VI. WEAK POINTS AND STRONG

VI. WEAK POINTS AND STRONG

[Chang Yu attempts to explain the sequence of chapters as

follows: "Chapter IV, on Tactical Dispositions, treated of the

offensive and the defensive; chapter V, on Energy, dealt with

direct and indirect methods. The good general acquaints himself

first with the theory of attack and defense, and then turns his

attention to direct and indirect methods. He studies the art of

varying and combining these two methods before proceeding to the

subject of weak and strong points. For the use of direct or

indirect methods arises out of attack and defense, and the

perception of weak and strong points depends again on the above

methods. Hence the present chapter comes immediately after the

chapter on Energy."]

1. Sun Tzu said: Whoever is first in the field and awaits

the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is

second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive

exhausted.

2. Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the

enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.

[One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own

terms or fights not at all. [1] ]

3. By holding out advantages to him, he can cause the enemy

to approach of his own accord; or, by inflicting damage, he can

make it impossible for the enemy to draw near.

[In the first case, he will entice him with a bait; in the

second, he will strike at some important point which the enemy

will have to defend.]

4. If the enemy is taking his ease, he can harass him;

[This passage may be cited as evidence against Mei Yao-

Ch`en's interpretation of I. ss. 23.]

if well supplied with food, he can starve him out; if quietly

encamped, he can force him to move.

5. Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend;

march swiftly to places where you are not expected.

6. An army may march great distances without distress, if

it marches through country where the enemy is not.

[Ts`ao Kung sums up very well: "Emerge from the void [q.d.

like "a bolt from the blue"], strike at vulnerable points, shun

places that are defended, attack in unexpected quarters."]

7. You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you

only attack places which are undefended.

[Wang Hsi explains "undefended places" as "weak points; that

is to say, where the general is lacking in capacity, or the

soldiers in spirit; where the walls are not strong enough, or the

precautions not strict enough; where relief comes too late, or

provisions are too scanty, or the defenders are variance amongst

themselves."]

You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold

positions that cannot be attacked.

[I.e., where there are none of the weak points mentioned

above. There is rather a nice point involved in the

interpretation of this later clause. Tu Mu, Ch`en Hao, and Mei

Yao-ch`en assume the meaning to be: "In order to make your

defense quite safe, you must defend EVEN those places that are

not likely to be attacked;" and Tu Mu adds: "How much more,

then, those that will be attacked." Taken thus, however, the

clause balances less well with the preceding--always a

consideration in the highly antithetical style which is natural

to the Chinese. Chang Yu, therefore, seems to come nearer the

mark in saying: "He who is skilled in attack flashes forth from

the topmost heights of heaven [see IV. ss. 7], making it

impossible for the enemy to guard against him. This being so,

the places that I shall attack are precisely those that the enemy

cannot defend.... He who is skilled in defense hides in the most

secret recesses of the earth, making it impossible for the enemy

to estimate his whereabouts. This being so, the places that I

shall hold are precisely those that the enemy cannot attack."]

8. Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent

does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose

opponent does not know what to attack.

[An aphorism which puts the whole art of war in a nutshell.]

9. O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we

learn to be invisible, through you inaudible;

[Literally, "without form or sound," but it is said of

course with reference to the enemy.]

and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.

10. You may advance and be absolutely irresistible, if you

make for the enemy's weak points; you may retire and be safe from

pursuit if your movements are more rapid than those of the enemy.

11. If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an

engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and

a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some other place that he

will be obliged to relieve.

[Tu Mu says: "If the enemy is the invading party, we can

cut his line of communications and occupy the roads by which he

will have to return; if we are the invaders, we may direct our

attack against the sovereign himself." It is clear that Sun Tzu,

unlike certain generals in the late Boer war, was no believer in

frontal attacks.]

12. If we do not wish to fight, we can prevent the enemy

from engaging us even though the lines of our encampment be

merely traced out on the ground. All we need do is to throw

something odd and unaccountable in his way.

