The Art of War: Sun Zi’s Military Methods

The first character of this title was added by later editors. Originally, the title of this chapter consisted of only a single character. The same is true of the titles of chapters four and five, whereas all the other chapters of the Sun Zi consist of two characters.

1. The word rendered here as “assessments” (ji) also includes the notion of “calculations, schemes, stratagems, plans,” and so forth. The overall gist implied by its use in Sun Zi is that successful designs for war can only be achieved when the actual situation is accurately evaluated. Indeed, so vital is precise accounting of the circumstances one faces that it is tantamount to victory. Conversely, inexact stocktaking inevitably leads to defeat. Hence, realistic appraisal and strategic planning go hand in hand, with the latter premised upon the former.

2. As in the Mo Zi and other Warring States texts, the obligatory opening formula, “Master X said,” is a fair indication that the Sun Zi was not written by the putative Master Sun himself.

3. This is the highly multivalent term bing, for which see the section “Key Terms.”

4. Zuo zhuan, Duke Cheng 13: “The great affairs of the state are sacrifice and war.” Although this is how the Zuo zhuan statement is almost universally understood, the context indicates more precisely that it should be interpreted as, “The great affairs of state reside in the temple sacrifice and in the war sacrifice.” (Shaughnessy 1996:159)

5. Li Quan: “War is an instrument of evil omen. Life and death, preservation and destruction are tied to it. That is why it is considered a weighty matter—out of fear that men will engage in it lightly.” Tao te ching/Dao de jing 31: “Weapons are instruments of evil omen; Creation abhors them.”

6. This clause in the original text lacks the number seven, but since there are seven assessments mentioned in the succession of sentences below that begin with the interrogative “Which,” and since the parallel clause above has a numeral in the corresponding position, it is fitting to add it here.

7. This is not the metaphysical entity of early Taoist discourse nor the ethical and cosmological construct of Confucian thought. Rather, in the Sun Zi, it is a more practical, methodological notion.

8. Coming as it does immediately after Tao (dao, the Way), it is easy for tian to be interpreted as “Heaven,” but we shall see that later in the Sun Zi it often means “Nature.”

9. Because it comes immediately after tian (“Heaven”), it is easy to render di as “Earth,” but elsewhere in the Sun Zi it usually refers to the physical ground upon which war is fought, hence “terrain” or “topography.”

10. Specifically the ruler. Cf. Xun Zi, “A Discussion of War”: “Therefore, the essential thing about war lies in being good at gaining the support of the people.” This also reminds us of the three chapters (11–13) in the Mo Zi that are entitled “Identifying with One’s Superior” (A, B, C). There is, however, a dissenting view that the expression shang tong in the title of these chapters means “Valuing Unity.”

11. For this last clause, the Yinque Shan manuscript has min fu gui ye (“the people will not go against him”).

12. But here generally understood as signifying night and day, clear or overcast, and so forth.

13. Or winter and summer.

14. The passage of the seasons.

15. The Yinque Shan manuscript adds gao xia (“high or deep”) before “broad or narrow” at the beginning of this rearranged series of topographical qualities, and the other three pairs follow in succession.

16. That is, positions conducive to survival or death. In later chapters dealing with the terrain, “death” signifies the placement of troops in desperate topographical circumstances and “life” its opposite.

18. Because the first character (jiang) of this sentence can mean either “general” or “(if) … will,” and because the subjects of most (possibly all) of the verbs are unspecified, there are several radically different interpretations possible. One alternative is, “If you (i.e., the ruler) will employ the general who listens to my assessments, you will certainly be victorious, so you should retain him; if you (i.e., the ruler) will employ the general who doesn’t listen to my assessments, you will certainly be defeated, so you should send him away.” There are still other possible interpretations, but none make quite as much sense as the one adopted here, despite the fact that (like the others) it presents a few grammatical challenges.

Zhang Yu lamely closes his commentary on this difficult sentence by stating that, “with these words, Master Sun is [trying] to stimulate the king of Wu and thereby seek employment.”

19. One of the most important concepts in the Sun Zi, shi is also an extremely elusive idea. Master Sun himself must have been aware of this, since in the next sentence he attempts (not very successfully) to define it. See the notes on “Key Terms” and chap. 5 for further discussion.

Cao Cao: “Outside the regular methods.” Mei Yaochen: “Settle [your] assessments within and create a favorable configuration without, in order to achieve victory.”

20. Another slippery, yet essential, concept in the Sun Zi is quan, which conveys an array of meanings that range from “power” to “authority,” “right,” “flexibility,” “initiative,” “expediency,” “adaptability,” “estimation,” “opportune moment,” “tactical balance of power,” and “advantageous position” (in the last sense showing its close kinship to shi).

21. The form of the statement is such that the following translation would also be warranted: “Warfare may be defined as a way of deception.”

22. This is one of the most frequently quoted maxims of the Sun Zi, but it is by no means a unique view, since Kauṭilya, Machiavelli, and many others subscribe to a similar outlook. Furthermore, not everyone would agree with the viewpoint advocated here. For example, the bingfa in the Guan Zi (ca. 250 B.C.) asserts:

To destroy the large and vanquish the strong is [the way] to achieve having only one [battle]. / To throw them into disorder without resorting to opportunism, to gain ascendancy over them without resorting to deception, and to vanquish them without resorting to treachery is [the way] to realize having only one [battle]. (Rickett 1985:277)

Instead of “deception” and “treachery,” the bingfa in the Guan Zi advocates overwhelming strength through mastery of tactics, training of forces, and refinement of weapons.

