====================================<\/p>\n
DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING TRANSLATION IS FROM THE OPEN DOMAIN AND MAY CONTAIN SIGNIFICANT ERRORS. THE EDITING IS IN PROCESS AND PLEASE USE IT WITH CAUTION.<\/p>\n
III. ATTACK BY STRATAGEM<\/p>\n
1. Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best
\nthing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact;
\nto shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is
\nbetter to recapture an army entire than to destroy it,
\nto capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire
\nthan to destroy them.<\/p>\n
2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles
\nis not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists
\nin breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.<\/p>\n
3. Thus the highest form of generalship is to
\nbalk the enemy’s plans; the next best is to prevent
\nthe junction of the enemy’s forces; the next in
\norder is to attack the enemy’s army in the field;
\nand the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.<\/p>\n
4. The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it
\ncan possibly be avoided. The preparation of mantlets,
\nmovable shelters, and various implements of war, will take
\nup three whole months; and the piling up of mounds over
\nagainst the walls will take three months more.<\/p>\n
5. The general, unable to control his irritation,
\nwill launch his men to the assault like swarming ants,
\nwith the result that one-third of his men are slain,
\nwhile the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous
\neffects of a siege.<\/p>\n
6. Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy’s
\ntroops without any fighting; he captures their cities
\nwithout laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom
\nwithout lengthy operations in the field.<\/p>\n
7. With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery
\nof the Empire, and thus, without losing a man, his triumph
\nwill be complete. This is the method of attacking by stratagem.<\/p>\n
8. It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten
\nto the enemy’s one, to surround him; if five to one,
\nto attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army
\ninto two.<\/p>\n
9. If equally matched, we can offer battle;
\nif slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy;
\nif quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him.<\/p>\n
10. Hence, though an obstinate fight may be made
\nby a small force, in the end it must be captured
\nby the larger force.<\/p>\n
11. Now the general is the bulwark of the State;
\nif the bulwark is complete at all points; the State will
\nbe strong; if the bulwark is defective, the State will
\nbe weak.<\/p>\n
12. There are three ways in which a ruler can bring
\nmisfortune upon his army:–<\/p>\n
13. (1) By commanding the army to advance or to retreat,
\nbeing ignorant of the fact that it cannot obey.
\nThis is called hobbling the army.<\/p>\n
14. (2) By attempting to govern an army in the
\nsame way as he administers a kingdom, being ignorant
\nof the conditions which obtain in an army. This causes
\nrestlessness in the soldier’s minds.<\/p>\n
15. (3) By employing the officers of his army
\nwithout discrimination, through ignorance of the
\nmilitary principle of adaptation to circumstances.
\nThis shakes the confidence of the soldiers.<\/p>\n
16. But when the army is restless and distrustful,
\ntrouble is sure to come from the other feudal princes.
\nThis is simply bringing anarchy into the army, and flinging
\nvictory away.<\/p>\n
17. Thus we may know that there are five essentials
\nfor victory:
\n(1) He will win who knows when to fight and when
\nnot to fight.
\n(2) He will win who knows how to handle both superior
\nand inferior forces.
\n(3) He will win whose army is animated by the same
\nspirit throughout all its ranks.
\n(4) He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take
\nthe enemy unprepared.
\n(5) He will win who has military capacity and is
\nnot interfered with by the sovereign.<\/p>\n
18. Hence the saying: If you know the enemy
\nand know yourself, you need not fear the result of a
\nhundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy,
\nfor every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
\nIf you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will
\nsuccumb in every battle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
==================================== DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING TRANSLATION IS FROM THE OPEN DOMAIN AND MAY CONTAIN SIGNIFICANT ERRORS. THE EDITING IS IN PROCESS AND PLEASE USE IT WITH CAUTION. III. ATTACK BY STRATAGEM 1. Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1033,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1857,611,1856,199,220],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-of-war","category-fun","category-lsat","category-philosophy","category-school"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/zhang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/zhang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/zhang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/zhang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1033"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/zhang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/zhang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/zhang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/zhang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/zhang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}