When an army feeds its horses with grain and kills its cattle for food,
粟馬肉食 is expanded by Mei Yao-ch‘ên (following Tu Mu) into
給糧以𥞊乎馬殺畜以饗乎士, which is the sense I have given above. In
the ordinary course of things, the men would be fed on grain and
the horses chiefly on grass.
and when the men do not hang their cooking-pots
The _T‘ung Tien_ reads 缶, which is much the same as 缻, and the _Yü
Lan_ 箠, which is manifestly wrong.
over the camp-fires, showing that they will not return to their tents,
For 返, the _T‘ung Tien_ and _Yü Lan_ both read 及.
you may know that they are determined to fight to the death.
For 窮宼, see VII. § 36. I may quote here the illustrative passage
from the _Hou Han Shu_, ch. 71, given in abbreviated form by
the _P‘ei Wên Yün Fu_: “The rebel 王國 Wang Kuo of 梁 Liang was
besieging the town of 陳倉 Ch‘ên-ts‘ang, and 皇甫嵩 Huang-fu Sung,
who was in supreme command, and 董卓 Tung Cho were sent out against
him. The latter pressed for hasty measures, but Sung turned a deaf
ear to his counsel. At last the rebels were utterly worn out, and
began to throw down their weapons of their own accord. Sung was
now for advancing to the attack, but Cho said: ‘It is a principle
of war not to pursue desperate men and not to press a retreating
host.’ Sung answered: ‘That does not apply here. What I am about
to attack is a jaded army, not a retreating host; with disciplined
troops I am falling on a disorganised multitude, not a band of
desperate men.’ Thereupon he advanced to the attack unsupported by
his colleague, and routed the enemy, Wang Kuo being slain.” The
inferior reading of the _T‘u Shu_ for § 34 is as follows: 殺馬肉食者
軍無糧也懸缻不返其舍者窮宼也. The first clause strikes me as rather
shallow for Sun Tzŭ, and it is hard to make anything of 懸缻 in
the second without the negative. Capt. Calthrop, nothing daunted,
set down in his first edition: “When they _cast away_ their
cooking-pots.” He now has: “When the cooking-pots are hung up on
the wall.”