[I think Sun Tzu meant "stores accumulated in depots." But Tu Yu says "fodder and the like," Chang Yu says "Goods in general," and Wang Hsi says "fuel, salt, foodstuffs, etc."]
12. We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbors.
13. We are not fit to lead an army on the march unless we are familiar with the face of the country--its mountains and forests, its pitfalls and precipices, its marshes and swamps.
14. We shall be unable to turn natural advantage to account unless we make use of local guides.
[ss. 12-14 are repeated in chap. XI. ss. 52.]
15. In war, practice dissimulation, and you will succeed.
[In the tactics of Turenne, deception of the enemy, especially as to the numerical strength of his troops, took a very prominent position. [2] ]
16. Whether to concentrate or to divide your troops, must be decided by circumstances.
17. Let your rapidity be that of the wind,[The simile is doubly appropriate, because the wind is not only swift but, as Mei Yao-ch`en points out, "invisible and leaves no tracks."]
your compactness that of the forest.
[Meng Shih comes nearer to the mark in his note: "When slowly marching, order and ranks must be preserved"--so as to guard against surprise attacks. But natural forest do not grow in rows, whereas they do generally possess the quality of density or compactness.]
18. In raiding and plundering be like fire,[Cf. SHIH CHING, IV. 3. iv. 6: "Fierce as a blazing fire which no man can check."]
is immovability like a mountain.
[That is, when holding a position from which the enemy is trying to dislodge you, or perhaps, as Tu Yu says, when he is trying to entice you into a trap.]
19. Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
[Tu Yu quotes a saying of T`ai Kung which has passed into a proverb: "You cannot shut your ears to the thunder or your eyes to the lighting--so rapid are they." Likewise, an attack should be made so quickly that it cannot be parried.]
20. When you plunder a countryside, let the spoil be divided amongst your men;[Sun Tzu wishes to lessen the abuses of indiscriminate plundering by insisting that all booty shall be thrown into a common stock, which may afterwards be fairly divided amongst all.]
when you capture new territory, cut it up into allotments for the benefit of the soldiery.
[Ch`en Hao says "quarter your soldiers on the land, and let them sow and plant it." It is by acting on this principle, and harvesting the lands they invaded, that the Chinese have succeeded in carrying out some of their most memorable and triumphant expeditions, such as that of Pan Ch`ao who penetrated to the Caspian, and in more recent years, those of Fu-k`ang-an and Tso Tsung-t`ang.]
21. Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.
[Chang Yu quotes Wei Liao Tzu as saying that we must not break camp until we have gained the resisting power of the enemy and the cleverness of the opposing general. Cf. the "seven comparisons" in I. ss. 13.]
22. He will conquer who has learnt the artifice of deviation.
[See supra, SS. 3, 4.]
Such is the art of maneuvering.
[With these words, the chapter would naturally come to an end. But there now follows a long appendix in the shape of an extract from an earlier book on War, now lost, but apparently extant at the time when Sun Tzu wrote. The style of this fragment is not noticeable different from that of Sun Tzu himself, but no commentator raises a doubt as to its genuineness.]
23. The Book of Army Management says:
[It is perhaps significant that none of the earlier commentators give us any information about this work. Mei Yao-Ch`en calls it "an ancient military classic," and Wang Hsi, "an old book on war." Considering the enormous amount of fighting that had gone on for centuries before Sun Tzu's time between the various kingdoms and principalities of China, it is not in itself improbable that a collection of military maxims should have been made and written down at some earlier period.]
On the field of battle,[Implied, though not actually in the Chinese.]
the spoken word does not carry far enough: hence the institution of gongs and drums. Nor can ordinary objects be seen clearly enough: hence the institution of banners and flags.
24. Gongs and drums, banners and flags, are means whereby the ears and eyes of the host may be focused on one particular point.
[Chang Yu says:"If sight and hearing converge simultaneously on the same object, the evolutions of as many as a million soldiers will be like those of a single man."!]
25. The host thus forming a single united body, is it impossible either for the brave to advance alone, or for the cowardly to retreat alone.
[Chuang Yu quotes a saying: "Equally guilty are those who advance against orders and those who retreat against orders." Tu Mu tells a story in this connection of Wu Ch`i, when he was fighting against the Ch`in State. Before the battle had begun, one of his soldiers, a man of matchless daring, sallied forth by himself, captured two heads from the enemy, and returned to camp.
Wu Ch`i had the man instantly executed, whereupon an officer ventured to remonstrate, saying: "This man was a good soldier, and ought not to have been beheaded." Wu Ch`i replied: "I fully believe he was a good soldier, but I had him beheaded because he acted without orders."]
This is the art of handling large masses of men.
26. In night-fighting, then, make much use of signal-fires and drums, and in fighting by day, of flags and banners, as a means of influencing the ears and eyes of your army.
[Ch`en Hao alludes to Li Kuang-pi's night ride to Ho-yang at the head of 500 mounted men; they made such an imposing display with torches, that though the rebel leader Shih Ssu-ming had a large army, he did not dare to dispute their passage.]
