The Art of War by Sun Tzu (elon musk reading list TXT) 📕

lang="zh-Latn-wadegile" xml:lang="zh-Latn-wadegile">Tu Yu, Tu Mu, and Mei Yao-chʽên have notes to the effect that a general, though naturally stupid, may nevertheless conquer through sheer force of rapidity. Ho Shih says: “Haste may be stupid, but at any rate it saves expenditure of energy and treasure; protracted operations may be very clever, but they bring calamity in their train.” Wang Hsi evades the difficulty by remarking: “Lengthy operations mean an army growing old, wealth being expended, an empty exchequer and distress among the people; true cleverness insures against the occurrence of such calamities.” Chang Yü says: “So long as victory can be attained, stupid haste is preferable to clever dilatoriness.” Now Sun Tzǔ says nothing whatever, except possibly by implication, about ill-considered haste being better than ingenious but lengthy operations. What he does say is something much more guarded, namely that, while speed may sometimes be injudicious, tardiness can never be anything but foolish⁠—if only because it means impoverishment to the nation. Capt. Calthrop indulges his imagination with the following: “Therefore it is acknowledged that war cannot be too short in duration. But though conducted with the utmost art, if long continuing, misfortunes do always appear.” It is hardly worth while to note the total disappearance of 拙速 in this precious concoction. In considering the point raised here by Sun Tzǔ, the classic example of Fabius Cunctator will inevitably occur to the mind. That general deliberately measured the endurance of Rome against that of Hannibal’s isolated army, because it seemed to him that the latter was more likely to suffer from a long campaign in a strange country. But it is quite a moot question whether his tactics would have proved successful in the long run. Their reversal, it is true, led to Cannae; but this only establishes a negative presumption in their favour. ↩

The Yü Lan has 圖 instead of 國⁠—evidently the mistake of a scribe. ↩

That is, with rapidity. Only one who knows the disastrous effects of a long war can realise the supreme importance of rapidity in bringing it to a close. Only two commentators seem to favour this interpretation, but it fits well into the logic of the context, whereas the rendering, “He who does not know the evils of war cannot appreciate its benefits,” is distinctly pointless. ↩

Once war is declared, he will not waste precious time in waiting for reinforcements, not will he turn his army back for fresh supplies, but crosses the enemy’s frontier without delay. This may seem an audacious policy to recommend, but with all great strategists, from Julius Caesar to Napoleon Bonaparte, the value of time⁠—that is, being a little ahead of your opponent⁠—has counted for more than either numerical superiority or the nicest calculations with regard to commissariat. 籍 is used in the sense of 賦. The Tʽung Tien and Yü Lan have the inferior reading 籍. The commentators explain 不三載 by saying that the wagons are loaded once before passing the frontier, and that the army is met by a further consignment of supplies on the homeward march. The Yü Lan, however, reads 再 here as well. ↩

用, “things to be used,” in the widest sense. It includes all the impedimenta of an army, apart from provisions. ↩

The beginning of this sentence does not balance properly with the next, though obviously intended to do so. The arrangement, moreover, is so awkward that I cannot help suspecting some corruption in the text. It never seems to occur to Chinese commentators that an emendation may be necessary for the sense, and we get no help from them here. Sun Tzǔ says that the cause of the people’s impoverishment is 遠輸; it is clear, therefore, that the words have reference to some system by which the husbandmen sent their contributions of corn to the army direct. But why should it fall on them to maintain an army in this way, except because the State or Government is too poor to do so? Assuming then that 貧 ought to stand first in the sentence in order to balance 近 (the fact that the two words rhyme is significant), and thus getting rid of 國之, we are still left with 於師, which latter word seems to me an obvious mistake for 國. “Poverty in the army” is an unlikely expression, especially as the general has just been warned not to encumber his army with a large quantity of supplies. If we suppose that 師 somehow got written here instead of 國 (a very simple supposition, as we have 近於師 in the next sentence), and that later on somebody, scenting a mistake, prefixed the gloss 國之 to 貧, without however erasing 於師, the whole muddle may be explained. My emended text then would be 貧於國者, etc. ↩

近, that is, as Wang Hsi says, before the army has left its own territory. Tsʽao Kung understands it of an army that has already crossed the frontier. Capt. Calthrop drops the 於, reading 近師者, but even so it is impossible to justify his translation “Repeated wars cause high prices.” ↩

Cf. Mencius VII 2 XIV 2, where 丘民 has the same meaning as 丘役. 丘 was an ancient measure of land. The full table, as given in the 司馬法, may not be out of place here: 6 尺