23. Giving or presenting an appearance that is at odds with the reality that pertains to oneself is, in essence, to pretend. This is a central tenet in the type of psychological warfare advocated by the Sun Zi.

24. These two identical clauses are to be found in Sun Bin (chap. 3, “The Questions of King Wei”), though in an entirely different context. This is good evidence that there was a body of military lore that circulated widely during the Warring States period and that could be drawn upon freely by diverse strategists and thinkers.

25. This temple is not a religious institution, but the inner sanctum within the palace precincts where the ruler made the most important decisions of state in consultation with his most trusted advisers. Cf. Huainan Zi, “A Discussion on Military Strategy”: “Therefore, by manipulating counting rods in the temple hall, one can determine victory a thousand tricents away.” “Temple computations” refers to taking stock before engaging in battle, the temple being comparable to what today might be called a war room. What the Sun Zi is advocating in this passage is the careful evaluation of one’s matériel and overall preparedness ahead of embarking upon a campaign. The “counting rods” to which the Sun Zi refers constitute criteria for success. The same usage occurs in Sun Bin (see the next note).

26. Sun Bin 20, “The Statuses of Guest (Invader) and Host (Defender)”: “Will the one with the larger number [of troops necessarily] win? If so, [we can determine the outcome of] battle by laying out our counting rods.” Coupled with the emphasis on assessment and calculation that began this chapter, the stress on computation with which it ends makes one feel that, for the authors of the Sun Bin, war—at least in its preliminary stages—was a matter that very much concerned people with the minds and abilities of accountants and actuaries. This type of calculation and assessment before battle is quite different from the divination and prognostication that were prevalent during the Spring and Autumn period and before.

1. Used for making and maintaining bows, arrows, and other apparatus, but here standing for a broad range of military supplies in general.

2. “Quickly” being understood.

3. Du Mu: “The Guan Zi (ca. 250 B.C.) says, ‘Transporting grain 300 tricents results in the loss of one year’s stock; transporting grain 400 tricents results in the loss of two years’ stock; transporting grain 500 tricents results in the masses having a hungry look.’”

4. This term usually designates the region of the middle course of the Yellow River, but here it means merely “in the country back home.”

5. A measure of weight equal to roughly sixty-six pounds at the time the Sun Zi was compiled.

6. This is in sharp contrast to a modern professional approach to soldiery whereby the fighting men are aware of the strategic purpose for which they engage in combat, and are forbidden to loot.

7. Changing colors is a common theme in accounts of warfare of the Warring States period. During earlier periods, one more oft en hears of the mass slaughter of the captured foe, particularly those who were border peoples. The amount of the slain enemy was counted by slicing off the ears of the corpses and presenting them to one’s superiors, since bringing back the severed heads of thousands of the annihilated foe would have been too heavy.

8. Meng: “Value a swift victory and a speedy return.” Mei Yaochen: “Swiftness saves expenses and materials, and spares the people’s labor.”

1. Lau (1965:333–34) proposes the alternative rendering of “preserve” or “preserving” for “take” or “taking” throughout this passage.

2. He Yanxi: “The best strategy is, through overall planning and vital configuration, to cause the enemy to submit together with his country.”

3. In antiquity, an army was said to have 12,500 men, a regiment 500 men, a company 100, and a squad 5. During the Warring States period, the number of men in the various divisions of an army was different for each country.

4. This is, of course, an idealistic desideratum. In an actual war setting, where one is under attack by an aggressive enemy, such an approach to war would be both simplistic and impractical, as well as potentially fatal. In this regard, the defensive strategies described elsewhere in the Sun Zi must be considered of greater practicality and effectiveness than the suggestion that not fighting at all is the best policy.

5. Both of these were covered with heavy leather and were intended for the purpose of enabling groups of men to approach the base of the city wall, filling in the ditch in front of it as they went forward.

6. It is precisely this type of approach that is the subject of Mo Zi, chap. 63.

7. The phrase “attack by stratagem” is a variant translation of the same expression (mou gong) that is rendered in the title of this chapter as “planning for the attack.”

8. With the clear understanding that all of the tactics of artifice, deception, and so forth that are advocated elsewhere in the Sun Zi will be employed.

9. In Zhou times, the armies were divided into three parts: the left, right, and center, or the upper, center, and lower. Later, “triple army” or “tripartite army” became a conventional designation for the army of a kingdom.

10. This is undoubtedly the best-known saying in the Sun Zi. It reminds one of the famous sixth-c. Greek maxim Gnothi se auton (“Know thyself”) attributed to Solon of Athens (ca. 640–ca. 558 BC) and inscribed in gold letters over the portico to the temple of the Sun god Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi, except that the version in Sun Zi is expanded from self-introspection to encompass extrospection.

Mao Zedong (1893–1976), the chairman of the Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China, was particularly fond of this maxim from the Sun Zi. In his “Zhongguo geming zhanzheng de zhanlüe wenti” (Problems of strategy in China’s revolutionary war), written in December 1936, he stated:

There is a saying in the book of Master Sun Wu, the great military scientist of ancient China: “He who knows his opponent and knows himself will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.” This encompasses both the stage of learning and the stage of application, both knowing the laws of the development of objective reality and deciding on our own action in accordance with these laws in order to overcome the enemy before us. We should not take this saying lightly.

