Art of War (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Sunzi

  27. Hence it is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for purposes of spying,

  Ch’ên Hao … points out that “the god-like wisdom of Ch’êng T’ang and Wu Wang led them to employ I Yin and Lü Shang.”

  and thereby they achieve great results.

  Tu Mu closes with a note of warning: “Just as water, which carries a boat from bank to bank, may also be the means of sinking it, so reliance on spies, while productive of great results, is oft-times the cause of utter destruction.”

  Spies are a most important element in war, because on them depends an army’s ability to move.

  Chia Lin says that an army without spies is like a man without ears or eyes.

  APPENDIX: THE COMMENTATORS

  by Lionel Giles edited by Dallas Galvin

  SUN TZU CAN BOAST an exceptionally long and distinguished roll of commentators, which would do honour to any classic… .

  1. TS’AO TS’AO, ALSO KNOWN AS TS’AO KUNG AND LATER WEI WU TI, A.D. 155-220

  There is hardly any room for doubt that the earliest commentary on Sun Tzu actually came from the pen of this extraordinary man, whose biography in the San Kuo Chih reads like a romance. One of the greatest military geniuses that the world has seen, and Napoleonic in the scale of his operations, he was especially famed for the marvellous rapidity of his marches, which has found expression in the line, “Talk of Ts’ao Ts’ao, and Ts’ao Ts’ao will appear.” Ou-yang Hsiu says of him that he was a great captain who

  measured his strength against Tung Cho, Lü Pu and the two Yüan, father and son, and vanquished them all; whereupon he divided the Empire of Han with Wu and Shu, and made himself king. It is recorded that whenever a council of war was held by Wei on the eve of a far-reaching campaign, he had all his calculations ready; those generals who made use of them did not lose one battle in ten; those who ran counter to them in any particular saw their armies incontinently beaten and put to flight.

  Ts’ao Kung’s notes on Sun Tzu, models of austere brevity, are so thoroughly characteristic of the stern commander known to history, that it is hard indeed to conceive of them as the work of a mere littérateur. Sometimes, indeed, owing to extreme compression, they are scarcely intelligible and stand no less in need of a commentary than the text itself… . Ts’ao Kung is the reputed author of a book on war in 100,000 odd words, now lost… .

  2. MÊNG SHIH, C. A.D. 502-557? OR POSSIBLY AS EARLY AS THE THIRD CENTURY

  The commentary which has come down to us under this name is comparatively meagre, and nothing about the author is known. Even his personal name has not been recorded… . [H]e is named [as the] last of the “Five Commentators,” the others being Wei Wu Ti [Ts’ao Ts’ao], Tu Mu, Ch’ên Hao and Chia Lin.

  3. LI CH’ÜAN, EIGHTH CENTURY A.D.

  [He] was a well-known writer on military tactics. [One of his treatises] has been in constant use down to the present day. [One of his works recounts the] lives of famous generals from the Chou to the T’ang Dynasties… . He is also generally supposed to be the real author of [a] popular Taoist tract… . His notes are mostly short and to the point, and he frequently illustrates his remarks by anecdotes from Chinese history. [However, his commentaries are based on a version of the Sun Tzu text that differs considerably from those now extant.]

  4. TU YU, DIED 812 A.D.

  [He] did not publish a separate commentary on Sun Tzu, his notes being taken from the T’ung Tien, the encyclopædic treatise on the Constitution which was his life-work. They are largely repetitions of Ts’ao Kung and Mêng Shih, besides which it is believed that he drew on the ancient commentaries of Wang Ling and others… . [The poet and commentator Tu Mu was his grandson.]

  5. TU MU, 803-852 A.D.

  [He] is perhaps best known as a poet—a bright star even in the glorious galaxy of the T’ang period. We learn from Ch’ao Kung-wu that although he had no practical experience of war, he was extremely fond of discussing the subject, and was moreover well read in the military history of the Ch’un Ch’iu and Chan Kuo eras. His notes, therefore, are well worth attention. They are very copious, and replete with historical parallels. The gist of Sun Tzu’s work is thus summarised by him: “Practise benevolence and justice, but on the other hand make full use of artifice and measures of expediency.” He further declared that all the military triumphs and disasters of the thousand years which had elapsed since Sun Wu’s death would, upon examination, be found to uphold and corroborate, in every particular, the maxims contained in his book… .

