When you plunder a countryside, let the spoil be divided amongst your
men;
The reading of Tu Yu, Chia Lin, and apparently Ts‘ao Kung, is
指向分衆, which is explained as referring to the subdivision of the
army, mentioned in V. §§ 1, 2, by means of banners and flags,
serving to point out (指) to each man the way he should go (向).
But this is very forced, and the ellipsis is too great, even for
Sun Tzŭ. Luckily, the _T‘ung Tien_ and _Yü Lan_ have the variant
嚮, which not only suggests the true reading 鄉, but affords some
clue to the way in which the corruption arose. Some early
commentator having inserted 向 as the sound of 鄉, the two may
afterwards have been read as one character; and this being
interchangeable with 向, 鄉 must finally have disappeared
altogether. Meanwhile, 掠 would have been altered to 指 in order to
make sense. As regards 分衆, I believe that Ho Shih alone has
grasped the real meaning, the other commentators understanding it
as “dividing the men into parties” to search for plunder. Sun Tzŭ
wishes to lessen the abuses of indiscriminate plundering by
insisting that all booty shall be thrown into a common stock,
which may afterwards be fairly divided amongst all.
when you capture new territory, cut it up into allotments for the
benefit of the soldiery.
That this is the meaning, may be gathered from Tu Mu’s note:
開土拓境則分割與有功者. The 三略 gives the same advice: 𫉬地裂之. 廓
means “to enlarge” or “extend”—at the expense of the enemy,
understood. Cf. _Shih Ching_, III. 1. vii. 1: 憎其式廓 “hating all
the great States.” Ch‘ên Hao also says 屯兵種蒔 “quarter your
soldiers on the land, and let them sow and plant it.” It is by
acting on this principle, and harvesting the lands they invaded,
that the Chinese have succeeded in carrying out some of their most
memorable and triumphant expeditions, such as that of 班超 Pan
Ch‘ao who penetrated to the Caspian, and in more recent years,
those of 福康安 Fu-k‘ang-an and 左宗棠 Tso Tsung-t‘ang.