Again, in “Lun changjiu zhan” (On protracted war), written in May 1938, he showed his extraordinary fondness for this aphorism from the Sun Zi: But war is not something mysterious; it is an inevitable activity in the world. Consequently, Master Sun’s rule, “If you know your opponent and know yourself, in a hundred battles you will never be imperiled,” is, after all, scientific truth.

1. Du Mu: “If I cannot detect any vincible formations of the enemy, then I should conceal my own formations as preparation for invincibility so as to defend myself. When the enemy reveals a vincible formation, then I should go out and attack him.”

2. The received text seems to make perfectly good sense, yet the Yinque Shan manuscript offers a strikingly different wording: “If we adopt a defensive posture, we shall have more than enough; if we launch an attack, we shall not have enough.” Surprisingly, this rather mystifying reading of the Yinque Shan bamboo manuscript finds confirmation in a passage from the Han shu (History of the Han), “Biography of Zhao Chongguo”: “I have heard [N.B.] a method of war [bingfa] which states, ‘He who does not have enough to launch an attack will have more than enough to adopt a defensive posture.’” It would appear that the original formulation (in all likelihood orally circulated) was more or less as recorded in the “Biography of Zhao Chongguo,” that it became partially garbled when written down in the Yinque Shan manuscript, causing some later editor to correct the text. This correction would have occurred by the time of Cao Cao, and quite likely may have been made by Cao Cao himself, whose commentary comports with it: “The reason I adopt a defensive posture is that my strength is inadequate; the reason I launch an attack is that my strength is more than adequate.”

3. Literally, “the good of the good”—the summum bonum. The same expression occurs in the next sentence.

4. The whole world; the empire.

5. A metaphor for something extremely light in weight.

6. The Yinque Shan manuscript and other texts of its filiation add before these two clauses, “do not [necessitate] spectacular victories,” which is somewhat tautological.

7. Similar sentiments are expressed in the “Gong quan” (Tactical balance of power in attacks) chapter of the Wei Liao Zi (Master Wei Liao), another work of military strategy from the pre-Han period: “If one will not necessarily be victorious in war, one should not speak of battle. If one will not necessarily topple his opponent’s walled city in an attack, one should not speak of attack.” In both the Sun Zi and the Wei Liao Zi, the authors emphasize not leaving victory to chance.

8. The way of enlightened rulership, i.e., making the people and the ruler unified. The “way” referred to here is not the cosmological or transcendental Tao of many other Warring States schools of thought, but a more practical, goal-oriented regimen and ethos. It is spelled out more clearly in the “Ba zhen” (Eight formations) chapter of the Sun Bin: “He who knows the way: above, knows the way (nature) of heaven, below, knows the principles of earth, within, captures the mind of the people, without, knows the circumstances of the enemy. As for formations, he knows the parameters of the eight formations. When he sees victory, he does battle; when he does not see it, he remains still.”

9. Referring to the length of earth or land, i.e., distance.

10. Referring to the size or capacity of resources.

11. The number of troops.

12. The forces or strength of oneself and one’s enemy.

13. The text literally says simply “victory,” but we are to understand this as “victory and defeat”; in other words, “[judging the chances for] victory [or defeat].”

14. The terms for the ancient measures of weight referred to in the text are yi and zhu. An yi consisted of twenty-four (or twenty) liang (“ounces”), and a liang was made up of twenty-four zhu. Thus, an yi was 576 (or 480) times heavier than a zhu. The metaphor is employed to show the overwhelming disparity between the advantages and disadvantages of the victor and the vanquished in a war.

15. The unit of length referred to in the text is ren, which is composed of eight chi (“foot”). Hence, we may think of it as roughly equivalent to a fathom, which comprises six feet.

16. It is somewhat odd that the last substantive word of this chapter is identical with the title, but that the topic it specifies, positioning, is not systematically addressed within the present chapter itself. For that we shall have to wait for later chapters (including the next), where it is discussed in detail.

1. Wang Xi: “He who is skilled in battle can rely on configuration to achieve victory.”

2. “Division” refers to dispensing tasks and responsibilities; “enumeration” signifies fixing the amounts of personnel for various units.

3. The implications of xing (“shape, form”) and ming (“term, name”) in this passage are much debated. In a note, Cao Cao declared, “Flags and banners are xing, gongs and drums are ming,” and many later commentators have followed him in this interpretation. However, in the previous chapter, xing implies “positioning,” and later in this chapter it is used with the meaning of “form,” whereas ming is left hanging without further clarification. Hence, it is safest to render xingming more literally here.

4. The pair qizheng occurs four times in this chapter and nowhere else in Sun Zi. At the beginning of the next section, zheng and qi also occur in two closely parallel, juxtaposed phrases, and qi occurs once by itself in the same section as well. The tightly linked pair of technical terms, qi and zheng, are to be found only in this part of the text. In contrast, the last chapter of the Yinque Shan Sun Bin is entirely devoted to the bipolar concept of qizheng.

Although qizheng is one of the most vital concepts in both Sun Zi and Sun Bin, and indeed in virtually all subsequent military thinking in China, it is fraught with fundamental problems that pose a severe challenge for modern interpreters. Among these are the precise semantic content of its two components and even the correct pronunciation of the first syllable, some of which questions are addressed at greater length in the list of “Key Terms.”

5. The ancient Chinese scale was pentatonic.

6. The ancient Chinese palette consisted of cyan, red, yellow, white, and black.

7. The basic flavors were sweet, sour, bitter, hot, and salty.

8. For the antecedents and significance of the crossbow, see the introduction.

10. Parts of this passage are extraordinarily terse and have required considerable amplification for the sake of intelligibility. He Yanxi: “By shifting position and changing configuration, one can tempt the enemy into making a move. Confused in battle and falling for my trap, the enemy will come forth, and I will have the strength to control him.”

