22
The Army’s Losses

IF YOU WANT TO EMPLOY that in which the enemy’s people are not secure, you should rectify the customs with which you govern the state.

If you want to strengthen and augment the shortcomings in your state’s army in order to cause difficulty for the enemy’s army in what he is strong, it will be a wasted army.

If you want to strengthen and multiply that in which your state has a paucity in order to respond to that in which the enemy is numerous, it will be a rapidly subjugated army.

If your preparations and strongholds are unable to cause difficulty for the enemy’s assault equipment, it will be an “insulted” army.

If your assault equipment is not effective against the enemy’s preparations and strongholds, it will be a frustrated army.

If someone excels at deployments, knows the appropriate orientations for forward and rear, and knows the configuration of the terrain, but yet the army frequently suffers difficulty, he is not enlightened about the distinction between states conquering and armies conquering.

If after mobilizing an army cannot flourish great achievements, it is because it does not know about assembling.

If an army loses the people, it does not know about excess.

If an army employs great force but the achievements are small, it does not understand time.

An army that is unable to overcome great adversity is unable to unite the people’s minds.

An army that frequently suffers from regret trusts the doubtful.

An army that is unable to discern good fortune and misfortune in the as-yet-unformed does not understand preparations.

When the army sees the good but is dilatory; when the time comes but it is doubtful; when it expels perversity but is unable to dwell in the results, this is the Tao of stopping.

To be lustful yet scrupulous; to be a dragon yet respectful; to be weak yet strong; to be pliant yet firm, this is the Tao of arising.

If you implement the Tao of stopping, then even Heaven and Earth will not be able to make you flourish. If you implement the Tao of arising, then even Heaven and Earth will not be able to obstruct you.

Fragments

When an army is internally exhausted, even numerous expenditures of energy will not result in solidity.

When you see the enemy is difficult to subdue, if the army still acts wantonly between Heaven and Earth, it will be swiftly defeated.

COMMENTARY

This chapter is the first of four consisting of collected observations on the strengths and errors of the military and generals such as are commonly found in the early military writings. Two topics here—the vital importance of the critical moment and the coupled concepts of the hard and soft, firm and pliable—particularly merit noting. The military writings, including Sun Pin’s work, emphasize the concept of “timeliness” and consistently stress the need to recognize and exploit the fleeting moment for initiating action. Striking at the precise moment is so critical that any force that fails to recognize and exploit an opportunity may immediately become just as vulnerable as if it suffered from other fundamentally disabling conditions such as hunger or fatigue.

The other concept prominently found in this chapter is the inherently dynamic concept of the hard and the soft, the firm and the pliable (or flexible). Although they are coupled with two other paired conditions, it is these two which command attention. Sun Pin’s era witnessed the growth of Taoist thought and its evolution into different perspectives, including eventually the so-called “Huang-Lao” school. The core text underlying much of Taoist philosophy is the famous Tao Te Ching in which the importance of the soft and pliable is advanced, subtly juxtaposed with normal world views which expect the hard to dominate the soft, the strong to brutalize the weak, and predicate actions accordingly. Portions of two sections are particularly illuminating:

Alive man is pliable and weak,
Dead he is firm and strong.
Alive the myriad things, grasses, and trees are pliable and fragile;
Dead they are dry and withered.
Thus the firm and strong are the disciples of death,
The pliant and weak are the disciples of life.
For this reason armies that are strong will not be victorious;
Trees that are strong will break.
The strong and great dwell below,
The pliant and weak dwell above.

Under Heaven there is nothing more pliant and weak than water, but for attacking the firm and strong nothing surpasses it, nothing can be exchanged for it. The weak being victorious over the strong, the pliant being victorious over the firm—there isn’t anyone under Heaven who does not know this. Yet no one is able to implement it.

These insights are clearly embraced by portions of the Wei Liao-tzu: “The army that would be victorious is like water. Now water is the softest and weakest of things, but whatever it collides with—such as hills and mounds—will be collapsed by it for no other reason than its nature is concentrated and its attack is totally committed.” Thus formulated the concept is more complex than originally expressed in the Tao Te Ching, for it recognizes that it is not just “softness” that works the change, but rather the water’s focus and endurance—its unremitting pressure over time—that cannot be withstood.

In general, the military writers perceived a need to employ each one of the four—the soft, hard, pliant, and firm—appropriately. The Three Strategies advises: “The Military Pronouncements states: ‘The soft can control the hard, the weak can control the strong.’ The soft is Virtue. The hard is a brigand. The weak is what the people will help, the strong is what resentment will attack. The soft has situations in which it is established; the hard has situations in which it is applied; the weak has situations in which it is employed; and the strong has situations in which it is augmented. Combine these four and implement them appropriately.” Moreover, the four must be integrated and combined because perversely adopting a single one will doom the state: “The Military Pronouncements states: ‘If one can be soft and hard, his state will be increasingly glorious! If one can be weak and strong, his state will be increasingly glorious! If purely soft and purely weak, his state will inevitably decline. If purely hard and purely strong, his state will inevitably be destroyed.’ ” Even Sun-tzu, whose Art of War betrays Taoist influence but was written somewhat earlier, noted: “Realize the appropriate employment of the hard and soft through patterns of terrain.” Finally, Wu Ch’i, who was highly concerned about the problems of command and control, indicated the necessity for any qualified general to embrace such capabilities: “The employment of soldiers requires uniting both hardness and softness.”