The Art of War

Tso Chuan
, says: "If bees and scorpions carry

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poison, how much more will a hostile state! Even a puny opponent, then, should
not be treated with contempt."]
42. If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you,
they will not prove submissive; and, unless submissive, then will be
practically useless. If, when the soldiers have become attached to you,
punishments are not enforced, they will still be useless.
43. Therefore soldiers must be treated in the first instance with
humanity, but kept under control by means of iron discipline.
[Yen Tzu [B.C. 493] said of Ssu-ma Jang-chu: "His civil virtues endeared him
to the people; his martial prowess kept his enemies in awe." Cf. Wu Tzu, ch. 4
init.: "The ideal commander unites culture with a warlike temper; the profession
of arms requires a combination of hardness and tenderness."]
This is a certain road to victory.
44. If in training soldiers commands are habitually enforced, the
army will be well-disciplined; if not, its discipline will be bad.
45. If a general shows confidence in his men but always insists on
his orders being obeyed,
[Tu Mu says: "A general ought in time of peace to show kindly confidence in
his men and also make his authority respected, so that when they come to face
the enemy, orders may be executed and discipline maintained, because they all
trust and look up to him." What Sun Tzu has said in § 44, however, would lead
one rather to expect something like this: "If a general is always confident that his
orders will be carried out," etc."]
the gain will be mutual.
[Chang Yu says: "The general has confidence in the men under his command,
and the men are docile, having confidence in him. Thus the gain is mutual." He
quotes a pregnant sentence from Wei Liao Tzu, ch. 4: "The art of giving orders is
not to try to rectify minor blunders and not to be swayed by petty doubts."
Vacillation and fussiness are the surest means of sapping the confidence of an
army.]

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[1] "Aids to Scouting," p. 26.

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Chapter X. TERRAIN
[Only about a third of the chapter, comprising §§ 1-13, deals with "terrain,"
the subject being more fully treated in ch. XI. The "six calamities" are discussed
in §§ 14-20, and the rest of the chapter is again a mere string of desultory
remarks, though not less interesting, perhaps, on that account.]
1. Sun Tzu said: We may distinguish six kinds of terrain, to wit: (1)
Accessible ground;
[Mei Yao-ch’en says: "plentifully provided with roads and means of
communications."]
(2) entangling ground;
[The same commentator says: "Net-like country, venturing into which you
become entangled."]
(3) temporizing ground;
[Ground which allows you to "stave off" or "delay."]
(4) narrow passes; (5) precipitous heights; (6) positions at a great
distance from the enemy.
[It is hardly necessary to point out the faultiness of this classification. A
strange lack of logical perception is shown in the Chinaman's unquestioning
acceptance of glaring cross-divisions such as the above.]
2. Ground which can be freely traversed by both sides is called
accessible
.
3. With regard to ground of this nature, be before the enemy in

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occupying the raised and sunny spots, and carefully guard your line of
supplies.
[The general meaning of the last phrase is doubtlessly, as Tu Yu says, "not to
allow the enemy to cut your communications." In view of Napoleon's dictum,
"the secret of war lies in the communications," [1] we could wish that Sun Tzu
had done more than skirt the edge of this important subject here and in I. § 10,
VII. § 11. Col. Henderson says: "The line of supply may be said to be as vital to
the existence of an army as the heart to the life of a human being. Just as the
duelist who finds his adversary's point menacing him with certain death, and his
own guard astray, is compelled to conform to his adversary's movements, and to
content himself with warding off his thrusts, so the commander whose
communications are suddenly threatened finds himself in a false position, and he
will be fortunate if he has not to change all his plans, to split up his force into
more or less isolated detachments, and to fight with inferior numbers on ground
which he has not had time to prepare, and where defeat will not be an ordinary
failure, but will entail the ruin or surrender of his whole army." [2]
Then you will be able to fight with advantage.
4. Ground which can be abandoned but is hard to re-occupy is
called