A victorious army opposed to a routed one, is as a pound’s weight
placed in the scale against a single grain.
Literally, “a victorious army is like an 鎰 _i_ (20 oz.) weighed
against a 銖 _shu_ (1⁄24 oz.); a routed army as a _shu_ weighed
against an _i_.” The point is simply the enormous advantage which
a disciplined force, flushed with victory, has over one
demoralised by defeat. Legge, in his note on Mencius, I. 2. ix. 2,
makes the 鎰 to be 24 Chinese ounces, and corrects Chu Hsi’s
statement that it equalled 20 oz. only. But Li Ch‘üan of the T‘ang
dynasty here gives the same figure as Chu Hsi.