The Art of War: Illustrated Edition

US troops marching to the front in 1951, during the Korean War. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War describes success as winning decisive engagements quickly. This particular conflict lasted three years with no clear victory for either side.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. LAYING PLANS

2. WAGING WAR

3. ATTACK BY STRATAGEM

4. TACTICAL DISPOSITIONS

5. ENERGY

6. WEAK POINTS AND STRONG

7. MANOEUVRING

8. VARIATION IN TACTICS

9. THE ARMY ON THE MARCH

10. TERRAIN

11. THE NINE SITUATIONS

12. THE ATTACK BY FIRE

13. THE USE OF SPIES

CONCLUSION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION

British troops fire from their positions in a sunken lane during Operation Epsom in 1944. In line with Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, the Allied invasion of north-west Europe used creativity and timing to build momentum.

China, like many other nations, has been forged in fire and blood. Towards the end of the last century, it was stricken by civil war and foreign invasion.

Communist soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army were issued in 1939 with a small textbook called A Preliminary Study of Sun Tzu’s Art of War. This had been produced by Guo Huaruo, a leading strategist of the time, and such was the power and fame of The Art of War that the soldiers cared little that it dated from the 4th century BCE. It had been written by an enigmatic and semi-mythical individual by the name of Sun Tzu, who has since been elevated to the status of global superstar as the original military guru.

The book was the classic Sun Tzu Ping Fa or Master Sun’s Art of War.

How on earth could such an ancient text have any relevance in 20th-century China? Sun Tzu’s opening remarks showed a universal truth about warfare: ‘The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.’ This holds as true today as when it was first written, more than two thousand years ago.

Communist leader Mao Zedong thought highly of The Art of War, saying: ‘We must not belittle the saying in the book of Sun Wu Tzu: Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.’ Ever since, the book has lined the shelves not only of statesmen and soldiers, but also of businessmen seeking an edge over their competitors. From the City of London to Wall Street, The Art of War has become a talisman to success – the very first self-help book, if you like.

The seventh to third centuries BCE encompass the era of the Spring and Autumn Annals followed by the Warring States period, which saw an explosion of intellectual thought across China. This was in part stimulated by competition between the rulers, which ensured that no single ideology came to dominate. (A similar process was experienced in Classical Greece and Renaissance Italy.) This inevitably had an impact on the conduct of war.

Slowly the more powerful states began to conquer their weaker neighbours. The survivors naturally sought any advantage over their rivals. This included the use of wandering scholars who shared the benefit of their knowledge. In reality, many of them were little more than unprincipled mercenaries who sold their services to the highest bidder during the Warring States period.

Second to Sun Tzu in terms of reputation is Wu Qi, another strategist of the Warring States period. He served the kingdoms of Lu, Wei and Qi during the early decades of the fourth century. His own art of war has survived and has many similar elements to Sun Tzu, but each military philosopher inevitably sought to put their own spin on military thinking.

There was another school of thought known as Mohism, led by Mozi, who died in 391 BCE. While he denounced war, his followers often aided smaller states that were being menaced by their larger neighbours. Mozi was far from a pacifist, though. Rather, he was an advocate of deterrence. In one instance he is said to have displayed military equipment for defending city walls to an attacker, adding that he would supply it to the defenders if the aggressor did not desist.

Similarly Hsun Tzu, also practising in the third century, believed in a hearts and minds approach, which would impress an aggressor enough to not attack. This Confucian approach disapproved of duplicity in politics and war. Xun Kuang argued that ‘the armies of the benevolent man cannot use deceit.’ This, of course, ran counter to everything Sun Tzu advocated.

Quite how Sun Tzu withstood the test of time is hard to fathom once you understand that Chinese military manuals were far from unique. For example, a catalogue from the early Han dynasty (second century BCE) listed more than 180 books on the subject. There numbered around 350 by the Song dynasty (960–1179), but crucially only two have survived. These manuals were not books in the conventional sense. Before paper appeared in the Han dynasty, scholars painted onto strips of bamboo or wood. These were tied into bundles and, although portable, could hardly be used on the battlefield. Hence the value of the wandering scholars.

Ironically The Art of War grew from the teachings of Laozi, the founder of Taoism, which is the antithesis of militarism. Taoists are taught that the secret of success is through the Tao, or the Way. Sun Bin, one of Sun Tzu’s successors, referred to his work as ‘Tao Warfare’. Sun Tzu was to echo many of the elements of the Tao Te Ching, which is believed to date from about the fifth century BCE. Notably both used water as a metaphor for hidden strength. In many respects, psychology became the key to Sun Tzu’s military thought. Central to this is the role of deception and the ability to understand and manipulate one’s enemies. This has resonated ever since and is accepted practice.

WARFARE IS BASED ON DECEPTION

Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery aptly summed up The Art of War: ‘It teaches that the proper object of strategy is the speedy attainment of the political object of the war and a secure peace, not lengthy and destructive warfare. Victory must be gained at the minimum cost in lives and destruction. Though integrity is valued in a commander, ultimately all warfare is based on deception.’

‘To cheat is to win’ is how the business world interpreted this.

WHO WAS SUN TZU?

Despite the fame of his book, the man himself has proved frustratingly difficult to pin down to an exact time or place. Intriguingly, it has long been speculated that he was a figment of someone’s imagination and his The Art of War was in fact what today we would call a product of spin.

