Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into
the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they
will stand by you even unto death.
Cf. I. § 6. In this connection, Tu Mu draws for us an engaging
picture of the famous general Wu Ch‘i, from whose treatise on war
I have frequently had occasion to quote: “He wore the same clothes
and ate the same food as the meanest of his soldiers, refused to
have either a horse to ride or a mat to sleep on, carried his own
surplus rations wrapped in a parcel, and shared every hardship
with his men. One of his soldiers was suffering from an abscess,
and Wu Ch‘i himself sucked out the virus. The soldier’s mother,
hearing this, began wailing and lamenting. Somebody asked her,
saying: ‘Why do you cry? Your son is only a common soldier, and
yet the commander-in-chief himself has sucked the poison from his
sore.’ The woman replied: ‘Many years ago, Lord Wu performed a
similar service for my husband, who never left him afterwards, and
finally met his death at the hands of the enemy. And now that he
has done the same for my son, he too will fall fighting I know not
where’.” Li Ch‘üan mentions 楚子 the Viscount of Ch‘u, who invaded
the small state of 蕭 Hsiao during the winter. 申公 The Duke of
Shên said to him: “Many of the soldiers are suffering severely
from the cold.” So he made a round of the whole army, comforting
and encouraging the men; and straightway they felt as if they
were clothed in garments lined with floss silk. [_Tso Chuan_, 宣公,
XII. 5]. Chang Yü alludes to the same passage, saying: 温言一撫士同
挾纊.