If asked how to cope with a great host of the enemy in orderly array
and on the point of marching to the attack,
敢問 is like 或問, introducing a supposed question.
I should say: “Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds
dear; then he will be amenable to your will.”
Opinions differ as to what Sun Tzŭ had in mind. Ts‘ao Kung thinks
it is 其所恃之利 “some strategical advantage on which the enemy is
depending.” Tu Mu says: 據我便地畧我田野利其糧道斯三者敵人之所愛惜倚
恃者也 “The three things which an enemy is anxious to do, and on
the accomplishment of which his success depends, are: (1) to
capture our favourable positions; (2) to ravage our cultivated
land; (3) to guard his own communications.” Our object then must
be to thwart his plans in these three directions and thus render
him helpless. [Cf. III. § 3.] But this exegesis unduly strains the
meaning of 奪 and 愛, and I agree with Ch‘ên Hao, who says that
所愛 does not refer only to strategical advantages, but is any
person or thing that may happen to be of importance to the enemy.
By boldly seizing the initiative in this way, you at once throw
the other side on the defensive.