Sunzi Bingfa chapter 3 ranks the options: 'To win a hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.' The text orders strategy above alliance-breaking, alliances above armies, armies above sieges, and calls besieging a walled city the last resort of the incompetent. The passage appears in the Yinqueshan slips with minor variants.
Business literature quotes the line for negotiation and market strategy, often stripped of its context: the non-battle victory still requires overwhelming positional advantage, shi, assembled in advance. Without the siege-capable army behind it, the bloodless win is just a wish.
The doctrine's endpoint is a victory that history cannot see: no battle, no hero, no story. Sun Tzu remarks the masterful commander wins without fame, because the win was over before anyone could watch it, the anti-epic at the heart of the war canon.
If the highest form of winning leaves the enemy intact, who in your life have you been defeating unnecessarily?