The Art of War: an anthology of China's ancient military philosophy

By Edgar Bailitis

The Art of War of Sun Tzu is often falsely touted as the oldest and first work on military strategy. This myth has become a mindset ever since China’s ancient historian Ssu-ma Ch’ien sometime between 109 BC and 91 BC penned the questionable biography of Sun Wu in his work, Historical Records.
Although the canons of the Sun Tzu Ping Fa have been endorsed by many a Western and Chinese military strategist, the personage of Sun Wu remains nebulous and the authorship of the work dubious. What is certain is that the Sun Tzu Ping Fa is one of thirteen books on the military art along with fifty four treatises pertaining to military matters that existed at the beginning of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD).
Furthermore, there is sufficient evidence from ancient Chinese texts, historical events and other facts, as well as the structure of and terminology within the thirteen chapters of the Art of War itself, to safely conclude that the work is in all probability an anthology dating from about 240 BC.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edgar Bailitis
• Release date: Aug 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301761753

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Sun Tzu Ping Fa: an anthology of China's ancient military philosophy.

Exposition and translation

by

Edgar Bailitis

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Edgar Bailitis

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preamble

Preface

Sun Tzu Ping Fa: fact, fiction and something in-between.

Authorship in Ancient China

Philosophical Content

The Legalist Influence

The Taoist Influence

The Five Elements

Additional Features

Text Structure

Conclusion

The Thirteen Chapters

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Preamble

This book is a variation of an honors thesis following five years of classical Chinese studies at Sydney University. Any errors, omissions and or oversights are entirely my responsibility. Of course, since the thesis was completed some time ago, other works, evidence and or archaeological discoveries may have come to light to either dispel or enhance the conclusion contained herein.

Be that as it may, this book's ultimate purpose is to provide stimulation for those interested in the subject matter; and above all to point out that not all that we are led to believe is necessarily the case, and that there is no benefit in taking anything at face value. In addition, what follows may be of some use to those intending to pursue their own detailed study of the Art of War of Sun Tzu. At the very least I hope that the reader finds some aspects of this book, if not all of it, interesting.

I use the Wade-Giles Romanization of the Chinese language as opposed to the Pinyin system. It's a personal preference. For the uninitiated, Romanised Chinese words with the same English spelling are not necessarily the same character in the Chinese language. The word Wu in 'Sun Wu', for example, is depicted by a different Chinese character to Wu in 'the State of Wu'.

The text of the Art of War of Sun Tzu was written in classical Chinese. That is to say, in general terms, there was only one written language in China prior to the 20th Century, and it was a language of sight, unintelligible by sound and concise, with nearly all words of one syllable only (many words of modern written Chinese are of two syllables). Also most of the classical and or literary Chinese characters have several meanings, the meaning of which at times could only be ascertained from the context.

Needless to say, only scholars who became known as Mandarins could read Chinese characters. It was only in the late 19th Century that Chinese vernacular language began to be written with the characters of the classical or literary language as it is also known. These characters are now called Traditional Chinese (used in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and by many pockets of overseas Chinese people) as opposed to Simplified Chinese introduced by the People's Republic of China.

Unfortunately, Chinese characters could not be used in this book to illustrate differences between certain Chinese characters that have the same English spelling (it seems that Chinese characters do not convert to either Western eBook formats, nor are Western language eReaders capable of reading Chinese characters). It would have been useful to have been able to use Chinese characters at various instances for clarification purposes. Nevertheless, despite this glitch it is hoped that sufficient clarity has been maintained.

Preface

Chinese society and culture was in many respects crystallized by the Ch'in Dynasty (221-207 BC) from which the word 'China' originated. Ch'in's legacy was a centralized, authoritarian system of government and the springboard for subsequent centuries of centralized government under a Confucian banner.

Before the Ch'in Dynasty, there was no centralized government, no China, nor was there a Middle Kingdom as the Chinese people call their nation. There were only small feudal States where hereditary kings competed with each other for supremacy century after century until by the 4th Century, only six States remained. This period was known as the 'Warring States' period (403-221 BC).

