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

lang="zh-Latn-wadegile" xml:lang="zh-Latn-wadegile">Chʽên Hao, on the other hand, assuming that the enemy has had time to select his own ground, quotes chapter VI (“Whoever is first in the field⁠ ⁠…”), where Sun Tzǔ warns us against coming exhausted to the attack. His own idea of the situation is rather vaguely expressed: 若地利在前先分精銳以據之彼若恃衆來爭我以大衆趨其後無不尅者 “If there is a favourable position lying in front of you, detach a picked body of troops to occupy it; then if the enemy, relying on their numbers, come up to make a fight for it, you may fall quickly on their rear with your main body, and victory will be assured.” It was thus, he adds, that Chao Shê beat the army of Chʽin. (See note 349) Li Chʽüan would read 多 for 趨, it is not easy to see why. ↩

As Wang Hsi says, 懼襲我也 “fearing a surprise attack.” The Tʽung Tien reads here 固其結 (see next sentence). ↩

The Tʽung Tien reads 謹其巿, which Tu Yu explains as “watching the market towns,” 變事之端 “the hotbeds of revolution.” Capt. Calthrop translates 固其結 by the same words as 合交 above (“On open ground⁠ ⁠…”): “cultivate intercourse.” ↩

The commentators take this as referring to forage and plunder, not, as one might expect, to an unbroken communication with a home base. One text, indeed, gives the reading 掠其食. Cf. supra, “On serious ground⁠ ⁠…” Capt. Calthrop’s “be careful of supplies” fails to render the force of 繼. ↩

Capt. Calthrop’s “do not linger” cannot be called a translation, but only a paraphrase of the paraphrase offered by Tsʽao Kung: 疾過去也 “Pass away from it in all haste.” ↩

意欲突圍示以守固 “To make it seem that I mean to defend the position, whereas my real intention is to burst suddenly through the enemy’s lines” (Mêng Shih); 使士卒必死戰也 “in order to make my soldiers fight with desperation” (Mei Yao-chʽên); 懼人有走心 “fearing lest my men be tempted to run away” (Wang Hsi). Tu Mu points out that this is the converse of chapter VII (“When you surround an army⁠ ⁠…”), where it is the enemy who is surrounded. In 532 AD, 高歡 Kao Huan, afterwards Emperor and canonised as 神武 Shên-wu, was surrounded by a great army under 爾朱兆 Êrh-chu Chao and others. His own force was comparatively small, consisting only of 2000 horse and something under 30,000 foot. The lines of investment had not been drawn very closely together, gaps being left at certain points. But Kao Huan, instead of trying to escape, actually made a shift to block all the remaining outlets himself by driving into them a number of oxen and donkeys roped together. As soon as his officers and men saw that there was nothing for it but to conquer or die, their spirits rose to an extraordinary pitch of exaltation, and they charged with such desperate ferocity that the opposing ranks broke and crumbled under their onslaught. (See Tu Mu’s commentary, and 北齊書 ch. 1, fol. 6.) ↩

Tu Yu says: 焚輜重窠糧食塞井夷竈示之無活必殊死戰也 “Burn your baggage and impedimenta, throw away your stores and provisions, choke up the wells, destroy your cooking-stoves, and make it plain to your men that they cannot survive, but must fight to the death.” Mei Yao-chʽên says epigrammatically: 必死可生 “The only chance of life lies in giving up all hope of it.” This concludes what Sun Tzǔ has to say about “grounds” and the “variations” corresponding to them. Reviewing the passages which bear on this important subject, we cannot fail to be struck by the desultory and unmethodical fashion in which it is treated. Sun Tzǔ begins abruptly in chapter VIII (“When in difficult country⁠ ⁠…”) to enumerate “variations” before touching on “grounds” at all, but only mentions five, namely nos. 7, 5, 8 and 9 of the subsequent list, and one that is not included in it. A few varieties of ground are dealt with in the earlier portion of chap. IX, and then chap. X sets forth six new grounds, with six variations of plan to match. None of these is mentioned again, though the first is hardly to be distinguished from ground no. 4 in the next chapter. At last, in chap. XI, we come to the Nine Grounds par excellence, immediately followed by the variations. This takes us down to “On hemmed-in ground, resort to stratagem.” Starting at “When you leave your own country behind⁠ ⁠…”, fresh definitions are provided for nos. 5, 6, 2, 8 and 9 (in the order given), as well as for the tenth ground noticed in chap VIII; and finally, the nine variations are enumerated once more from beginning to end, all, with the exception of 5, 6 and 7, being different from those previously given. Though it is impossible to account for the present state of Sun Tzǔ’s text, a few suggestive facts may be brought into prominence: (1) Chap. VIII, according to the title, should deal with nine variations, whereas only five appear. (2) It is an abnormally short chapter. (3) Chap. XI is entitled The Nine Grounds. Several of these are defined twice over, besides which there are two distinct lists of the corresponding variations. (4) The length of the chapter is disproportionate, being double that of any other except IX. I do not propose to draw inferences from these facts, beyond the