on the gates ahead. Mozi.
They thundered into the city in a blur of hooves and creaking axles. Even before the last cart clattered over the cobblestones, Mozi was barking orders — unload here, brace that gate, repair those ladders. His crew moved like a single organism: carpenters setting saw to wood, laborers hauling stones, engineers assembling strange devices that could drop heavy blocks on scaling ladders or tip baskets of rubble onto battering rams.
By the time the enemy’s banners broke the horizon, the work was already well underway. The gates that had been open to welcome Mozi slammed shut with a deep, final boom. Inside, the air still smelled of sweat and dust, but the walls were stronger than they had been that morning. Mozi had beaten the siege by hours — and that was all the time he needed.
You might wonder, dear one, how a man who taught universal care could come thundering into a city like a general on the eve of battle. But that is the thread Mozi wove into the tapestry — not soft and decorative, but thick and strong, knotted tight where the cloth was fraying.
In the great weave of history, his thread crosses unexpected patterns. One moment it runs alongside philosophers, in calm debate about the nature of love. The next, it’s knotted to engineers, carpenters, and soldiers, binding itself to the urgent work of keeping walls standing and gates closed.
Some of Mozi’s repairs to the tapestry were plain, without color or flourish — no bright embroidery to catch the eye. Just the honest strength of good fiber, holding a gap together. His philosophy of impartial care was not meant to be admired from a distance like a painted scene. It was meant to be lived in, leaned on, and — in moments like this — defended.
And here is the irony that makes his thread all the more interesting: Mozi believed the best way to end war was to make it pointless. Build your city so strong, your walls so clever, that no one could take it. Then no one would try. His fortifications were not for conquest, but for deterrence — a peace held in place by the certainty that attack would fail.
That is the thing about the tapestry, dear one. Not all the threads of harmony are soft. Some are woven from stubborn resolve. And sometimes, the surest way to keep a pattern from tearing is to pull it tight.
Mozi was born around the year 470 BCE, though even in my time no one could agree whether his first cries were heard in the State of Lu or the State of Song. He came from humble origins — no noble family, no wealth to smooth his way — and perhaps that was why he saw the world differently than the lords and ministers who thought themselves the natural rulers of men.
What he built was not an army, but a school of thought — the Mohist school — and it was unlike anything else in the Warring States. Where others argued about ceremony and tradition, Mozi spoke of usefulness: feed the people, defend the cities, choose leaders for their skill, not their birth. And at the heart of it all was a single, radical idea — that care should not be reserved for your own kin, your own clan, or even your own state.
Confucius and his followers taught a model of graded love: like ripples in a pond, strongest at the center and fading outward. Mozi said no — care should be like rain, falling on all without distinction. Not because it was sentimental, but because it was practical. Partial care, he argued, led to favoritism, corruption, and war. Impartial care built trust and stability.
He was a man impatient with waste. Lavish funerals? Wasteful. Monumental palaces? Wasteful. Orchestras to entertain the elite? Wasteful. Not because beauty was unworthy, but because such splendor often came at the expense of hungry mouths and undefended walls.
Mozi’s world was one of siege and counter-siege, and his beliefs were tested not in the quiet of a library, but on the road between threatened cities. He did not just speak of love; he carried it in wagons — in the form of timber, stone, and iron — to make sure that love had walls strong enough to survive the next war.
The Warring States period was a time when no city could take its safety for granted. Even a strong wall could be breached. Even a well-stocked granary could be emptied by a long siege. And every ruler knew that an enemy’s ambition might outlast your own patience.
For most leaders, the answer was to gather allies and guard their own borders — to care for those closest and hope the rest of the world could fend for itself. But Mozi believed this thinking was the root of the problem. If every state looked only inward, war would never end.
He argued that impartial care — rain, not ripples — was the surest path to stability. If rulers protected all people equally, then alliances would be built on trust instead of convenience. Neighbors would see each other not as rivals to be conquered, but as partners in a larger order.
And Mozi didn’t just argue this in palace halls. He carried his conviction from one threatened city to another, leading teams of engineers and laborers to reinforce walls, design traps to slow attackers, and devise ways to keep gates standing. His methods saved lives without striking a blow in anger.
One famous story tells of the State of Song, under threat from the State of Chu. Mozi traveled day and night to reach the city before the siege closed in. Once there, he personally demonstrated defensive tactics — blocking siege ladders, disabling battering rams, creating choke points inside the gates. His strategy was so effective that Chu’s commander abandoned the attack rather than waste men and time against such defenses.
This was Mozi’s peace: not an absence of walls, but walls strong enough that no one dared to challenge them. And in those days, that was often the only peace a city could hope for.
