[Chang Yu attempts to explain the sequence of chapters as follows:
"Chapter IV, on Tactical Dispositions, treated of the offensive and the
defensive; chapter V, on Energy, dealt with direct and indirect
methods. The good general acquaints himself first with the theory of
attack and defence, and then turns his attention to direct and indirect
methods. He studies the art of varying and combining these two methods
before proceeding to the subject of weak and strong points. For the use
of direct or indirect methods arises out of attack and defence, and the
perception of weak and strong points depends again on the above
methods. Hence the present chapter comes immediately after the chapter
on Energy."]
1. Sun Tzŭ said: Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of
the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field
and has to hasten to battle, will arrive exhausted.
2. Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but
does not allow the enemy’s will to be imposed on him.
[One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own terms or
fights not at all. [1] ]
3. By holding out advantages to him, he can cause the enemy to approach
of his own accord; or, by inflicting damage, he can make it impossible
for the enemy to draw near.
[In the first case, he will entice him with a bait; in the second, he
will strike at some important point which the enemy will have to
defend.]
4. If the enemy is taking his ease, he can harass him;
[This passage may be cited as evidence against Mei Yao- Ch’en’s
interpretation of I. § 23.]
if well supplied with food, he can starve him out; if quietly encamped,
he can force him to move.
5. Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march
swiftly to places where you are not expected.
6. An army may march great distances without distress, if it marches
through country where the enemy is not.
[Ts’ao Kung sums up very well: "Emerge from the void [q.d. like "a bolt
from the blue"], strike at vulnerable points, shun places that are
defended, attack in unexpected quarters."]
7. You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack
places which are undefended.
[Wang Hsi explains "undefended places" as "weak points; that is to say,
where the general is lacking in capacity, or the soldiers in spirit;
where the walls are not strong enough, or the precautions not strict
enough; where relief comes too late, or provisions are too scanty, or
the defenders are variance amongst themselves."]
You can ensure the safety of your defence if you only hold positions
that cannot be attacked.
[_I.e._, where there are none of the weak points mentioned above. There
is rather a nice point involved in the interpretation of this later
clause. Tu Mu, Ch’en Hao, and Mei Yao-ch’en assume the meaning to be:
"In order to make your defence quite safe, you must defend _even_ those
places that are not likely to be attacked;" and Tu Mu adds: "How much
more, then, those that will be attacked." Taken thus, however, the
clause balances less well with the preceding—always a consideration in
the highly antithetical style which is natural to the Chinese. Chang
Yu, therefore, seems to come nearer the mark in saying: "He who is
skilled in attack flashes forth from the topmost heights of heaven [see
IV. § 7], making it impossible for the enemy to guard against him. This
being so, the places that I shall attack are precisely those that the
enemy cannot defend…. He who is skilled in defence hides in the most
secret recesses of the earth, making it impossible for the enemy to
estimate his whereabouts. This being so, the places that I shall hold
are precisely those that the enemy cannot attack."]
8. Hence that general is skilful in attack whose opponent does not
know what to defend; and he is skilful in defence whose opponent does
not know what to attack.
[An aphorism which puts the whole art of war in a nutshell.]
9. O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be
invisible, through you inaudible;
[Literally, "without form or sound," but it is said of course with
reference to the enemy.]
and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.
10. You may advance and be absolutely irresistible, if you make for the
enemy’s weak points; you may retire and be safe from pursuit if your
movements are more rapid than those of the enemy.
11. If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even
though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we
need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve.
[Tu Mu says: "If the enemy is the invading party, we can cut his line
of communications and occupy the roads by which he will have to return;
if we are the invaders, we may direct our attack against the sovereign
himself." It is clear that Sun Tzŭ, unlike certain generals in the late
Boer war, was no believer in frontal attacks.]
12. If we do not wish to fight, we can prevent the enemy from engaging
us even though the lines of our encampment be merely traced out on the
ground. All we need do is to throw something odd and unaccountable in
his way.
