Art of War (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (12 page)

5, 6
. The Moral Law
causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.

7.
Heaven
signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons.

 

Wang Hsi [see “Appendix: The Commentators”] . . . may be right in saying that what is meant is “the general economy of Heaven,” including the five elements, the four seasons, wind and clouds, and other phenomena.

Though from the earliest times the Chinese were monotheistic, by Sun Tzu’s era various lesser deities associated with the seasons and the elements had taken hold. DG

8.
Earth
comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death.

 

For Sun Tzu,
heaven
and
earth
conjure the conditions and the situations, as much as the physical terrain, whereby moral law is made manifest and played out. DG

9.
The Commander
stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerity, benevolence, courage and strictness.

 

The five cardinal virtues of the Chinese are (1) humanity or benevolence; (2) uprightness of mind; (3) self-respect, self-control, or “proper feeling”; (4) wisdom; (5) sincerity or good faith. Here wisdom and sincerity are put before humanity, and the two military virtues of “courage” and “strictness” [are] substituted for uprightness and self-respect.

10. By
Method and discipline
are to be understood the marshalling of the army in its proper subdivisions, the gradations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditure.

11. These five heads should be familiar to every general: he who knows them will be victorious; he who knows them not will fail.

12. Therefore, in your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison, in this wise:

13.

Tu Mu alludes to the remarkable story of Ts’ao Ts’ao (A.D.155-220), who was such a strict disciplinarian that once, in accordance with his own severe regulations against injury to standing crops, he condemned himself to death for having allowed his horse to shy into a field of corn! However, in lieu of losing his head, he was persuaded to satisfy his sense of justice by cutting off his hair. Ts’ao Ts’ao’s own comment on the present passage is characteristically curt: “When you lay down a law, see that it is not disobeyed; if it is disobeyed, the offender must be put to death.”

Morally as well as physically.

Tu Yu quotes [another commentator]: “Without constant practice, the officers will be nervous and undecided when mustering for battle; without constant practice, the general will be wavering and irresolute when the crisis is at hand.”