The Art of War | Page 2

to the strain.
4. Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your
strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring
up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise,
will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.
5. Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has
never been seen associated with long delays.
6. There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged
warfare.
7. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that
can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.
8. The skillful soldier does not raise a second levy, neither are his
supply-wagons loaded more than twice.
9. Bring war material with you from home, but forage on the enemy.
Thus the army will have food enough for its needs.
10. Poverty of the State exchequer causes an army to be maintained by
contributions from a distance. Contributing to maintain an army at a
distance causes the people to be impoverished.
11. On the other hand, the proximity of an army causes prices to go up;
and high prices cause the people's substance to be drained away.
12. When their substance is drained away, the peasantry will be
afflicted by heavy exactions.
13,14. With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the
homes of the people will be stripped bare, and three-tenths of their
income will be dissipated; while government expenses for broken
chariots, worn-out horses, breast-plates and helmets, bows and arrows,
spears and shields, protective mantles, draught-oxen and heavy wagons,

will amount to four-tenths of its total revenue.
15. Hence a wise general makes a point of foraging on the enemy. One
cartload of the enemy's provisions is equivalent to twenty of one's own,
and likewise a single picul of his provender is equivalent to twenty
from one's own store.
16. Now in order to kill the enemy, our men must be roused to anger;
that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy, they must have
their rewards.
17. Therefore in chariot fighting, when ten or more chariots have been
taken, those should be rewarded who took the first. Our own flags
should be substituted for those of the enemy, and the chariots mingled
and used in conjunction with ours. The captured soldiers should be
kindly treated and kept.
18. This is called, using the conquered foe to augment one's own
strength.
19. In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy
campaigns.
20. Thus it may be known that the leader of armies is the arbiter of the
people's fate, the man on whom it depends whether the nation shall be
in peace or in peril.
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 shatter and destroy it is
not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to
destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than
to destroy them.
2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme
excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's
resistance without fighting.

3. Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans; the
next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in
order is to attack the enemy's army in the field; and the worst policy of
all is to besiege walled cities.
4. The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided.
The preparation of mantlets, movable shelters, and various implements
of war, will take up three whole months; and the piling up of mounds
over against the walls will take three months more.
5. The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to
the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men
are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous
effects of a siege.
6. Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any
fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he
overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.
7. With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery of the Empire, and
thus, without losing a man, his triumph will be complete. This is the
method of attacking by stratagem.
8. It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy's one, to
surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to
divide our army into two.
9. If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in
numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if