The Master said, 'Mang Kung-ch'o is more than fit to be chief officer in the families of Chao and Wei, but he is not fit to be great officer to either of the States Tang or Hsieh.'
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Nan-kung Kwo, submitting an inquiry to Confucius, said, 'I was skillful at archery, and Ao could move a boat along upon the land, but neither of them died a natural death. Yu and Chi personally wrought at the toils of husbandry, and they became possessors of the kingdom.' The Master made no reply; but when Nan-kung Kwo went out, he said, 'A superior man indeed is this! An esteemer of virtue indeed is this!'
[Tu Mu says: "If we wish to wrest an advantage from the enemy, we must not fix our minds on that alone, but allow for the possibility of the enemy also doing some harm to us, and let this enter as a factor into our calculations."]
And if we are able thus to attack an inferior force with a superior one, our opponents will be in dire straits.
Tsze-kung was in the habit of comparing men together. The Master said, 'Tsze must have reached a high pitch of excellence! Now, I have not leisure for this.'
The Master said, 'Great indeed was Yao as a sovereign! How majestic was he! It is only Heaven that is grand, and only Yao corresponded to it. How vast was his virtue! The people could find no name for it. 2. 'How majestic was he in the works which he accomplished! How glorious in the elegant regulations which he instituted!'
The disciple Min was standing by his side, looking bland and precise; Tsze-lu, looking bold and soldierly; Zan Yu and Tsze-kung, with a free and straightforward manner. The Master was pleased. 2. He said, 'Yu, there!-- he will not die a natural death.'
[Literally, "the leader of the first division will be torn away."]
When the villagers were drinking together, on those who carried staffs going out, he went out immediately after. 2. When the villagers were going through their ceremonies to drive away pestilential influences, he put on his court robes and stood on the eastern steps.
The philosopher Tsang said, 'The superior man on grounds of culture meets with his friends, and by their friendship helps his virtue.'
(3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults;
“If you have not known how to make the best use of it, if it was unprofitable to you, what need you care to lose it, to what end would you desire longer to keep it?
--there is more in them of opposition and obstinacy than is consistent with so sacred a profession; but whatsoever personage a man takes upon himself to perform, he ever mixes his own part with it.
[2] For a number of maxims on this head, see "Marshal Turenne" (Longmans, 1907), p. 29.
[Ts’ao Kung defines the Chinese word translated here as "cowardice" as being of the man "whom timidity prevents from advancing to seize an advantage," and Wang Hsi adds "who is quick to flee at the sight of danger." Meng Shih gives the closer paraphrase "he who is bent on returning alive," this is, the man who will never take a risk. But, as Sun Tzŭ knew, nothing is to be achieved in war unless you are willing to take risks. T’ai Kung said: "He who lets an advantage slip will subsequently bring upon himself real disaster." In 404 A.D., Liu Yu pursued the rebel Huan Hsuan up the Yangtsze and fought a naval battle with him at the island of Ch’eng-hung. The loyal troops numbered only a few thousands, while their opponents were in great force. But Huan Hsuan, fearing the fate which was in store for him should be be overcome, had a light boat made fast to the side of his war-junk, so that he might escape, if necessary, at a moment’s notice. The natural result was that the fighting spirit of his soldiers was utterly quenched, and when the loyalists made an attack from windward with fireships, all striving with the utmost ardor to be first in the fray, Huan Hsuan’s forces were routed, had to burn all their baggage and fled for two days and nights without stopping. Chang Yu tells a somewhat similar story of Chao Ying-ch’i, a general of the Chin State who during a battle with the army of Ch’u in 597 B.C. had a boat kept in readiness for him on the river, wishing in case of defeat to be the first to get across.]
The Master said, 'I returned from Wei to Lu, and then the music was reformed, and the pieces in the Royal songs and Praise songs all found their proper places.'
[“Who in his folly seeks to advance backwards”--Lucretius, iv. 474]
These are the five besetting sins of a general, ruinous to the conduct of war.
The Master said, 'Though a man have abilities as admirable as those of the Duke of Chau, yet if he be proud and niggardly, those other things are really not worth being looked at.'
“Death is less to be feared than nothing, if there could be anything less than nothing.