11. Some editions have zu (“soldiers, troops”), but those which have ben (“basis,” i.e., “main / heavy [forces]”) seem to make better sense here.

12. The tautological nature of the last clause (which may more literally be translated simply as “is configuration”) is difficult to disguise. Its function, however, is identical to the last clause of the previous chapter, viz., as a closing recapitulation.

1. Du You: “Go where he must rush to, attack where he must rescue. If you can defend the vital passes, the enemy will not be able to get through. Therefore, Master Wang says, ‘If one cat is posted at the entrance to a hole, ten thousand mice won’t dare to come out. If one tiger is stationed at a stream, ten thousand deer will not dare to cross.’ This speaks to having the upper hand when defending.”

2. The Yinque Shan manuscript and several later editions read this sentence as, “Appear where he [i.e., the enemy] must rush to.”

3. Yue (Viet) was the chief rival of Wu, for whom Master Sun is supposed to have served as adviser.

4. This is an example of a nested quotation in which the fictive Master Sun is quoting an unspecified source of military wisdom.

5. The last fourteen words of the English sentence (“me … place”) have been added for clarification.

6. Referring to segments of the enemy’s perimeter.

7. Also called “five elements,” “five forces,” “five powers,” “five agents,” and so forth, they are metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The five phases were considered to be the fundamental constituents of all the phenomena in the universe and correlated with the senses, directions, seasons, colors, flavors, smells, numbers, organs of the body, ad infinitum. It was further held that wood gave birth to fire, fire gave birth to earth, earth gave birth to metal, metal gave birth to water, and water gave birth to wood. Conversely, it was held that metal overcame wood, wood overcame earth, earth overcame water, water overcame fire, and fire overcame metal. Both of these cycles were conceived of as continuous, and thus having neither beginning nor end. The parallels with the correlative functioning of the four elements (stoicheia, viz., fire, earth, water, air) of Greek cosmology (though Aristotle had a five-element theory that accounted for quintessence) and the four elements of Indian metaphysics (or five [ether, air, fire, water, earth], the pañca mahābhūtas), all of which were elaborated during the second half of the first millennium, are obvious.

8. The emphasis in this passage on there being no constancy in warfare is reminiscent of the first chapter of the Tao te ching/Dao de jing:

1. Rendered more strictly, according to the original grammar, “This is one who knows the planning of how to make the circuitous straight.” See also n. 3 below.

2. This passage is clearly related to the following passage in the Shi ji 65 biography of Sun Bin, which is identified there as deriving from a bingfa (“military methods”): “If one travels a hundred tricents to rush after advantage, the general of his upper army will fall. If one travels fifty tricents to rush after advantage, [only] half his army will reach their destination.” See the translation of Sun Bin’s biography in the introduction.

3. Cf. n. 1; see also the discussion of this sentence in the introduction under “Stylistics and Statistics.”

4. Title of an old military manual that has been lost. The fact that this chapter quotes from such a text leads one to believe that much else in the Sun Zi was borrowed from other sources and was not simply a record of what “Master Sun said” (as claimed at the beginning of each chapter). It is interesting to observe that, in the Yinque Shan manuscript, the quotation beginning “In the Army Administration it says, ‘In battle,’” is preceded by the false illative conjunction shi gu (“for this reason”).

5. More literally, “heart-mind” (xin). This maxim may be compared with Lunyu (Analects) 9.26: “The Master said, ‘The three armies can be robbed of their commander, but the common man cannot be robbed of his will.’” It is also reminiscent of a quotation from a lost text called Jun zhi (Treatise on the army) in the Zuo zhuan (Chronicle of Zuo), under the twelfth year of Duke Xuan: “‘By rushing in front of one’s opponent, one may rob him of his resolve.’”

6. The falling off of an army’s spirit is described here as occurring in the course of a day, but this is only a metaphor for a process that takes place over time. It should not be taken too literally as implying that this process can only occur in the course of a single day.

7. This clause of the translation has been much amplified from “Confront the distant with the nearby.”

8. This refers, of course, to the units of the enemy army.

9. This affirmative injunction, which is clearly out of place in the midst of so many unremittingly negative injunctions, is more naturally expressed in the Yinque Shan manuscript of the Sun Zi: “leave [yi] an opening for an army that is surrounded.” Here in the clumsily worded received text, one might choose to restore “leave” (yi), which has been replaced by “[it is] necessary [to]” (bi). Even with the received text, however, we can—with some effort—render the sentence as follows: “[it is] necessary [to leave] an opening for an army that is surrounded” (this is the basis for the translation given here). Still, one wonders what possessed the author of this section to insert a single affirmative injunction in the midst of seven negative injunctions.

He Yanxi: “When Taizu of the Wei kingdom [i.e., Cao Cao] was besieging Huguan, he issued an order: ‘After the city falls, bury them all!’ Months passed, but yet the city did not fall. Cao Ren [his cousin] said, ‘When besieging a city, one should always show an opening so that they will have a path to survival. Now, sir, you have announced that they must die, so they will go on defending themselves. Since the city walls are solid and they have much grain, an attack would result in many of our troops being wounded, and the defense will continue for a long time. To encamp under the walls of a strong city and attack rebels who are determined to die is not a good plan.’ Taizu followed his advice, whereupon the city opened its gates and surrendered.”

