“Let loose the noose only to catch later” is a tactic of deliberately leaving someone at large to give a false impression that he is safe, and then making a sudden move to catch him when he is off guard. This is a very tactic that Chinese are familiar with because there are many stories about using the tactic in a fight in ancient China history.
In 341 BC, the state of Qin was at war with the state of Wei. The commander of Qin—Sun Bin ordered the men to dig cooking places in the ground for 100,000 soldiers on the 1st day. The 2nd day, the number was 50,000; and the 3rd day it was further cut to 30,000. The decreasing number of cooking sites led Pang Juan, the commander of Wei, to conclude that more than half of the Qi soldiers had deserted. Then he underestimated the enemy and led only a light crack-force in pursuit of Qin troops. Sun Bin calculated that Pang would reach Maling in the night and lay an ambush there. He wrote several characters in a nearby tree that said: “Pang Juan died below this tree”. He told his men that if they saw a light, that would be the signal for releasing their arrows. At night, Pang did arrive here. He noticed that some characters on the tree, he told his men to light a torch for him to read. This suddenly drew thousands of arrows from the Qin troops, and the Wei army suffered a rousing defeat.