The Art of War, passage 734

so that the danger may be in front, and safety lie behind. So much for campaigning in flat country.

The Art of War, passage 897

27. If we know that our own men are in a condition to attack, but are unaware that the enemy is not open to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory.

The Art of War, passage 871

18. When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct;

The Art of War, passage 1210

8. When these five kinds of spy are all at work, none can discover the secret system. This is called "divine manipulation of the threads." It is the sovereign’s most precious faculty.

The Art of War, passage 870

[Wang Hsi’s note is: "This means, the general is angry without cause, and at the same time does not appreciate the ability of his subordinate officers; thus he arouses fierce resentment and brings an avalanche of ruin upon his head."]

The Art of War, passage 620

[With these words, the chapter would naturally come to an end. But there now follows a long appendix in the shape of an extract from an earlier book on War, now lost, but apparently extant at the time when Sun Tzŭ wrote. The style of this fragment is not noticeably different from that of Sun Tzŭ himself, but no commentator raises a doubt as to its genuineness.]

The Art of War, passage 210

19. See Chapter 7, § 27 and Chapter 11, § 28.

The Art of War, passage 381

(4) He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.

The Art of War, passage 404

[Another metaphor, implying that he falls on his adversary like a thunderbolt, against which there is no time to prepare. This is the opinion of most of the commentators.]

The Art of War, passage 666

In hemmed-in situations, you must resort to stratagem. In a desperate position, you must fight.

The Art of War, passage 201

9. The mistake is natural enough. Native critics refer to a work of the Han dynasty, which says: "Ten _li_ outside the _Wu_ gate [of the city of Wu, now Soochow in Kiangsu] there is a great mound, raised to commemorate the entertainment of Sun Wu of Ch’i, who excelled in the art of war, by the King of Wu."

The Art of War, passage 220

33. There is this to be said for the later period, that the feud would tend to grow more bitter after each encounter, and thus more fully justify the language used in XI. § 30.

The Art of War, passage 169

For the lesser infractions of law, which are easily dealt with, only a small amount of force need be employed: hence the use of military weapons and wholesale decapitation. In both cases, however, the end in view is to get rid of wicked people, and to give comfort and relief to the good….

The Art of War, passage 422

14. Hence the skilful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy.

The Art of War, passage 627

[Chuang Yu quotes a saying: "Equally guilty are those who advance against orders and those who retreat against orders." Tu Mu tells a story in this connection of Wu Ch’i, when he was fighting against the Ch’in State. Before the battle had begun, one of his soldiers, a man of matchless daring, sallied forth by himself, captured two heads from the enemy, and returned to camp. Wu Ch’i had the man instantly executed, whereupon an officer ventured to remonstrate, saying: "This man was a good soldier, and ought not to have been beheaded." Wu Ch’i replied: "I fully believe he was a good soldier, but I had him beheaded because he acted without orders."]

The Art of War, passage 190

7. _Li Ching Ping Fa_ (not to be confounded with the foregoing) is a short treatise in 8 chapters, preserved in the T’ung Tien, but not published separately. This fact explains its omission from the _Ssu K’u Ch’uan Shu_.

The Art of War, passage 1241

[Tu Mu and Mei Yao-ch’en point out that the spy is privileged to enter even the general’s private sleeping-tent.]

The Art of War, passage 660

[2] For a number of maxims on this head, see "Marshal Turenne" (Longmans, 1907), p. 29.

The Art of War, passage 490

[The chief lesson of this chapter, in Tu Mu’s opinion, is the paramount importance in war of rapid evolutions and sudden rushes. "Great results," he adds, "can thus be achieved with small forces."]

The Art of War, passage 114

I have found it difficult to glean much about the history of Sun Tzŭ’s text. The quotations that occur in early authors go to show that the "13 chapters" of which Ssu-ma Ch’ien speaks were essentially the same as those now extant. We have his word for it that they were widely circulated in his day, and can only regret that he refrained from discussing them on that account. Sun Hsing-yen says in his preface:—

The Art of War, passage 1071

The truly wise man, we are told, can perceive things before they have come to pass; how much more, then, those that are already manifest!’ Thereupon he called one of the natives who had been assigned to his service, and set a trap for him, saying: ‘Where are those envoys from the Hsiung-nu who arrived some day ago?’ The man was so taken aback that between surprise and fear he presently blurted out the whole truth.

The Art of War, passage 739

11. All armies prefer high ground to low,

The Art of War, passage 685

9. If, on the other hand, in the midst of difficulties we are always ready to seize an advantage, we may extricate ourselves from misfortune.

The Art of War, passage 543

[An alternative reading offered by Chia Lin is: "Know beforehand all plans conducive to our success and to the enemy’s failure."