1. There is vast controversy among Chinese commentators over the significance of “nine” in the title. Some say that it only means “a large number of,” while others contend that it literally means “nine.” In either case, there have been many proposals put forward for which particular group of nine (or many) items is intended. After careful study, the reader is invited to suggest his or her own set of nine (or many) variations. A good place to begin might be to look at chapter 11, “Nine Types of Terrain,” with which the present chapter shares considerable overlap and resonance.

Wang Xi: “I claim that ‘nine’ is simply a very large number. The method of waging war requires infinite variations.”

Zhang Yu: “‘Variation’ is the method of not being constrained by constancy. This implies that, when one is confronting an evolving situation [i.e., something that is happening], one should follow what is appropriate and act accordingly. Whenever one is struggling with someone else for advantage, it is necessary to know the nine varieties of terrain. Therefore, this chapter comes after ‘The Struggle of Armies.’”

2. The term bian may be more literally rendered as “transformations.” However, no single translation of bian is suitable for this chapter, since the term is applied to widely different phenomena, including “alternatives” and “contingencies,” aside from “varieties” and “transformations.”

3. The Yinque Shan bamboo strip manuscripts (pp. 98–99) include a commentary on these five exclusionary (“that he does not”) clauses. The commentary emphasizes and explains the specific conditions under which a general may choose not to carry out certain (viz., the first four) courses of action that he would normally be expected to take. The fifth exclusionary clause subsumes the preceding four clauses: “When the ruler’s orders contravene these four contingencies, they are not to be carried out.”

4. And disadvantages, of course.

5. This word is missing in the Song-period Wu jing qi shu (Seven military classics) and Taiping yulan (Imperial survey of the Great Peace [reign period]) editions of the text.

6. This probably refers to the advantages deriving from the exclusionary clauses iterated above and discussed in n. 3.

7. Since it appears so frequently at the conclusion of a passage, the injunction “they cannot be left unexamined” would appear to be a formulaic expression in the rhetoric of the period.

1. The word used here is xiang, which basically means “to physiognomize,” i.e., to discern the lineaments of (a person, horse, etc. [especially the face]) and determine their significance.

2. I.e., the south. The word used here is sheng (“living”), which Cao Cao defines as yang (“solar”).

3. If the army is placed too close to the water before crossing, its options and maneuverability are both reduced.

4. The text literally says “right,” but we may interpret this as “above” because “right” was considered superior to “left” in early Chinese writings.

Li Quan: “For advantageous usage, people all find the right to be more convenient. That is why one puts his back to it.”

5. The text literally reads “in front death, behind life.” The translation follows the interpretation of Huai Nan Zi (Master Huai Nan), “Di xing xun (An explanation of the types of terrain)”: “The one that is higher is called ‘life,’ the one that is lower is called ‘death.’”

6. Mythical founding father of the Han race and early Chinese culture.

7. A fragmentary text found together with the Yinque Shan Sun Zi bingfa (Yinque Shan Hanmu Zhujian Zhengli Xiaozu 1976:101) recapitulates this passage in greater detail, specifying that the Yellow Emperor “chastised the Red Emperor to the south …, the [Cyan] Emperor to the east …, the Black emperor to the north …, the White emperor to the west…. Having vanquished the Four Emperors, he possessed the whole of all-under-heaven.”

8. There are clear correspondences (e.g., numerous terms beginning with tian [“heaven, sky”]) between this passage and Sun Bin 8, which deals with different types of terrain.

9. This observation is uncannily reminiscent of Macbeth, act 5, scene 5:

10. Following the commentary of Cao Cao: “When the enemy spreads his flanks wide, he [intends] to come and overwhelm me” (literally, “cover me up”).

11. The term liao implies that one gains information about his opponent, analyzes the intelligence he has gained, and then makes an informed judgment concerning how to deal with his opponent.

12. This is wen, the opposite of wu (“martial, military”).

1. More literally, this might be rendered as “Ground Forms,” but see “Principles of Translation,” point 3. Cf. the beginning section of chap. 8.

2. This amounts to 2.4 percent of the total number of characters in the chapter, an extremely high frequency for a verb. The author is clearly trying to make a point about the importance of awareness.

3. Li Quan: “If he cares for them like this, he will receive their utmost exertion. Therefore, the viscount of Chu had but to speak one word and all the soldiers of the triple army felt as though they were wrapped in silk floss.” This is based on Zuo zhuan, the twelft h year of Duke Xuan, which tells how the viscount of Chu comforted his men during a bitterly cold winter campaign. The mere words of encouragement and solace he offered his men warmed them as if they were wearing clothing padded with silk floss.

Du Mu: “During the Warring States period when Wu Qi was serving as general, he wore the same clothing and ate the same food as the lowest soldiers. When he lay down he did not spread a mat; on the march, he did not ride in a chariot or mount a horse. His rations were the same meager fare as those of everyone else; and he shared in the toil and pain with the troops. Once when a soldier was suffering from an abscess, Wu Qi sucked out the pus. When the soldier’s mother heard this, she cried. Somebody asked her, ‘Your son is a soldier, yet the general sucked the pus out of his abscess. Why are you crying?’ The mother replied, ‘In a bygone year, Lord Wu sucked the pus out of his father’s abscess, and he barely had a chance to turn on his heels before dying at the hands of the enemy. Now, again, Lord Wu has sucked the pus out of my son’s abscess, and he is sure to die, but I know not where.’” Wu Qi was the author of another military treatise and was often paired with Sun Zi (see the introduction for further discussion).

