The Weiliaozi尉繚子

Scroll One卷一

Five chapters. The book opens not on war but on a superstition, and takes it apart. The Yellow Emperor’s “punishment and virtue” has nothing to do with choosing lucky days; a city holds out because its walls are high, its moat deep, its granaries full and its notables of one mind — not because the hour was wrong. The four words human effort, and nothing else are the key to the whole book, and the twenty-three chapters that follow are the cutting of that key. Discussing War weighs the resources of a state and the qualities of a commander; Discussing Regulations is about establishment and command; Martial Authority is about spirit and about what makes men willing to die; The Attacker’s Leverage is about the calculations open to the side on the offensive. Two sentences carry the scroll. From the third chapter: in all war, the regulations must be fixed first — the institution comes before the army. From the fourth: before a punishment has been inflicted, before the armies have met, there are five ways of robbing the enemy — the battle is decided before it is fought. The Han imperial bibliography classes Wei Liao among the writers on “configuration and momentum,” a school it describes as moving like thunder and rising like wind, striking last and arriving first, mastering the enemy by lightness and speed; the cascade of similes that closes the second chapter is exactly that voice. The same bibliography describes the school of yin-yang war as one that “infers punishment and virtue, follows the swing of the Dipper, and takes ghosts and spirits for allies.” That is the school the first chapter is written against.

The Offices of Heaven天官第一

Tian guan, “the offices of heaven,” is the technical term of the diviners: the auspicious and inauspicious days, stars and quarters. King Hui of Liang asks whether the Yellow Emperor’s punishment-and-virtue really brought a hundred victories. Wei Liao answers bluntly that the Yellow Emperor’s punishment and virtue meant punishing with one and holding with the other, and had nothing to do with reading the sky. Three proofs follow: a city that cannot be taken from any side is not failing on account of the hour; King Wu drew up with a river at his back and a slope in front — both of them fatal in the diviners’ books — and destroyed the Shang; and a Chu general attacked in the teeth of a comet and broke the army of Qi. The chapter proves one sentence: human effort, and nothing else. It is the earliest and the flattest rejection of divination in the military literature — flatter than Sunzi’s “forbid omens and do away with doubt,” because it argues the cases one by one.

King Hui of Liang asked Wei Liao: “The Yellow Emperor had punishment and virtue, and with them a hundred victories. Is it so?”

Wei Liao replied: “Punishment is what he attacked with, virtue what he held with. It was not what people now call the offices of heaven — days and hours, yin and yang, facing and turning away. The Yellow Emperor meant human effort, and nothing else.

How so? Take a city that cannot be taken from the east or the west, and cannot be taken from the north or the south. Of those four attempts, can it be that not one caught a favourable hour? It is not taken because its walls are high and its moat deep, its weapons in order, its money and grain heaped up, its men of standing agreed on a single plan. Let the walls be low, the moat shallow and the garrison feeble, and it is taken. Seen so, the offices of heaven and the hours of the day are worth less than human effort.

The Offices of Heaven says: to form up with water at your back is dead ground; to form up facing a slope is a wasted army. Yet King Wu, in his attack on Zhòu, drew up with the Ji river behind him and a hillside before him, and with twenty-two thousand five hundred men struck Zhòu’s hundred million and destroyed the Shang. Was it that Zhòu did not have the heavenly formation?

Gongzi Xin, the Chu commander, was about to fight the men of Qi. A comet had appeared, and its tail pointed towards Qi. Where the tail points, that side wins; Qi was not to be attacked. Gongzi Xin said: “What does a comet know? A man who fights with a broom holds it the other way round and wins.” Next day he engaged Qi and broke them utterly.

The Yellow Emperor said: “Before the spirits, before the ghosts, first examine my own judgement.” That is what the offices of heaven amount to — human effort, and nothing else.”