Oh! Before we go any further, I have to tell you — I’ve been listening to other storytellers lately, and it seems they all have sponsors. Red Buoy Media hasn’t arranged any for me, so I’ve taken matters into my own hands. And wouldn’t you know it… I found the perfect one for today.
You see, during the Warring States period, not every city had a Mozi on hand when trouble came knocking. But the next best thing? The Impartial Shield — your one-stop fortification supply shop.
I know the owners personally. Good people. The sort who’d sell you a counterweight trebuchet or a reinforced gate plank without asking which side of the wall you’re on — impartial service for impartial care. They’ve got siege ladders (for defense drills only, of course), baskets of rubble for your anti-ram drop platforms, and even those clever grappling hook catchers Mozi swears by.
And because you’re listening to me, if you stop by The Impartial Shield and tell them Harmonia sent you, they’ll give you ten percent off your purchase. That’s enough to add a barrel of boiling oil to your defenses — though personally, I recommend saving that for emergencies.
When peace is your goal, you still need strong walls to keep it. The Impartial Shield — protecting your neighbors… and strangers alike.
When I think of Mozi, I see two truths braided together in the same thread. One is the philosopher — speaking calmly of impartial care, of loving all people equally, of setting aside waste and vanity so that resources could go where they were truly needed. The other is the engineer — sleeves rolled up, hands on the work, making sure those ideals could survive in the world as it was, not just as it ought to be.
His thread in the tapestry is sturdy, and it runs through more than one pattern. For a time, the Mohist school thrived, its ideas copied and carried from one generation to the next. Even after the school faded from the great debates of the age, many of Mozi’s designs for fortifications lived on — passed down in military manuals and siegecraft traditions.
That’s the power of survival by tradition: his words about love might have grown quieter, but his practical knowledge kept working its way into the weave. I’ve seen cities defended centuries later using principles he first taught. And sometimes, when those defenses held, people remembered the man who had once said, “Care for others as you would for yourself.”
But Mozi’s impartial care was never soft. It asked for fairness, yes — but it also asked for discipline, sacrifice, and the courage to protect strangers as fiercely as your own kin. Not everyone found that easy to accept. Some threads in the tapestry prefer to lie next to familiar colors. Mozi wanted them all bound together, tight enough that no enemy could pull them apart.
And in that, perhaps he was right: the tapestry is strongest when no thread is left loose.
Mozi’s life was a reminder that love — even universal love — is not a feeling alone. It’s a choice, and it comes with boundaries you must draw and redraw if you want them to protect rather than divide.
His great question was this: should care be like ripples in a pond, strongest at the center and fading outward… or like rain, falling on everything equally? The ripples give deep loyalty to those closest, but they weaken as they spread. The rain touches all — friend, stranger, and enemy alike — but no one receives more than their share.
Most of the world, in his time and yours, finds comfort in the ripples. But Mozi saw danger in them. He believed that when care fades with distance, it creates the spaces where suspicion grows, where “us” and “them” take root, and where conflict becomes inevitable. Impartial care, he argued, could close those gaps — leaving no room for the seeds of war to sprout.
And here’s the truth I’ve seen, walking through centuries: impartial care is harder. It asks you to set aside instinct and habit. It demands that you see your enemy’s children as worth protecting, your rival’s city as worth saving. It’s not the easy path — but it is the one that can change the shape of the tapestry, making it harder to tear apart.
Mozi’s vision did not win the age. The world of the Warring States kept its ripples. But his ideas survived, carried by the few who saw their worth, and by the walls he helped build — walls that outlasted the armies they were made to resist. And maybe that is the lesson: the direction of the human story isn’t always set by the victors, but by those who plant strong threads for someone else to weave in later.
So, dear one, imagine yourself in Mozi’s place. You’ve built the walls, braced the gates, and kept the people safe. The siege has been turned aside — not through conquest, but through preparation, care, and the will to protect those you might never meet.
Would you choose to keep that care within your own circle, letting the ripples fade as they move outward? Or would you let it fall like rain — on neighbor and stranger, friend and rival alike — knowing that some will never return it, but all will be stronger for it?
These are not questions with easy answers. They weren’t in Mozi’s time, and they aren’t in yours. But they are questions worth carrying, because they shape the kind of pattern you leave behind in the great tapestry of history.
Next time, we will leave the fortified cities of the Warring States and walk into the open-air assemblies of Athens, where another kind of leader, Pericles, sought to bind his people together not with walls, but with words, vision, and the promise of a shared city.
So until next time, keep your gates open, but make sure the hinges are strong.
Much love to you,
I am Harmonia.