[This extremely concise expression is intelligibly paraphrased by Chia
Lin: "even though we have constructed neither wall nor ditch." Li
Ch’uan says: "we puzzle him by strange and unusual dispositions;" and
Tu Mu finally clinches the meaning by three illustrative anecdotes—one
of Chu-ko Liang, who when occupying Yang-p’ing and about to be attacked
by Ssu-ma I, suddenly struck his colors, stopped the beating of the
drums, and flung open the city gates, showing only a few men engaged in
sweeping and sprinkling the ground. This unexpected proceeding had the
intended effect; for Ssu-ma I, suspecting an ambush, actually drew off
his army and retreated. What Sun Tzŭ is advocating here, therefore, is
nothing more nor less than the timely use of "bluff."]
13. By discovering the enemy’s dispositions and remaining invisible
ourselves, we can keep our forces concentrated, while the enemy’s must
be divided.
[The conclusion is perhaps not very obvious, but Chang Yu (after Mei
Yao-ch’en) rightly explains it thus: "If the enemy’s dispositions are
visible, we can make for him in one body; whereas, our own dispositions
being kept secret, the enemy will be obliged to divide his forces in
order to guard against attack from every quarter."]
14. We can form a single united body, while the enemy must split up
into fractions. Hence there will be a whole pitted against separate
parts of a whole, which means that we shall be many to the enemy’s few.
15. And if we are able thus to attack an inferior force with a superior
one, our opponents will be in dire straits.
16. The spot where we intend to fight must not be made known; for then
the enemy will have to prepare against a possible attack at several
different points;
[Sheridan once explained the reason of General Grant’s victories by
saying that "while his opponents were kept fully employed wondering
what he was going to do, _he_ was thinking most of what he was going to
do himself."]
and his forces being thus distributed in many directions, the numbers
we shall have to face at any given point will be proportionately few.
17. For should the enemy strengthen his van, he will weaken his rear;
should he strengthen his rear, he will weaken his van; should he
strengthen his left, he will weaken his right; should he strengthen his
right, he will weaken his left. If he sends reinforcements everywhere,
he will everywhere be weak.
[In Frederick the Great’s _Instructions to his Generals_ we read: "A
defensive war is apt to betray us into too frequent detachment. Those
generals who have had but little experience attempt to protect every
point, while those who are better acquainted with their profession,
having only the capital object in view, guard against a decisive blow,
and acquiesce in small misfortunes to avoid greater."]
18. Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible
attacks; numerical strength, from compelling our adversary to make
these preparations against us.
[The highest generalship, in Col. Henderson’s words, is "to compel the
enemy to disperse his army, and then to concentrate superior force
against each fraction in turn."]
19. Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we may
concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight.
[What Sun Tzŭ evidently has in mind is that nice calculation of
distances and that masterly employment of strategy which enable a
general to divide his army for the purpose of a long and rapid march,
and afterwards to effect a junction at precisely the right spot and the
right hour in order to confront the enemy in overwhelming strength.
Among many such successful junctions which military history records,
one of the most dramatic and decisive was the appearance of Blucher
just at the critical moment on the field of Waterloo.]
20. But if neither time nor place be known, then the left wing will be
impotent to succour the right, the right equally impotent to succour the
left, the van unable to relieve the rear, or the rear to support the
van. How much more so if the furthest portions of the army are anything
under a hundred _li_ apart, and even the nearest are separated by
several _li_!
[The Chinese of this last sentence is a little lacking in precision,
but the mental picture we are required to draw is probably that of an
army advancing towards a given rendezvous in separate columns, each of
which has orders to be there on a fixed date. If the general allows the
various detachments to proceed at haphazard, without precise
instructions as to the time and place of meeting, the enemy will be
able to annihilate the army in detail. Chang Yu’s note may be worth
quoting here: "If we do not know the place where our opponents mean to
concentrate or the day on which they will join battle, our unity will
be forfeited through our preparations for defence, and the positions we
hold will be insecure. Suddenly happening upon a powerful foe, we shall
be brought to battle in a flurried condition, and no mutual support
will be possible between wings, vanguard or rear, especially if there
is any great distance between the foremost and hindmost divisions of
the army."]
