The Art of War | Page 7

military conditions of his time. To say nothing of the fact that these sayings have been accepted and endorsed by all the greatest captains of Chinese history, they offer a combination of freshness and sincerity, acuteness and common sense, which quite excludes the idea that they were artificially concocted in the study. If we admit, then, that the 13 chapters were the genuine production of a military man living towards the end of the "CH`UN CH`IU" period, are we not bound, in spite of the silence of the TSO CHUAN, to accept Ssu-ma Ch`ien's account in its entirety? In view of his high repute as a sober historian, must we not hesitate to assume that the records he drew upon for Sun Wu's biography were false and untrustworthy? The answer, I fear, must be in the negative. There is still one grave, if not fatal, objection to the chronology involved in the story as told in the SHIH CHI, which, so far as I am aware, nobody has yet pointed out. There are two passages in Sun Tzu in which he alludes to contemporary affairs. The first in in VI. ss. 21: --
Though according to my estimate the soldiers of Yueh exceed our own in number, that shall advantage them nothing in the matter of victory. I say then that victory can be achieved.
The other is in XI. ss. 30: --
Asked if an army can be made to imitate the SHUAI-JAN, I should answer, Yes. For the men of Wu and the men of Yueh are enemies; yet if they are crossing a river in the same boat and are caught by a storm, they will come to each other's assistance just as the left hand helps the right.
These two paragraphs are extremely valuable as evidence of the date of composition. They assign the work to the period of the struggle between Wu and Yueh. So much has been observed by Pi I-hsun. But what has hitherto escaped notice is that they also seriously impair the credibility of Ssu-ma Ch`ien's narrative. As we have seen above, the first positive date given in connection with Sun Wu is 512 B.C. He is then spoken of as a general, acting as confidential adviser to Ho Lu, so that his alleged introduction to that monarch had already taken place, and of course the 13 chapters must have been written earlier still. But at that time, and for several years after, down to the capture of Ying in 506, Ch`u and not Yueh, was the great hereditary enemy of Wu. The two states, Ch`u and Wu, had been constantly at war for over half a century, [31] whereas the first war between Wu and Yueh was waged only in 510, [32] and even then was no more than a short interlude sandwiched in the midst of the fierce struggle with Ch`u. Now Ch`u is not mentioned in the 13 chapters at all. The natural inference is that they were written at a time when Yueh had become the prime antagonist of Wu, that is, after Ch`u had suffered the great humiliation of 506. At this point, a table of dates may be found useful.
B.C. | | 514 | Accession of Ho Lu. 512 | Ho Lu attacks Ch`u, but is dissuaded from entering Ying, | the capital. SHI CHI mentions Sun Wu as general. 511 | Another attack on Ch`u. 510 | Wu makes a successful attack on Yueh. This is the first | war between the two states. 509 | or | Ch`u invades Wu, but is signally defeated at Yu-chang. 508 | 506 | Ho Lu attacks Ch`u with the aid of T`ang and Ts`ai. | Decisive battle of Po-chu, and capture of Ying. Last | mention of Sun Wu in SHIH CHI. 505 | Yueh makes a raid on Wu in the absence of its army. Wu | is beaten by Ch`in and evacuates Ying. 504 | Ho Lu sends Fu Ch`ai to attack Ch`u. 497 | Kou Chien becomes King of Yueh. 496 | Wu attacks Yueh, but is defeated by Kou Chien at Tsui-li. | Ho Lu is killed. 494 | Fu Ch`ai defeats Kou Chien in the great battle of Fu- | chaio, and enters the capital of Yueh. 485 | or | Kou Chien renders homage to Wu. Death of Wu Tzu-hsu. 484 | 482 | Kou Chien invades Wu in the absence of Fu Ch`ai. 478 | to | Further attacks by Yueh on Wu. 476 | 475 | Kou Chien lays siege to the capital of Wu. 473 | Final defeat and extinction of Wu.
The sentence quoted above from VI. ss. 21 hardly strikes me as one that could have been written in the full flush of victory. It seems rather to imply that, for