It was also a period when philosophical schools of thought contended with each other: the totalitarian Legalist school, the virtue of human relationships Confucian school, the laissez-faire Taoist school, and the altruist Mohist school to name just a few. The State of Ch'in flourished under a Legalist philosophy, mankind's first totalitarian philosophy, and finally gained the upper hand among the contending States.

So, apart from being a chaotic era, the Warring States period was also a period of great learning and innovative thought that had its center at Chi-hsia within the State of Ch'i, one of the contending States at the time. During a period of philosophical discussion within the context of widespread conflict, it was inevitable that military thought and theory would also flourish colored by the philosophical theories of the time. What we know as the Sun Tzu Ping Fa, the Art of War of Sun Tzu, erroneously attributed to one person, was a product arising from this period.

It has been said that a study of China's wars, and there have been many, albeit primarily confined within its borders, goes towards a fuller understanding of China. Behind all these wars and revolutions was the thought contained in the thirteen chapters of the Art of War of Sun Tzu. This work has attracted the attention of hundreds of Chinese, Japanese and Western scholars and military men, and has had a profound influence on political and military thought throughout China's history.

The most notable figure to endorse the content of the Sun Tzu military classic was Ts'ao Ts'ao (155-220 AD), venerated as 'the god of war' (often cited in the saying, 'shuo Ts'ao Ts'ao, Ts'ao Ts'ao jiu lai' which translates as, mention Ts'ao Ts'ao and he will appear; in other words, it's the Chinese equivalent of the phrase, 'speak of the devil') whose exploits at the time were Napoleonic in their scale. The work was also the source of Mao Tse-tung's theories and he paraphrased the Art of War many times.

The following pages are an exposition of the Art of War of Sun Tzu as an anthology of the military thought (and its associated philosophical connections) of the Warring States period. The Art of War was first recorded on bamboo strips, as were other ancient works until paper was invented in 105 AD.

Following the exposition is my translation of the text based on Sun Hsing-yen's edition from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD). Chapter sections have been introduced to indicate what I consider to be a tenuous connection of certain lines within a chapter.

The Art of War of Sun Tzu: fact, fiction and something in-between.

The thirteen chapters that make up the Art of War of Sun Tzu is one body of work to come out of the classical period of Chinese literature, a period generally designated to have commenced in 551 BC, the possible birth date of Confucius, and continued until 249 BC when King Chao of Ch'in liquidated the Chou Dynasty. It has attracted the attention of numerous scholars over the centuries who have attempted to either prove or disprove the authenticity of the text as a work composed in 500 BC by Sun Wu Tzu, a contemporary of King Ho Lu (r. 514-496 BC) of the State of Wu.

The only authoritative source of this tradition is the biography of Sun Tzu in the Shih Chi (Historical Records); the earliest general history of China that was written at the beginning of the first century BC by the Grand Historian, Ssu-ma Ch'ien (c 145-90 BC). The biography is as follows;

Sun Wu Tzu was a native of Ch'i State, and his military art was noticed by Ho Lu, King of Wu. Ho Lu said to him, I have read your thirteen chapters. May I submit your theory of employing troops to a test?

Sun Tzu replied, You may.

Therefore one hundred and eighty beautiful women were brought out from the palace. Sun Tzu divided them into two companies and put one of the King's favorite concubines at the head of each. He told them all to take halberds in their hands and addressed them saying, Do you know where the front is, and where the left and the right and the back is?

The women replied, Yes.

Sun Tzu then said, When I give the order 'front', face the front; when I say 'left, face towards the left hand; when I say 'right', face towards the right; when I say 'rear', face in the direction of your backs.

The women again said, We understand.

When these orders were announced the halberds and battle-axes were arranged. After having given the orders and explained them five times Sun Tzu then beat the drum signal to