The Art of War, passage 1092

57. Confront your soldiers with the deed itself; never let them know your design.

The Art of War, passage 1186

21. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being;

The Art of War, passage 283

24. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

The Art of War, passage 1185

20. Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content.

The Art of War, passage 715

[Tu Mu takes this to mean "facing south," and Ch’en Hao "facing east." Cf. infra, §§ 11, 13.

The Art of War, passage 650

[The commentators explain this rather singular piece of advice by saying that a man whose heart is set on returning home will fight to the death against any attempt to bar his way, and is therefore too dangerous an opponent to be tackled. Chang Yu quotes the words of Han Hsin: "Invincible is the soldier who hath his desire and returneth homewards." A marvelous tale is told of Ts’ao Ts’ao’s courage and resource in ch.

The Art of War, passage 89

But once refer the work to the 5th century or earlier, and the chances of its being other than a _bonâ fide_ production are sensibly diminished. The great age of forgeries did not come until long after. That it should have been forged in the period immediately following 473 is particularly unlikely, for no one, as a rule, hastens to identify himself with a lost cause. As for Yeh Shui-hsin’s theory, that the author was a literary recluse, that seems to me quite untenable.

The Art of War, passage 619

22. He will conquer who has learnt the artifice of deviation.

The Art of War, passage 418

[Tu Mu explains this very well: "Inasmuch as his victories are gained over circumstances that have not come to light, the world as large knows nothing of them, and he wins no reputation for wisdom; inasmuch as the hostile state submits before there has been any bloodshed, he receives no credit for courage."]

The Art of War, passage 655

[Ch’en Hao quotes the saying: "Birds and beasts when brought to bay will use their claws and teeth." Chang Yu says: "If your adversary has burned his boats and destroyed his cooking-pots, and is ready to stake all on the issue of a battle, he must not be pushed to extremities." Ho Shih illustrates the meaning by a story taken from the life of Yen-ch’ing. That general, together with his colleague Tu Chung-wei was surrounded by a vastly superior army of Khitans in the year 945 A.D.

The Art of War, passage 1191

1. Sun Tzŭ said: Raising a host of a hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the State. The daily expenditure will amount to a thousand ounces of silver.

The Art of War, passage 1204

5. Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits; it cannot be obtained inductively from experience,

The Art of War, passage 81

The works of Sun Wu and Wu Ch’i may be of genuine antiquity.

The Art of War, passage 523

14. We can form a single united body, while the enemy must split up into fractions. Hence there will be a whole pitted against separate parts of a whole, which means that we shall be many to the enemy’s few.

The Art of War, passage 904

[Li Ch’uan sums up as follows: "Given a knowledge of three things—the affairs of men, the seasons of heaven and the natural advantages of earth—, victory will invariably crown your battles."]

The Art of War, passage 1122

Then, having cunningly disclosed our intentions, "we must manage, though starting after the enemy, to arrive before him (VII. § 4). We must start after him in order to ensure his marching thither; we must arrive before him in order to capture the place without trouble. Taken thus, the present passage lends some support to Mei Yao-ch’en’s interpretation of § 47.]

The Art of War, passage 1129

[3] "Stonewall Jackson," vol. I, p. 421.

The Art of War, passage 445

The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent.’" To put it perhaps a little more clearly: any attack or other operation is _cheng_, on which the enemy has had his attention fixed; whereas that is _ch’i_," which takes him by surprise or comes from an unexpected quarter. If the enemy perceives a movement which is meant to be _ch’i_," it immediately becomes _cheng_."]

The Art of War, passage 274

20. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.

The Art of War, passage 111

[35] If he rose to be a general at all, he certainly was never on an equal footing with the three above mentioned. He was doubtless present at the investment and occupation of Ying, and witnessed Wu’s sudden collapse in the following year. Yüeh’s attack at this critical juncture, when her rival was embarrassed on every side, seems to have convinced him that this upstart kingdom was the great enemy against whom every effort would henceforth have to be directed.

The Art of War, passage 659

[1] See Col. Henderson, op. cit. vol. I. p. 426.

The Art of War, passage 883

23. If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler’s bidding.

The Art of War, passage 184

2. _Ssu-ma Fa_, in 1 _chuan_ or 5 chapters. Wrongly attributed to Ssu-ma Jang-chu of the 6th century B.C. Its date, however, must be early, as the customs of the three ancient dynasties are constantly to be met within its pages. See _Shih Chi_, ch. 64.

The Art of War, passage 198

_Ssu K’u Ch’uan Shu Tsung Mu T’i Yao_ (1790), ch. 99, 100.

The Art of War, passage 1187

[The Wu State was destined to be a melancholy example of this saying.]

The Art of War, passage 1000

["_Shuai-jan_" means "suddenly" or "rapidly," and the snake in question was doubtless so called owing to the rapidity of its movements. Through this passage, the term in the Chinese has now come to be used in the sense of "military manœuvers."]