Zhang Yu: “When the general looks upon his soldiers as his sons, the soldiers will look upon the general as their father. Now, there has never been a father in danger whose sons did not risk death to save him. Therefore, Xun Qing [Master Xun] said, ‘The subject to his lord is in a position of subservience to a superior, like a son to his father or a younger brother to his older brother; they are like hands and feet that will fend for the head and the eyes.’ When fine brew flows freely, the three armies will all get drunk; when a warm word is uttered, the troops will feel as though they were wearing clothes padded with silk floss. Indeed! Treating those beneath one with kindness is something that was valued by the ancients. Therefore, a bingfa says, ‘The general must put himself at the front of an army that toils. In summer heat, he doesn’t spread a sunshade; in winter cold, he doesn’t wear layered clothing. In precarious places, he gets down and walks; he waits for the soldiers to dig their wells before drinking; he waits till the food for the army is cooked before eating; and he waits for the army to build ramparts before retiring to his shelter.’”

4. Cf. chap. 3 n. 10. The exact same formulation (zhi bi zhi ji [“know the other, know yourself”]) is also found in Lü shi chunqiu 16.6: “Therefore, in all cases of battle, it is necessary to be thoroughly familiar [with the situation] and completely prepared [for any eventuality]. If you know your opponent and know yourself, only then will you be successful.” Since this is also in the context of war, it clearly indicates that the expression “Know your opponent and know yourself” was part of a widely circulating body of aphorisms available to various compilers of texts. It is also worth noting that Lü Buwei, the compiler of the Lü shi chunqiu, precedes the sentence in which this aphorism occurs with both a false illative (gu) and an adverb of generality (fan), which occurs frequently in the Sun Zi.

5. These are not merely the cosmological concepts common to early Chinese thought but refer even more explicitly to natural conditions (heaven) and the topographical forms (earth) that are discussed so extensively in this and other chapters of the Sun Zi.

1. Compare with the beginning of chap. 8.

2. So called because the feudal lords do not send their troops to serve under the coordinated command of the leading general of the state to which they owe fealty. Instead, the feudal lords retain control of their troops, even though they may be fighting for the cause of a king to whom they owe allegiance.

3. In the sense that it has thoroughfares linking the feudal lords with each other and the enemy as well as to the central state to which they are subordinate.

4. The verb for “march” (xing) is missing in some editions.

5. More literally, “[if it is] dispersed terrain, then [I do] not battle.” The same structure applies to the following eight sentences, a total of nine, as indicated by the chapter title.

6. Jia Lin: “If one fights with all one’s might, one may live; if one protects one’s corner, one will die.”

7. It is not surprising that this awkward locution is missing in some editions.

8. Meng: “By engaging in multiple subterfuges—going toward the east but appearing in the west, attacking in the south but luring him toward the north—one causes one’s enemy to be crazed and confused, such that he is unable to regroup.”

9. This could be a position, a general, or anything else that is of great importance to the enemy forces and energizes them.

10. It is not clear either who the questioner is or who the respondent is, but we may presume that the latter is the fictive Master Sun, who is the supposed font of military wisdom in the book that goes by his name. Although there are two fragmentary texts among the Yinque Shan manuscripts that consist of questions put by the king of Wu and answered by Master Sun, it is obviously not appropriate for the king to preface his questions by saying, “[I] make bold to ask,” which is the rhetoric of someone in a subservient position. It is more likely that the two occurrences of the question-and-answer form in this chapter are remnants of a catechetical teaching method that was lost as the body of oral lore was transformed into the written text known as the Sun Zi bingfa. In any event, the two occurrences of the question-and-answer form in this chapter serve only, along with its extraordinary length and other unusual features, to distinguish it further from all of the rest of the chapters in the book.

12. The one who is invaded.

13. Zhuan Zhu was a steely, suicidal assassin of the state of Wu during the Spring and Autumn period, and Cao Gui (or Cao Mo) was a brave warrior from Lu, also from the Spring and Autumn period. The fact that the supposed author of the Sun Zi, Sun Wu, invokes two legendary figures from around the same time when he is alleged to have lived casts doubt on the historicity of the man and a Spring and Autumn date for his text. Rather, the perspective here is of someone writing in the Warring States or later time and looking back to the Spring and Autumn period.

14. Following the Yinque Shan manuscript, rather than the received text, which has Mt. Chang, the latter reflecting a taboo on the use of the character for Heng because it was the personal name (Liu Heng) of the Western Han emperor Wen Di (r. 179–157 B.C.). The name of the mountain, which is located south of modern Hunyuan in Shanxi Province, was changed back to Heng during the reign of Wu Di (r. 561–578 AD) of the Northern Zhou period. Mt. Heng is the northernmost of the five sacred marchmounts.

15. The one-sentence definition of Shuairan and the extended description of it that follows read like a commentary that has worked its way into the text.

16. See n. 10 above. Here, it is not clear how far the answer extends, with some scholars holding that it ends with the simple “Yes.”

17. The first ten words of the English translation (“it … where”) have been added for purposes of clarification.

18. The word used here is yu (“[make] ignorant, stupid”). This is identical with the so-called yumin zhengce (“policy of making the people ignorant”) of the Tao te ching/Dao de jing:

19. Some commentators maintain that this refers to knowledge of the general’s plans, others, that it signifies broader or more rarefied types of knowledge.

