"smoking on watch" - example of "besiege Wei.." and "create something.."

The story happened during a training course in the army.
The course itself was a some variety of the basic training for the 30yrs+ and medical staff so it lasted just 2 weeks.
Anyway, towards the end of the course, several guys were caught smoking cigarettes on watch. That was actually a pretty usual practice on the camp. What was unusual - that the camp commander decided to have them tried for it. After the guys from one squad were tried - everybody was stunned. Well, everybody expected them to get punished by some form of the kitchen duty or toilet-scrubbing. But they were heavily fined instead. On the next day the trial was to take place in the other squad.
In the morning one of the guys of the second squad approached his sarge and asked him politely if the sarge was aware that the whole affair was not that fair - anybody could've been caught since it was a regular practice and there were no punishments for it before. The guy went on and said: "look, people are really upset with this stuff and there are all kinds of talking, but I bet you would not want people to refuse to be sworn in over this (the ceremony was to take place the next day), do you?"
The sarge left without a word, but the trial set for the afternoon was canceled. In the second squad nobody was tried or punished!

Two strategies were used here:
1. "Attack Wei to save Zhao"(see the definition):
It would've been impossible to defend once being on trial, but here something else - very important for the sergeant suddenly came under attack - the ceremony! He preferred to cancel the court altogether lest risk the danger of somebody refusing to be sworn in.
2. "create something out of nothing"(see the definition):
Actually, just a hint on the refusal to be sworn in was used - there were no actual talks about that in the squad.