[This extremely concise expression is intelligibly

paraphrased by Chia Lin: "even though we have constructed

neither wall nor ditch." Li Ch`uan says: "we puzzle him by

strange and unusual dispositions;" and Tu Mu finally clinches the

meaning by three illustrative anecdotes--one of Chu-ko Liang, who

when occupying Yang-p`ing and about to be attacked by Ssu-ma I,

suddenly struck his colors, stopped the beating of the drums, and

flung open the city gates, showing only a few men engaged in

sweeping and sprinkling the ground. This unexpected proceeding

had the intended effect; for Ssu-ma I, suspecting an ambush,

actually drew off his army and retreated. What Sun Tzu is

advocating here, therefore, is nothing more nor less than the

timely use of "bluff."]

13. By discovering the enemy's dispositions and remaining

invisible ourselves, we can keep our forces concentrated, while

the enemy's must be divided.

[The conclusion is perhaps not very obvious, but Chang Yu

(after Mei Yao-ch`en) rightly explains it thus: "If the enemy's

dispositions are visible, we can make for him in one body;

whereas, our own dispositions being kept secret, the enemy will

be obliged to divide his forces in order to guard against attack

from every quarter."]

14. We can form a single united body, while the enemy must

split up into fractions. Hence there will be a whole pitted

against separate parts of a whole, which means that we shall be

many to the enemy's few.

15. And if we are able thus to attack an inferior force

with a superior one, our opponents will be in dire straits.

16. The spot where we intend to fight must not be made

known; for then the enemy will have to prepare against a possible

attack at several different points;

[Sheridan once explained the reason of General Grant's

victories by saying that "while his opponents were kept fully

employed wondering what he was going to do, HE was thinking most

of what he was going to do himself."]

and his forces being thus distributed in many directions, the

numbers we shall have to face at any given point will be

proportionately few.

17. For should the enemy strengthen his van, he will weaken

his rear; should he strengthen his rear, he will weaken his van;

should he strengthen his left, he will weaken his right; should

he strengthen his right, he will weaken his left. If he sends

reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak.

[In Frederick the Great's INSTRUCTIONS TO HIS GENERALS we

read: "A defensive war is apt to betray us into too frequent

detachment. Those generals who have had but little experience

attempt to protect every point, while those who are better

acquainted with their profession, having only the capital object

in view, guard against a decisive blow, and acquiesce in small

misfortunes to avoid greater."]

18. Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against

possible attacks; numerical strength, from compelling our

adversary to make these preparations against us.

[The highest generalship, in Col. Henderson's words, is "to

compel the enemy to disperse his army, and then to concentrate

superior force against each fraction in turn."]

19. Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we

may concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight.

[What Sun Tzu evidently has in mind is that nice calculation

of distances and that masterly employment of strategy which

enable a general to divide his army for the purpose of a long and

rapid march, and afterwards to effect a junction at precisely the

right spot and the right hour in order to confront the enemy in

overwhelming strength. Among many such successful junctions

which military history records, one of the most dramatic and

decisive was the appearance of Blucher just at the critical

moment on the field of Waterloo.]

20. But if neither time nor place be known, then the left

wing will be impotent to succor the right, the right equally

impotent to succor the left, the van unable to relieve the rear,

or the rear to support the van. How much more so if the furthest

portions of the army are anything under a hundred LI apart, and

even the nearest are separated by several LI!

[The Chinese of this last sentence is a little lacking in

precision, but the mental picture we are required to draw is

probably that of an army advancing towards a given rendezvous in

separate columns, each of which has orders to be there on a fixed

date. If the general allows the various detachments to proceed

at haphazard, without precise instructions as to the time and

place of meeting, the enemy will be able to annihilate the army

in detail. Chang Yu's note may be worth quoting here: "If we do

not know the place where our opponents mean to concentrate or the

day on which they will join battle, our unity will be forfeited

through our preparations for defense, and the positions we hold

will be insecure. Suddenly happening upon a powerful foe, we

shall be brought to battle in a flurried condition, and no mutual

support will be possible between wings, vanguard or rear,

especially if there is any great distance between the foremost

and hindmost divisions of the army."]