  6. CH’ËN HAO, T’ANG DYNASTY (618-907 A.D.)

  [He] appears to have been a contemporary of Tu Mu. Ch’ao Kung-wu says that he was impelled to write a new commentary on Sun Tzu because Ts’ao Kung’s on the one hand was too obscure and subtle, and that of Tu Mu on the other too long-winded and diffuse. Ou-yang Hsiu, writing in the middle of the 11th century, calls Ts’ao Kung, Tu Mu and Ch’ên Hao the three chief commentators on Sun Tzu… . [Ch’ên’s] commentary, though not lacking in merit, must rank below those of his predecessors.

  7. CHIA LIN, NO DATES, BUT HE LIVED DURING THE T’ANG DYNASTY (618-907 A.D.)

  [His commentary on Sun Tzu] is of somewhat scanty texture, and in point of quality, too, perhaps the least valuable of the eleven.

  8. MEI YAO-CH’ËN, 1002-1060

  [C]ommonly known by his “style” as Mei Shêng-yü,[he] was, like Tu Mu, a poet of distinction. His commentary was published with a laudatory preface by the great Ou-yang Hsiu, from which we may cull the following:

  Later scholars have misread Sun Tzu, distorting his words and trying to make them square with their own one-sided views. Thus, though commentators have not been lacking, only a few have proved equal to the task. My friend Shêng-yü has not fallen into this mistake. In attempting to provide a critical commentary for Sun Tzu’s work, he does not lose sight of the fact that these sayings were intended for states engaged in internecine warfare; that the author is not concerned with the military conditions prevailing under the sovereigns of the three ancient dynasties (the Hsia, the Shang, and the Chou), nor with the nine punitive measures prescribed to the Minister of War. Again, Sun Wu loved brevity of diction, but his meaning is always deep. Whether the subject be marching an army, or handling soldiers, or estimating the enemy, or controlling the forces of victory, it is always systematically treated; the sayings are bound together in strict logical sequence, though this has been obscured by commentators who have probably failed to grasp their meaning. In his own commentary, Mei Shêng-yü has brushed aside all the obstinate prejudices of these critics, and has tried to bring out the true meaning of Sun Tzu himself. In this way, the clouds of confusion have been dispersed and the sayings made clear. I am convinced that the present work deserves to be handed down side by side with the three great commentaries; and for a great deal that they find in the sayings, coming generations will have constant reason to thank my friend Shêng-yü

  Making some allowance for the exuberance of friendship, I am inclined to endorse this favourable judgment, and would certainly place him above Ch’ên Hao in order of merit.

  9. WANG HSI, SUNG DYNASTY (960-1279 A.D.)

  [He] is decidedly original in some of his interpretations, but much less judicious than Mei Yao-ch’ên and on the whole not a very trustworthy guide. He is fond of comparing his own commentary with that of Ts’ao Kung, but the comparison is not always flattering to him. We learn from Ch’ao Kung-wu that Wang Hsi revised the ancient text of Sun Tzu, filling up lacunæ and correcting mistakes.

  10. HO YEN-HSI, SUNG DYNASTY (960-1279 A.D.)

  [There is some controversy over his personal name and biography.] … he appears simply as Ho Shih in the Yü Hai, and [it has been said] that his personal name is unknown… . [His] commentary … “contains helpful additions” here and there, but is chiefly remarkable for the copious extracts taken, in adapted form, from the dynastic histories and other sources.

  11. CHANG Yü, LATE SUNG DYNAS
TY?

  The list closes with a commentator of no great originality perhaps, but gifted with admirable powers of lucid exposition. His commentary is based on that of Ts’ao Kung, whose terse sentences he contrives to expand and develop in masterly fashion. Without Chang Yü, it is safe to say that much of Ts’ao Kung’s commentary would have remained cloaked in its pristine obscurity and therefore valueless. His work … finds a niche in the T’ung Chih, [a literary history] which also names him as the author of the “Lives of Famous Generals.”

