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.
Mao is the surgeon, exploring the wound, insisting above everything else on the delicate probing, the discovery of the enemy’s weakened nerve, the dangerous point where weakness is balanced by strength: at this point, he will order attack.
Robert Payne, Mao Tse-tung (1969)
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 to 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 Tzu, 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.
Tu Mu [illustrates this with an anecdote] of Chu-ko Liang, who when occupying Yang-p’ing and about to be attacked by Ssu-ma I, suddenly struck his colours, 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 Tzu 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 Yü (after Mei Yao-ch’ên)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 smaller 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 Tzu 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 Blücher just at the critical moment on the field of Waterloo.
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (1742-1819) was a daring, highly decorated, and famously hard-living, hard-fighting Prussian cavalry officer. He beat Napoleon I on several occasions and was commander-in-chief of the armies when they marched on Paris and brought down the First Empire. When Napoleon regained power, von Blücher, now a prince and an old man, was put in command of the Army of the Rhine. Badly wounded in battle at Ligny, von Blücher nevertheless led his troops on a long and brutal march to join Wellington at Waterloo. His army’s crushing intervention was decisive. DG
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 rendez-vous 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 Yü’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.”
Let no act be done at haphazard, nor otherwise than according to the finished rules that govern its kind.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (A.D. 167)
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 [Wu and Yüeh] 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 Tzu’s death. . . . Chang Yü is the only one to point out the seeming discrepancy [between chapter IV, paragraph 4, and this], 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 Tzu’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.
23. Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots.
24. Carefully compare the opposing army with your own, so t
hat you may know where strength is superabundant and where it is deficient.
25. In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them; conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest brains.
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 [writing about Stonewall Jackson]: “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. There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of waning and waxing.
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 Tzu mentions is by no means paralleled in war.
VII. MANOEUVRING
In war, three-quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter.
Napoleon I, “Observations sur les affaires d’Espagne” (1808)
1. Sun Tzu said: In war, the general receives his commands from the sovereign.
2. Having collected an army and concentrated his forces, he must blend and harmonise the different elements thereof before pitching his camp.
3. After that, comes tactical manœuvring, than which there is nothing more difficult.
I have departed slightly from the traditional interpretation of Ts’ao Kung, who says: “From the time of receiving the sovereign’s instructions until our encampment over against the enemy, the tactics to be pursued are most difficult.” It seems to me that the tactics or manœuvres can hardly be said to begin until the army has sallied forth and encamped, and ch’ên Hao’s note gives colour to this view: “For levying, concentrating, harmonising and intrenching an army, there are plenty of old rules which will serve. The real difficulty comes when we engage in tactical operations.” Tu Yu also observes that “the great difficulty is to be beforehand with the enemy in seizing favourable positions.”
The difficulty of tactical manœuvring consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain.
This is one of those highly condensed and somewhat enigmatical expressions of which Sun Tzu is so fond. This is how it is explained by Ts’ao Kung: “Make it appear that you are a long way off, then cover the distance rapidly and arrive on the scene before your opponent.” Tu Mu says: “Hoodwink the enemy, so that he may be remiss and leisurely while you are dashing along with the utmost speed.” Ho Shih gives a slightly different turn to the sentence: “Although you may have difficult ground to traverse and natural obstacles to encounter, this is a drawback which can be turned into actual advantage by celerity of movement.” Signal examples of this saying are afforded by the two famous passages across the Alps—that of Hannibal, which laid Italy at his mercy, and that of Napoleon two thousand years later, which resulted in the great victory of Marengo.
4. Thus, to take a long and circuitous route, after enticing the enemy out of the way, and though starting after him, to contrive to reach the goal before him, shows knowledge of the artifice of deviation.
Chia Lin [says]: “If our adversary’s course is really a short one, and we can manage to divert him from it, either by simulating weakness or by holding out some small advantage, we shall be able to beat him in the race for good positions.” This is quite a defensible view, though not adopted by any other commentator. . . .
Tu Mu cites the famous march of Chao Shê in 270 B.C. to relieve the town of O-yü, which was [under siege] by a Ch’in army. The King of Chao first consulted Lien P’o on the advisability of attempting a relief, but the latter thought the distance too great, and the intervening country too rugged and difficult. His majesty then turned to Chao shê,who fully admitted the hazardous nature of the march, but finally said: “We shall be like two rats fighting in a hole—and the pluckier one will win!” So he left the capital with his army, but had only gone a distance of 30 li when he stopped and began throwing up intrenchments. For 28 days he continued strengthening his fortifications, and took care that spies should carry the intelligence to the enemy.
The Ch’in general was overjoyed, and attributed his adversary’s tardiness to the fact that the beleaguered city was in the Han State, and thus not actually part of Chao territory. But the spies had no sooner departed than Chao Shê began a forced march lasting for two days and one night, and arrived on the scene of action with such astonishing rapidity that he was able to occupy a commanding position on the “North hill” before the enemy had got wind of his movements. A crushing defeat followed for the Ch’in forces, who were obliged to raise the siege of O-yü in all haste and retreat across the border.
5. Manœuvring with an army is advantageous; with an undisciplined multitude, most dangerous.
6. If you set a fully equipped army in march in order to snatch an advantage, the chances are that you will be too late. On the other hand, to detach a flying column for the purpose involves the sacrifice of its baggage and stores.
I submit my own rendering [of this passage] without much enthusiasm, being convinced that there is some deep-seated corruption in the text. On the whole, it is clear that Sun Tzu does not approve of a lengthy march being undertaken without supplies.
7. Thus, if you order your men to roll up their buff-coats,
Chang Yü says: “This means, in full panoply.”
and make forced marches without halting day or night, covering double the usual distance at a stretch,
The ordinary day’s march, according to Tu Mu, was 30 li; but on one occasion, when pursuing Liu Pei, Ts’ao Ts’ao is said to have covered the incredible distance of 300 li within twenty-four hours.
doing a hundred li in order to wrest an advantage, the leaders of all your three divisions will fall into the hands of the enemy.
8. The stronger men will be in front, the jaded ones will fall behind, and on this plan only one-tenth of your army will reach its destination.
The moral is, as Ts’ao Kung and others point out: Don’t march a hundred li to gain a tactical advantage, either with or without impedimenta. Manœuvres of this description should be confined to short distances. Stonewall Jackson said: “The hards
hips of forced marches are often more painful than the dangers of battle.” He did not often call upon his troops for extraordinary exertions. It was only when he intended a surprise, or when a rapid retreat was imperative, that he sacrificed everything to speed.
9. If you march fifty li in order to outmanœuvre the enemy, you will lose the leader of your first division, and only half your force will reach the goal.
Literally, “the leader of the first division will be torn away.” [From the Tso Chuan, 19th year:] “This is a case of [the falling tree] tearing up its roots.”
Like so many texts in a literature as vast and ancient as China’s, the reference to the Tso chuan comes with a step-ladder provenance and mysteries of its own. The Tso chuan—the Tso Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals—existed by the early Han Dynasty. When precisely is open to question, but its import is unquestionable.