Mozi walked ten days to talk a king out of war, and won
In China's Warring States era, the carpenter-philosopher Mozi preached universal love and practised it by rushing to crisis zones. Hearing that Chu planned to attack Song, he walked for ten days to the Chu court, beat its chief strategist in nine mock battles, and persuaded the king to call the war off.
Mozi came from the state of Lu, in today's Tengzhou in Shandong, and most historians think he rose from the artisan class to hold office, serving for a time as a minister in Song. A skilled carpenter and deviser of machines, he was sought out by rulers as an expert on fortifications. Educated as a Confucian, he broke away, judging that tradition too fatalistic and too fond of lavish ceremonies and funerals that drained ordinary people's livelihoods.
According to the Gongshu chapter of the Mozi, when the strategist Gongshu Ban threatened to kill him, Mozi told the king that his disciples had already taught Song's soldiers his defensive methods, so his death would change nothing. The attack was abandoned. On his way home, Song's own guards failed to recognise him and left him outside overnight in freezing rain. He later stopped Qi from attacking Lu as well.
His central idea was jian ai, impartial caring or universal love: people should in principle care for everyone equally, rather than ranking their concern by kinship as Confucians thought natural. Critics called this absurd, reading it as denying special duties to family. He also attacked the notion of fate, insisting people can shape their lives, and proposed a three-part test of statements based on observation, causes and functions, and historical grounding, which his students developed into the School of Names.
His followers, mostly technicians and craftspeople, formed a disciplined order, and during the Warring States period Mohism rivalled Confucianism as the leading organised school. It faded after the Qin dynasty took power in 221 BCE; many Mohist texts are traditionally thought lost in the book burning of 213 BCE, and by the middle of the Western Han the school had almost vanished. Even Mencius, a Confucian, praised Mozi's selfless devotion to humanity.
Source: Mozi