  It is rather remarkable that the last-named four should all have flourished within so short a space of time. Ch’ao Kung-wu accounts for it by saying,

  During the early years of the Sung dynasty the Empire enjoyed a long spell of peace, and men ceased to practise the art of war. But when [Chao] Yüan-hao’s rebellion came (1038-42) and the frontier generals were defeated time after time, the Court made strenuous enquiry for men skilled in war, and military topics became the vogue amongst all the high officials. Hence it is that the commentators of Sun Tzu in our dynasty belong mainly to that period.

  FOR FURTHER READING

  The first thing to know about Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War, is that he would be amazed and horrified to learn that you are reading his book! As Burton Watson, the great translator of classical Chinese and Japanese literature, points out, it was assumed in ancient China “that anyone to whom the text was transmitted would receive instruction in its meaning when he received the text.” Writing still carried the charge of the supernatural, of sacred knowledge. Only a warrior scholar could have composed this text, and only those who were initiated could have received it. The following list of books and sources is offered for today’s readers who would like to gain a deeper comprehension of The Art of War in the fullness of how it should be understood.

  When Sun Tzu composed his treatise, wars were dictated by kings and run by elites. The world over, they were fought for territory or other gain. Education was predicated on knowledge of the “classics” that, West or East, focused in large part on a literature bound up in tales of war. Thoroughgoing training in strategy was part of a proper education, and dabbling in military history was a common hobby of members of the upper classes and informed their rhetorical oratory.

  The education of the upper classes continued to emphasize the classics and war through the late nineteenth century, when our translator, Lionel Giles, began his singular work in England. While he labored to bridge the vast differences in history, language, and customs between his readers and Sun Tzu, Giles was in important respects working from a similar mind-set: He was well-read in the classics of Greece and Rome, deeply trained in military history, and aware of the foibles of contemporary politics and policies—not to mention being a great sinologist in his own right and the son of another.

  But today, as armchair warriors, we must search Western and Eastern sources for the references that will bring Sun Tzu’s text to meaningful life. This list of suggested sources, which ranges over a number of disciplines, includes works written by the founders of Western civilized thought at the time Sun Tzu was composing The Art of War and works with insights into the lives of those who fight. The section concludes with a list of Internet sources that lead through hyperlinks to a suite of related disciplines, and films that offer graphic depictions of the complexities of the ancient Asian warrior ethic.

  Books

  Asian Studies

  de Bary, William Theodore, Wing-tsit Chan, and Burton Watson, eds. Sources of Chinese Tradition. Vol. 1 in the series Introduction to Oriental Civilizations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. One of the great research tools for students of Asian affairs.

  Hawkes, David. Ch’u Tz’u: The Songs of the South. Oxford: Clar-endon Press, 1959. Beautiful translations of songs from one of the five Confucian classics, The Book of Songs.

  Kitagawa, Joseph M., ed. The Religious Traditions of Asia. New York: Macmillan, 1989.

  Payne, Robert. Mao Tse-Tung. 1950. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1969. A superlative biography and fount of unusual insights, historical comparisons, personal encounters, poetry, and research on the military strategies of one of the seminal figures of the twentieth century. Mao used his knowledge of The Art of War to fend off the invading Japanese in World War II and to beat Chiang Kai-chek, another aficionado of Sun Tzu, in China’s civil war. Payne provides extraordinary sociological insight into life in China and the workings of military strategy.

  ———. A Rage for China. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977. Reminiscences of a witness to some of the most important events of twentieth-century Chinese history.

  ———. The White Pony. New York: John Day, 1947. Songs and poetry that would have been heard by Sun Tzu. Called Ch’u songs and Yüeh fu ballads, they are translated by Payne and some of China’s best mid-twentieth-century poets and scholars.

  Waley, Arthur. The Book of Songs. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1937. Also known as The Book of Odes. One of the five Classics of Confucius, translated for the general reader, and one of the first—and perhaps the most accessible, after Payne’s The White Pony—of all early Chinese poetry works in English. Like Lionel Giles, Waley was a great pioneer of translation from Chinese to English.

  Watson, Burton. Early Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962. A seminal work of history and criticism; an essential research tool.

  ———, trans. Courtier and Commoner in Ancient China: Selections from the History of the Former Han by Pan Ku. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977. Pan Ku’s celebrated and influential work has been a model for dynastic history since its appearance in the first century A.D. Translated by a legendary author whose scholarship is breathtaking.

