Chapter 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 defence, 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
defence, 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 Tzŭ 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. § 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 defence 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 defence 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. § 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 defence 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 skilful in attack whose opponent does not know what
to defend; and he is skilful in defence 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 Tzŭ, 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 Tzŭ 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 Tzŭ 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 succour the right, the right equally impotent to succour 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 defence, 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 Yüeh 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 Yüeh.
This was doubtless long after Sun Tzŭ’s death. With his present assertion
compare IV. § 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 Yüeh who, according to Sun Tzŭ’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. § 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 § 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. § 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
Tzŭ mentions is by no means paralleled in war.]

[1] See Col. Henderson’s biography of Stonewall Jackson, 1902 ed., vol. II, p.
490.