20. Here it is clearer that the general is being advised not to make the people privy to his planning and execution.

21. Again, the idea is that of putting one’s men in a position from which they cannot withdraw but can only go forward.

22. The image is that of an arrow or bolt flying forward with tremendous velocity.

23. A standard expression (usually worded as “destroy cauldrons [and] sink boats”). This sentence is actually missing from some editions of the Sun Zi.

24. Du You: “By burning one’s baggage, throwing away one’s provisions, filling up one’s wells, and leveling one’s stoves, one shows one’s determination to fight to the death.”

25. This and the following few sentences, all of which occur at least once elsewhere in the Sun Zi, constitute a good example of the reuse of materials that must have been in broad circulation and their occasionally poor integration in written texts.

26. According to Cao Cao, this is merely another way to refer to the nine varieties of terrain discussed several times elsewhere in the text.

27. Literally, “dead.”

28. See the last section of chap. 1.

29. Jia Lin: “Follow the enemy’s plans in order to determine the affairs of a battle. Victory is the only thing that matters. One should not stick to hard-and-fast guidelines.”

1. The most famous example of the use of fire against men in Chinese history occurred during the Three Kingdoms period in the year 208 and involved the distinguished early commentator on the Sun Zi, Cao Cao. This is the celebrated Battle of Red Cliff (Chi Bi, located at the southern edge of modern Hubei Province, northwest of Puqi, between Honghu and Jiayu). Cao Cao (of the Wei kingdom in the north) was leading a large army of several tens of thousands of men to cross the Yangtze River southward, while his opponents, Sun Quan (of the Wu kingdom in the southeast) and Liu Bei (of the Shu Han kingdom in the southwest) had joined forces to resist him. Sun Quan’s adviser and lieutenant Zhou Yu (now commander in chief) led an army of 30,000 men to do battle with Cao Cao’s army at Red Cliff.

As the two armies faced each other on either side of the river, Zhou Yu’s divisional subaltern Huang Gai proposed, “The enemy has more men than we do, so it will be hard to hold out against him for long. Cao Cao’s boats for crossing the river are joined closely together, so it will be possible to set fire to them and burn his army.” Thereupon, Zhou Yu commanded Huang Gai to send a letter to Cao Cao declaring that he (Zhou Yu) was willing to surrender. This was, however, merely a ruse intended to buy time for Zhou Yu and Huang Gai to carry out the next stage of their plans.

It just so happened that there was a strong southeast wind blowing at this moment. Huang Gai organized a flotilla of boats filled with firewood and oil, and had them sail toward Cao Cao’s massed boats. When Huang Gai’s boats were less than two tricents away from Cao Cao’s army, they were simultaneously all set on fire, and continued to race with the wind toward Cao Cao’s fleet. The conflagration that ensued destroyed all of Cao Cao’s boats and spread to his encampment on shore, engulfing it in flames. Thereupon, Zhou Yu launched a swift attack on Cao Cao’s remaining troops, inflicting upon them a tremendous defeat.

2. Cao Cao was also involved in a memorable instance of using fire against equipment wagons and carts, but in this case he was the one who employed it effectively against his enemy. This occurred in the year 200 A.D., when Cao Cao’s forces confronted the army of Yuan Shao (who had rebelled against Cao Cao) at Guan Du (“Official Ferry”). Upon learning that Yuan Shao’s army was being supplied by a convoy of ten thousand poorly protected wagons and carts, Cao Cao immediately led a contingent of five thousand select troops, who rushed to the convoy. Cao Cao’s men set fire to the convoy, destroying a vast amount of grain, fodder, and other essential supplies. When news of this horrendous loss reached Yuan Shao’s army at Guan Du, panic ensued, enabling Cao Cao to lead his army in attack and to gain a major victory over his rival.

Chen Hao: “If the enemy has goods that he cherishes, one may attack him (with fire). When he comes out to save them, then I have used fire to divide his configuration. All the more, when he is distraught (over the loss of his goods), one can naturally destroy his armies and kill his general.”

3. There were a total of twenty-eight of these constellations into which the celestial sphere was divided by ancient Chinese astronomers. They are comparable to the twenty-seven or twenty-eight Indian nakṣatras (see Joseph Needham, in Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 3, pp. 252–59 [1959], who asserts that their common origin can hardly be doubted; see also Pingree 1963 for the commonalty of astronomical wisdom among Greeks, Babylonians, Indians, Iranians, and Chinese). There is no scientific evidence that the winds consistently blow more strongly during the four categories of days mentioned here than during days belonging to any of the other twenty-four lunar lodges.

4. The Sun Zi might well have included another, separate chapter on hydraulic attacks, since this form of warfare was also highly developed during the late Warring States and later periods for undermining city walls, flooding enemy camps, and so on. During World War II, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek breached the dikes of the Yellow River (which actually flows above the flood plain through much of its middle and lower valley), inundating vast tracts of land in his desperate attempt to slow the advance of Japanese forces.

5. The commentators are in disarray over the meaning of this passage, with some asserting that it has to do with not being dilatory in rewarding those who are meritorious in victory and others claiming that it is concerned with the swift consolidation of one’s gains.

6. Mei Yaochen: “The anger of a moment can easily turn to joy; the irritation of a moment can easily turn to happiness. But a nation that is lost and an army that has perished cannot be restored.”

1. A note by Cao Cao explains, “Of old, the people were organized into neighborhoods of eight households. If a man from one of those households went off to join the army, the seven other households would have to support him. Hence, the text says that when an army of a hundred thousand is raised, 700,000 households do not devote themselves to plowing and tending the crops.”