  ———, trans. Records of the Grand Historian of China: Translated from the Shih chi of Ssu-ma Chi’en. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961. The great history of early China; sets the standard for all subsequent historical writing in the East. Filled with fascinating, sometimes amusing, often horrifying, anecdotes of life, war, and mini-biographies, this book has been compared to Plutarch’s Lives.

  Other Translations of The Art of War

  Of the scores of versions of The Art of War that have been published in the United States since the 1960s, a considerable number use the book as a jumping-off point for their own purposes—mainly, how to win: in business, filmmaking, martial arts, litigation. Here are some of the better editions.

  Ames, Roger T. Sun Tzu: The Art of Warfare. New York: Bal-lantine Books, 1993. Contains both the original Chinese text and the English translation. Ames was the first to publish a version based on the Yin Chüeh Shan text—ancient bamboo strips found in Linyi, China, in 1972; provides a fair amount of cultural and philosophical background.

  Clavell, James. The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. New York: Dela-corte Press, 1983. The Lionel Giles version as emended and rewritten by Clavell.

  Cleary, Thomas. The Art of War. Boston: Shambhala, 1988. Cleary is a good translator, and his introductions are superlative.

  ———. The Lost Art of War. San Francisco: HarperSan-Francisco, 1996. Also known as The Art of War II and Sun Tzu II—written by Sun Pin, said to be a descendant of Sun Tzu.

  Denma Translation Group. Sun Tzu, The Art of War: A New Translation. Boston: Shambhala, 2001. The most recent and authoritative translation; includes valuable explanatory essays and a commentary. The translators used a version of the text known as the Yin Chüeh Shan, the oldest version ever found, dating from c.140-118 B.C.; it was copied onto thin bamboo strips, preserved for centuries, and discovered in 1972.

  Griffith, Samuel B. Sun Tzu: The Art of War. With a foreword by B. H. Liddell Hart. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963. Griffith is an expert in the analysis of military matters who also provides an analysis of Sun Tzu’s influence on Mao Tse-tung and the Japanese military. Liddell Hart is also a brilliant writer on military affairs.

  Sawyer, Ralph D., and Mei-chün Lee Sawyer. Sun Tzu: The Art of
War. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1994. For readers interested in Chinese history and military weaponry.

  Wing, R. L. The Art of Strategy. New York: Doubleday, 1988. The Art of War with commentary that focuses on the strategic realm; suggests that war not be waged save to preserve one’s territory.

  War and Strategy

  Ambrose, Stephen E. American Heritage New History of World War II. Revised and updated by Stephen Ambrose based on the original text by C. L. Sulzberger. New York: Viking Press, 1997.

  Cairnes, William E., and David G. Chandler. The Military Maxims of Napoleon. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995. Chandler updates the edition of Napoleon’s maxims produced in 1901 by Cairnes and provides further commentary.

  Churchill, Winston. The Second World War. 6 vols. London: Cassell, 1948-1954. An invaluable account by Britain’s wartime prime minister and an architect of the Allied victory.

  Clough, A. H., ed. Plutarch: Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans. Translated by John Dryden. New York: Modern Library, 1992.

  Cook, Haruko Taya, and Theodore F. Cook. Japan at War: An Oral History. New York: New Press, 1992.

  Freedman, Lawrence, ed. War. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. A formidable collection of essays by renowned scholars.

  Handel, Michael I. Masters of War: Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Jomini. Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1992. Compares Sun Tzu’s approach with that of two great nineteenth-century military thinkers. General Baron Antoine-Henri de Jomini was a French-Swiss commander who served under Napoleon and later the czar; his approach to strategy focused on speed, agility, and an aggressive offense. Von Clausewitz, the great Prussian theorist, was strong on defense; he believed wars are won by attrition, inducing the enemy into massive affairs in which the last man standing wins. Handel suggests neither stands the test of time as Sun Tzu has.

  Hastings, Max. The Korean War. New York: Simon and Schus-ter, 1987.

  Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Art of War. 1521. A revised edition of the Ellis Farneworth translation; with an introduction by Neal Wood. New York: Da Capo Press, 1990.