Discussing War兵談第二

The title says war; most of the chapter is about the state. The first part requires that land, walls, population and grain be measured against one another, for only a state whose four quantities balance can defend or attack. The middle asserts that a general is not to be governed by heaven, earth or men. The end is a run of images for the shape and momentum of an army. Five words hold the chapter: the victory of arms is won in the court — decided in the weighing done at the capital, not in the courage shown in the field.

Measure the land, rich and poor, before you found a settlement. Let the wall be proportioned to the land, the population to the wall, the grain to the population. When the three are in proportion you can hold fast within and win battles without. To win abroad while the means of defence are secure at home — the two fit like the halves of a tally, for they are one thing.

He who governs an army keeps it secret as the earth, unfathomable as heaven, brings it out of nothing and so releases it. Large, it leaves no gap; small, it is not slack. Be clear about what to forbid and what to allow, what to open and what to close. Draw in the people who have drifted away; put to use the land that lies idle. When the land is wide and used, the state is rich; when the people are many and regulated, the state is governed. Rich and governed, it can dominate the world without the people ever unchocking a wheel or the armour ever leaving the arsenal. Hence the saying: the victory of arms is won in the court. To conquer without displaying armour is the ruler’s victory; to conquer after deploying is the general’s victory.

War is not to be raised out of anger. If you see the victory, move; if you do not see it, stop. For a trouble within a hundred li, do not raise a single day’s campaign; for a trouble within a thousand li, not a month’s; for a trouble within the four seas, not a year’s.

The general is not governed by heaven above, nor by earth below, nor by men between. Generous, he cannot be provoked into rage; clean, he cannot be worked on with money. A mad mind, a deaf ear, a blind eye — to lead men with these three perversities is hard indeed.

Where such troops reach they win on the gut-narrow track and win on the saw-toothed ridge, win climbing a mountain and win entering a valley, win in square order and win in round. Heavy, they are like a mountain, like a forest, like a river, like a flood; light, they are like fire, like a blaze; they press down like a falling wall, they cover like cloud. They leave the enemy gathered and unable to scatter, scattered and unable to gather, on the left and unable to get to the right, on the right and unable to get to the left. The soldiers are like a bundle of timber, the crossbows like a whirlwind; every man of them rears up and swells his courage, cuts off all hesitation, and goes forward in open order, decided.

Discussing Regulations制談第三

The longest chapter of the book and the most argumentative. Zhi means establishment and law. Wei Liao lists four things “the generals of our day cannot prevent,” then claims that with the regulations fixed thirty thousand men can go where they please. In the middle stands one of the best figures in the early military literature: a single man with a sword in a crowded market, and ten thousand giving way — not because he is braver, and not because they are useless, but because a man resolved to die and a man meaning to live are simply not the same quantity. The last part turns to economics and administration: no food except by farming, no rank except by fighting — almost the language of the Book of Lord Shang, and the chief reason Wei Liao has always been read half as a legalist.

In all war, the regulations must be fixed first. Fix them first and the soldiers are not confused; when the soldiers are not confused, punishment becomes clear. Then where the gong and drum point, a hundred men fight to the last; the ranks are broken and the line thrown into disorder, and a thousand fight to the last; the army is overthrown and the general killed, and ten thousand blades come down together. There is nothing under heaven that can stand against such an army in battle.

In antiquity, the footmen had their fives and tens, the chariots their squadrons and files. When the drum sounded and the standards waved, the first man onto the wall was never other than a strong man of the state, and the first to die was never other than a strong man of the state either.

To cost the enemy one man at the cost of a hundred of our own is to supply the enemy and wound ourselves gravely; the generals of our day cannot prevent it. Men conscripted who break away on the march and go home, or who turn their backs the moment the fighting starts — the loss by desertion is grave; the generals of our day cannot prevent it. Bows and arrows are what kill at a hundred paces, spears and halberds what kill within fifty; but the general has beaten the drum and the soldiers are shouting at one another, snapping their own arrows, breaking their own spears, hugging their halberds, each thinking it better to go in late. Where there are such things, the defeat comes from inside; and the generals of our day cannot prevent it. Footmen lose their fives and tens, chariots lose their files, the flanking troops abandon their commander and run, and the main body runs with them; the generals of our day cannot prevent it.

