Do not swallow a bait offered by the enemy.
Li Ch‘üan and Tu Mu, with extraordinary inability to see a
metaphor, take these words quite literally of food and drink that
have been poisoned by the enemy. Ch‘ên Hao and Chang Yü carefully
point out that the saying has a wider application. The _T‘ung
Tien_ reads 貪 “to covet” instead of 食. The similarity of the two
characters sufficiently accounts for the mistake.
Do not interfere with an army that is returning home.
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 Yü quotes the words
of Han Hsin: 從思東歸之士何所不克 “Invincible is the soldier who
hath his desire and returneth homewards.” A marvellous tale is
told of Ts‘ao Ts‘ao’s courage and resource in ch. 1 of the _San
Kuo Chih_, 武帝紀: In 198 A.D., he was besieging 張繡 Chang Hsiu in
穰 Jang, when 劉表 Liu Piao sent reinforcements with a view to
cutting off Ts‘ao’s retreat. The latter was obliged to draw off
his troops, only to find himself hemmed in between two enemies,
who were guarding each outlet of a narrow pass in which he had
engaged himself. In this desperate plight Ts‘ao waited until
nightfall, when he bored a tunnel into the mountain side and laid
an ambush in it. Then he marched on with his baggage-train, and
when it grew light, Chang Hsiu, finding that the bird had flown,
pressed after him in hot pursuit. As soon as the whole army had
passed by, the hidden troops fell on its rear, while Ts‘ao himself
turned and met his pursuers in front, so that they were thrown
into confusion and annihilated. Ts‘ao Ts‘ao said afterwards:
虜遏吾歸師而與吾死地戰吾是以知勝矣 “The brigands tried to check my
army in its retreat and brought me to battle in a desperate
position: hence I knew how to overcome them.”