2. In the view of the author of this chapter, such persons are said to be inhumane because their stinginess prevents them from seeing the reasonableness of paying for espionage. Consequently, they ignore the best interests of the state and the welfare of the people, both of which would be improved by quality espionage.

3. This refers chiefly to intelligence concerning the enemy’s actions and intentions.

4. The commentators hold diverse opinions about the referents of “symbols” and “things.” They range from “analogies to past affairs” to the reading of omens and the interpretation of divination.

5. Some editions of the Sun Zi give just “enemy” here. The spies who spread false rumors risk death because they are usually executed as soon as the enemy finds out he has been duped.

6. Chen Hao: “If a matter pertaining to espionage has not yet been launched and someone comes to report about it, then the spy who is involved and the person who reported it should both be put to death to seal their mouths and prevent the enemy from learning of it.”

7. Better known as the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1650–1045 B.C.).

8. Yi Zhi (better known as Yi Yin) and Lü Ya (better known as Jiang Ziya or Jiang Tai Gong [“Grand Duke Jiang”) are among the few officials in Chinese history who are honored for having shifted their allegiance to a newly risen dynasty. Usually it is considered a mark of loyalty for an official to refuse to serve a conqueror. In the case of Yi Yin and Jiang Ziya, they were considered to be perceptive and righteous because they recognized the evil of the late Xia and the late Shang, respectively, and helped to bring them to a timely end.

1. A northeastern state located in what is now the province of Shandong.

2. Soldierly methods; Methods of war; Art of war; Strategy.

3. Variant Helü; r. 514–496 B.C. Judging from the graphic variants of the Wu king’s name and the lack of a Sinitic surname, it would appear that he was of non-Sinitic descent.

4. A southeastern state located in what is now modern Jiangsu Province.

5. This refers to the Sun Zi bingfa, thirteen being the number of chapters in the extant version of the text. In the bibliographical “Yiwen zhi” (Treatise on literary arts) of the Han shu (History of the [Western] Han Dynasty), s. 30, Sun Zi bingfa is listed as having eighty-two chapters and nine scrolls of illustrations. This is somewhat puzzling, because we here have the historian, Sima Qian, indicating in the early first century B.C. that the Sun Zi had thirteen chapters, and this exactly matches the number of chapters of both the received text and the recently discovered bamboo manuscripts of the Sun Zi. The fact that the Han shu is a work of the first century A.D., albeit incorporating materials from the first century B.C. (including major components of its bibliographical treatise devised by Liu Xiang [ca. 77–8 B.C.] and his son Liu Xin [d. 23 A.D.]), means that there must have been a quite different recension of the Sun Zi in circulation at that time, after the stabilization of the received text by the early second c. B.C., two centuries earlier.

It is quite possible, however, that the Sun Zi bingfa listed in the bibliographical treatise of the Han shu does not refer to the work attributed to Sun Wu, but to another work altogether. As a matter of fact, the entry in the bibliographical entry in the Han shu designates the work in question as Wu Sun Zi bingfa (Soldierly methods of Master Sun of the state of Wu). This might conceivably refer to the legendary Sun Wu (Sun the Martial) who allegedly composed the thirteen-chapter Sun Zi bingfa, because he was alleged to have a connection with the state of Wu, but then why would he be credited with an eighty-two-chapter work in the Han shu? Furthermore, it was not until the early Tang period that the commentator Yan Shigu (579–645) added a note to the entry in the Han Shu identifying this Sun Zi as Sun Wu (Sun the Martial).

It is conceivable that the eighty-two-chapter text mentioned in the Han shu is actually a reference to the Sun Bin bingfa. In his Shi ji biography, which is much more detailed, substantial, and historically plausible than that of the legendary Sun Wu that precedes it, Sun Bin is also referred to as Sun Zi (Master Sun). What is more, with the chapters of the Sun Bin bingfa recovered from Yinque Shan, including both the sixteen main chapters plus the fifteen supplemental chapters, together with three other chapters recovered from later commentarial, historical, and encyclopedic sources (Lau and Ames 2003), we know of a total of thirty-four chapters associated with Sun Bin. This large number of Sun Bin chapters suggests the possibility that there may well have been others that still existed at the end of the Han Dynasty. On the contrary, it is clear that the number of chapters associated with the legendary Sun Wu was already stabilized at thirteen at least a century before the time when the Yinque Shan manuscripts were entombed.

6. The text literally says that “the three orders were stated five times.” This was customary in old military drills to ensure that there would be absolutely no misunderstanding or mistake on the part of the recruits.

7. Master Sun had obviously also instructed his charges on the drum signals that were used to indicate different directions, but this is not mentioned in the text.

8. A direct quotation from the eighth chapter of the received text of the Sun Zi.

9. Most likely decapitated with the battle-ax, though the verb used in the text (zhan) literally means “cut in two at the waist.”

10. This directly contradicts Master Sun’s assertion above that he had already been commanded by the king to be a general in the king’s army. Apparently, however, that was only a temporary appointment for conducting the trial drills with the two companies of palace women.

11. A large southern state that covered modern Hubei and Hunan provinces.

12. This occurred in 506 B.C. The complex circumstances surrounding Wu’s capture of Ying have been thoroughly studied by modern scholars writing in English. See Rudolph (1942; 1962) and Johnson (1980; 1981). Mair (1983:123–65, 262–305) presents a popular medieval account of the conflict between Wu and Chu.