His name gives us very little to go on: it is simply a title meaning The Master Sun. According to Sima Qian’s Shiji, he was born in Qi (the western part of Shandong province) and wrote The Art of War in 13 chapters. This brought him to the notice of King Helü of the southeastern state of Wu, who ruled between 513 and 494 BCE. As a result, Sun Tzu is sometimes referred to as Sun Wu. Sima Qian says:

Sun Tzu defeated the strong state of Chu to the west and entered Ying (i.e. the Chu capital); to the north he intimidated Qi and Qin. That the name of [the state of] Wu was illustrious among the feudal lords was partly due to his achievements.

Both Sima Qian and the Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue refer to him, rather confusingly, as Sun Wu, who served the state of Wu around the end of the sixth century BCE. Curiously, Zuo Qiuming, who also chronicled the kingdom of Wu, does not mention Sun Tzu. Doubt has been cast on the age of The Art of War because the style of warfare discussed is more indicative of the fourth century BCE – most notably, references to the crossbow. This has led over the years to speculation that Sun Tzu never existed and that his book was ghosted by the much later writer Sun Bin.

Confusingly Sima Qian says that Sun Bin (‘Pin’) was a descendant of Sun Tzu. The name Bin was just a nickname, thereby clouding his identity. What is known is that his family was related to the ruling house of Qi. Sun Bin was born Qi during the early fourth century BCE – the middle of the Warring States period. He was brought up with a military background, and tradition has it studied under Guiguzi along with Pang Juan from Wei. It was the former who entrusted Sun Bin with the secret of his ancestor’s The Art of War.

Sun Bin’s first job was with the ruler of a rival state, King Hui of Wei, where he found an old classmate among the king’s generals. Pang Juan was jealous of Sun’s military knowledge and had him arrested and put on trial on trumped up charges. Sun was found guilty, though his death sentence was commuted to mutilation, which involved having his kneecaps removed and his face tattooed.

Luckily for Sun, an emissary from Qi managed to smuggle him out of Wei. He then became the Chief of Staff to T’ien Chi, the commander of the Qi army. In 354 BCE, in support of the kingdom of Chao, Qi went to war with Wei, resulting in the Kuei-ling campaign. Sun counselled that the Qi army be divided into three to lure Pang Juan’s forces to their destruction. This defied accepted wisdom but brought victory. Thirteen years later, in the Maling campaign, Sun helped defeat Pang again. Sun Tzu’s book had served him well and after the wars he wrote the Sun Bin Bing-Fa or Sun Pin’s Art of War. This was written on 400 strips and was in circulation until the late Han dynasty, but was lost until a copy was found in 1972 in a Han tomb.

Thanks to his illustrious military career, he was eminently qualified to write this book. His military philosophy proved strikingly similar to Sun Tzu’s, which gave rise to speculation that they were one and the same person. In the Warring States period, there was a practice of enhancing a work by claiming it had been written by an illustrious (and mythical) ancestor who had lived during the Golden Age of Wisdom. Could it be that Sun Bin produced two versions of the same work and ascribed one to a forebear in order to give The Art of War bearing his own name greater credibility?

Chinese military manuals are known to date from way before the fourth century BCE. Tàigōng’s Liú Tāo, or Six Secret Teachings, was thought to date from the Chou dynasty, around 1050 BCE. On closer inspection, it looks much more like a work from the Warring States period. References to cavalry certainly mean it is later than the Chou period. A Chu military commander quoted from a manual in 595 BCE. Seven of the oldest were recognised as military classics by the Song period. Their provenance is not entirely clear and it has been suggested that they do not predate Sun Tzu.

It is quite possible that Sun Bin edited together a series of earlier manuals, perhaps including works by his own ancestors, to produce Sun Tzu’s book. During the fourth century BCE, cavalry and the crossbow first began to make their mark. Interestingly, Sun Tzu describes chariots and infantry, and also references the crossbow, even though this weapon did not have a decisive effect on the battlefield until Maling in 341 BCE. In Sun Tzu’s defence, it has been recorded that the crossbow was invented in the sixth century BCE. Sima Qian is considered an accurate chronicler, so did he get his facts wrong? What is known is that at some point in the fourth century BCE or perhaps later, the Sun Tzu Ping Fa was edited and revised. Sun Bin may have been involved in this process. His conduct of two highly successful campaigns certainly marks out Sun Bin as one of the greatest commanders of the East. It was a time that marked a change in the art of warfare.

During Sun Bin’s lifetime, other great military commanders emerged – most notably Alexander the Great, who took his armies from the Mediterranean to the North China Plain. He would be followed by Pyrrhus of Epirus, Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. These generals were able to conduct their campaigns because kingdoms had developed to a point where they could sustain very large armies and keep them in the field. Once it got to the point where empires controlled vast areas, such as those of the Qin and Rome, it became a case of holding ground against barbarians. This did not require generals of quite the same flare.

Where Sun Tzu and Sun Bin were concerned, the art of warfare was all about the intellectual challenge of outwitting an equal or superior enemy. As Sun Bin put it:

Thus when those who excel at warfare discern an enemy’s strength, they know where he has a shortcoming. When they discern an enemy’s insufficiency, they know where he has a surplus. They perceive victory as easily as seeing the sun and moon. Their measures for victory are like using water to conquer fire.

THE ESSENCE OF THE ART OF WAR

While The Art of War is a very short book, it is not always an easy read. Many of Sun Tzu’s key teachings are common sense and still strike a chord, but some of his guidance can come across as decidedly inscrutable. This is in part due to translators over the centuries adding their own poetic gloss, but it also is a reflection of how language and meaning changes over time. In addition, there is a great degree of