[Regarding the "Yellow Emperor": Mei Yao-ch’en asks, with some plausibility, whether there is an error in the text as nothing is known of Huang Ti having conquered four other Emperors. The Shih Chi (ch. 1 ad init.) speaks only of his victories over Yen Ti and Ch’ih Yu. In the Liu T’ao it is mentioned that he "fought seventy battles and pacified the Empire." Ts’ao Kung’s explanation is, that the Yellow Emperor was the first to institute the feudal system of vassals princes, each of whom (to the number of four) originally bore the title of Emperor. Li Ch’uan tells us that the art of war originated under Huang Ti, who received it from his Minister Feng Hou.]
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[Defined as "low-lying places, so heavy with mud as to be impassable for chariots and horsemen."]
While we keep away from such places, we should get the enemy to approach them; while we face them, we should let the enemy have them on his rear.
[Defined by Mei Yao-ch’en as "a narrow difficult way between beetling cliffs." Tu Mu’s note is "ground covered with trees and rocks, and intersected by numerous ravines and pitfalls." This is very vague, but Chia Lin explains it clearly enough as a defile or narrow pass, and Chang Yu takes much the same view. On the whole, the weight of the commentators certainly inclines to the rendering "defile." But the ordinary meaning of the Chinese in one place is "a crack or fissure" and the fact that the meaning of the Chinese elsewhere in the sentence indicates something in the nature of a defile, make me think that Sun Tzŭ is here speaking of crevasses.]
Country in which there are precipitous cliffs with torrents running between, deep natural hollows,
Sun Tzŭ said: We come now to the question of encamping the army, and observing signs of the enemy. Pass quickly over mountains, and keep in the neighbourhood of valleys.
["In order to tempt the enemy to cross after you," according to Ts’ao Kung, and also, says Chang Yu, "in order not to be impeded in your evolutions." The T’ung Tien reads, "If the enemy crosses a river," etc. But in view of the next sentence, this is almost certainly an interpolation.]
After crossing a river, you should get far away from it.
In dry, level country, take up an easily accessible position with rising ground to your right and on your rear,
Do not climb heights in order to fight. So much for mountain warfare.
[Defined as "places covered with such dense undergrowth that spears cannot be used."]
The Art of War — Chapter 9: Chapter 8: The Army On The March (part 1/2)
You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken.
[Tu Mu quotes T’ai Kung as saying: "An army should have a stream or a marsh on its left, and a hill or tumulus on its right."]
Moor your craft higher up than the enemy, and facing the sun.
When an invading force crosses a river in its onward march, do not advance to meet it in mid-stream. It will be best to let half the army get across, and then deliver your attack.
And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge?
[The contents of this interesting chapter are better indicated in § 1 than by this heading.]
[Those, namely, concerned with (1) mountains, (2) rivers, (3) marshes, and (4) plains. Compare Napoleon’s "Military Maxims," no. 1.]
Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorised ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mould the body with their hands; but most of those which are now in use must be discarded.