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.

[Alas for these brave words! The long feud between the two

states ended in 473 B.C. with the total defeat of Wu by Kou Chien

and its incorporation in Yueh. This was doubtless long after Sun

Tzu's death. With his present assertion compare IV. ss. 4.

Chang Yu is the only one to point out the seeming discrepancy,

which he thus goes on to explain: "In the chapter on Tactical

Dispositions it is said, 'One may KNOW how to conquer without

being able to DO it,' whereas here we have the statement that

'victory' can be achieved.' The explanation is, that in the

former chapter, where the offensive and defensive are under

discussion, it is said that if the enemy is fully prepared, one

cannot make certain of beating him. But the present passage

refers particularly to the soldiers of Yueh who, according to Sun

Tzu's calculations, will be kept in ignorance of the time and

place of the impending struggle. That is why he says here that

victory can be achieved."]

22. Though the enemy be stronger in numbers, we may prevent

him from fighting. Scheme so as to discover his plans and the

likelihood of their success.

[An alternative reading offered by Chia Lin is: "Know

beforehand all plans conducive to our success and to the enemy's

failure."

23. Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or

inactivity.

[Chang Yu tells us that by noting the joy or anger shown by

the enemy on being thus disturbed, we shall be able to conclude

whether his policy is to lie low or the reverse. He instances

the action of Cho-ku Liang, who sent the scornful present of a

woman's head-dress to Ssu-ma I, in order to goad him out of his

Fabian tactics.]

Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable

spots.

24. Carefully compare the opposing army with your own, so

that you may know where strength is superabundant and where it is

deficient.

[Cf. IV. ss. 6.]

25. In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you

can attain is to conceal them;

[The piquancy of the paradox evaporates in translation.

Concealment is perhaps not so much actual invisibility (see supra

ss. 9) as "showing no sign" of what you mean to do, of the plans

that are formed in your brain.]

conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying

of the subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest

brains.

[Tu Mu explains: "Though the enemy may have clever and

capable officers, they will not be able to lay any plans against

us."]

26. How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy's

own tactics--that is what the multitude cannot comprehend.

27. All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what

none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.

[I.e., everybody can see superficially how a battle is won;

what they cannot see is the long series of plans and combinations

which has preceded the battle.]

28. Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one

victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite

variety of circumstances.

[As Wang Hsi sagely remarks: "There is but one root-

principle underlying victory, but the tactics which lead up to it

are infinite in number." With this compare Col. Henderson: "The

rules of strategy are few and simple. They may be learned in a

week. They may be taught by familiar illustrations or a dozen

diagrams. But such knowledge will no more teach a man to lead an

army like Napoleon than a knowledge of grammar will teach him to

write like Gibbon."]

29. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its

natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.

30. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to

strike at what is weak.

[Like water, taking the line of least resistance.]

31. Water shapes its course according to the nature of the

ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in

relation to the foe whom he is facing.

32. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so

in warfare there are no constant conditions.

33. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his

opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-

born captain.

34. The five elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) are

not always equally predominant;

[That is, as Wang Hsi says: "they predominate

alternately."]

the four seasons make way for each other in turn.

[Literally, "have no invariable seat."]

There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of waning

and waxing.

[Cf. V. ss. 6. The purport of the passage is simply to

illustrate the want of fixity in war by the changes constantly

taking place in Nature. The comparison is not very happy,

however, because the regularity of the phenomena which Sun Tzu

mentions is by no means paralleled in war.]

[1] See Col. Henderson's biography of Stonewall Jackson, 1902

ed., vol. II, p. 490.