21. Though according to my estimate the soldiers of Yüeh exceed our own
in number, that shall advantage them nothing in the matter of victory.
I say then that victory can be achieved.
[Alas for these brave words! The long feud between the two states ended
in 473 B.C. with the total defeat of Wu by Kou Chien and its
incorporation in Yüeh. This was doubtless long after Sun Tzŭ’s death.
With his present assertion compare IV. § 4. Chang Yu is the only one to
point out the seeming discrepancy, which he thus goes on to explain:
"In the chapter on Tactical Dispositions it is said, ‘One may _know_
how to conquer without being able to _do_ it,’ whereas here we have the
statement that ‘victory’ can be achieved.’ The explanation is, that in
the former chapter, where the offensive and defensive are under
discussion, it is said that if the enemy is fully prepared, one cannot
make certain of beating him. But the present passage refers
particularly to the soldiers of Yüeh who, according to Sun Tzŭ’s
calculations, will be kept in ignorance of the time and place of the
impending struggle. That is why he says here that victory can be
achieved."]
22. Though the enemy be stronger in numbers, we may prevent him from
fighting. Scheme so as to discover his plans and the likelihood of
their success.
[An alternative reading offered by Chia Lin is: "Know beforehand all
plans conducive to our success and to the enemy’s failure."
23. Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity.
[Chang Yu tells us that by noting the joy or anger shown by the enemy
on being thus disturbed, we shall be able to conclude whether his
policy is to lie low or the reverse. He instances the action of Cho-ku
Liang, who sent the scornful present of a woman’s head-dress to Ssu-ma
I, in order to goad him out of his Fabian tactics.]
Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots.
24. Carefully compare the opposing army with your own, so that you may
know where strength is superabundant and where it is deficient.
[Cf. IV. § 6.]
25. In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain
is to conceal them;
[The piquancy of the paradox evaporates in translation. Concealment is
perhaps not so much actual invisibility (see _supra_ § 9) as "showing
no sign" of what you mean to do, of the plans that are formed in your
brain.]
conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the
subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest brains.
[Tu Mu explains: "Though the enemy may have clever and capable
officers, they will not be able to lay any plans against us."]
26. How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy’s own
tactics—that is what the multitude cannot comprehend.
27. All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can
see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
[_I.e._, everybody can see superficially how a battle is won; what they
cannot see is the long series of plans and combinations which has
preceded the battle.]
28. Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but
let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.
[As Wang Hsi sagely remarks: "There is but one root-principle
underlying victory, but the tactics which lead up to it are infinite in
number." With this compare Col. Henderson: "The rules of strategy are
few and simple. They may be learned in a week. They may be taught by
familiar illustrations or a dozen diagrams. But such knowledge will no
more teach a man to lead an army like Napoleon than a knowledge of
grammar will teach him to write like Gibbon."]
29. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural
course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.
30. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what
is weak.
[Like water, taking the line of least resistance.]
31. Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over
which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the
foe whom he is facing.
32. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare
there are no constant conditions.
33. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and
thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.
34. The five elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) are not always
equally predominant;
[That is, as Wang Hsi says: "they predominate alternately."]
the four seasons make way for each other in turn.
[Literally, "have no invariable seat."]
There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of waning and
waxing.
[Cf. V. § 6. The purport of the passage is simply to illustrate the
want of fixity in war by the changes constantly taking place in Nature.
The comparison is not very happy, however, because the regularity of
the phenomena which Sun Tzŭ mentions is by no means paralleled in war.]
[1] See Col. Henderson’s biography of Stonewall Jackson, 1902 ed., vol.
II, p. 490.