Poverty of the State exchequer causes an army to be maintained by
contributions from a distance. Contributing to maintain an army at a
distance causes the people to be impoverished.
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 Tzŭ 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.