A general who can prevent these four things may climb high mountains, cross deep waters and break into strong formations. One who cannot prevent them is like a man trying to cross the Yangzi or the Yellow River with no boat and no oar: it is not to be done.

It is not that the people love death and hate life. It is that the orders are clear and the law exact, and so they can be made to go forward. Make the reward plain beforehand and carry out the punishment afterwards, and then every movement strikes the advantage and every action produces a result.

Set one zu commander over a hundred men, one marshal over a thousand, one general over ten thousand, and you may govern the many with the few and the strong with the weak. Try my method and it will let you put one man in a whole army to death without a single miscarriage of the law, so that a father dare not shield his son nor a son his father — how much less any other man in the state?

One man with a sword strikes out in the market and ten thousand give way before him. I say it is not that he alone is brave and the ten thousand are all worthless. Why then? Because a man resolved to die and a man meaning to live are simply not the same quantity. Listen to my method and it will make a whole army into that one desperate man: none will dare stand before them, none will dare follow behind them, and they will go in alone and come out alone. Troops that go in alone and come out alone are the troops of a king or a hegemon.

Who led a hundred thousand and had no match under heaven? Duke Huan. Who led seventy thousand and had no match under heaven? Wu Qi. Who led thirty thousand and had no match under heaven? Master Wu — Sunzi. Today there is not a state in the world whose officers do not command less than two hundred thousand, and still they achieve nothing, because they are not clear about what to forbid and what to allow, what to open and what to close. Make the regulations clear, and if one man is mastered by them ten men will be too; if ten, then a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand. Hence the saying: put our equipment in order, nourish our fighting spirit, and loose it like a hawk stooping, like water falling down a gorge a thousand fathoms deep.

A state in trouble today sends out heavy bribes to buy friends, sends out a favourite son as a hostage, cuts off a piece of its borders to give away, and so obtains auxiliaries from the world. They are called a hundred thousand; in fact they are no more than a few tens of thousands. And every one of those contingents has been told by its own government: “Do not put yourself under anyone else; do not fight first.” In truth they cannot be got to fight at all.

Measure the people within our borders: without the organisation into fives, nothing can be set straight. Put a hundred thousand under regulation and a king can make them wear what we wear and eat what we eat. If then they do not win in the field and do not hold in defence, it is not the fault of our people; it is something we brought on ourselves. Auxiliaries from the other states running beside us are like fine coursers at the gallop — and broken-down nags with bristling manes trying to race them. How could they ever carry on our spirit?

I use what the world uses and make it my use; I take what the world regulates and make it my regulation. I put my orders in order and make my punishments and rewards plain, so that in the whole realm there is no food except by farming and no rank except by fighting, and the people roll up their sleeves and contend to be out at the farming and the fighting. Then there is no enemy under heaven. Hence the saying: issue the order and let it be trusted throughout the state.

When a man says he can defeat the enemy, do not accept the words; make him prove that he can fight. To look at another man’s land and take it, to divide his people and keep them, you must first have the worthy men of your own state within your grasp. To want the world without them is to lose your army and your general. Then, though you win the battle, the state grows weaker; though you gain land, the state grows poorer. It comes of the rot in the state’s own regulations.

Martial Authority戰威第四

On qi, spirit. Three kinds of victory — by the Way, by awe, by force — with the first the highest. The finest passage in the book is here: before a punishment has been inflicted, before the armies have met, there are five ways of robbing the enemy, and all five fall before contact. The second half is about what makes men willing to die: if you want them to die you must first let them live, so ranks and funeral allowances must be conspicuous and fields and rations real. The chapter ends with the general sharing the hardship — no parasol in the heat, no extra coat in the cold, dismounting at every bad stretch of road, drinking only after the army’s well is dug, eating only after the army’s food is cooked, sleeping only after the army’s wall is up. Those lines were quoted for two thousand years afterwards.

There is victory by the Way, victory by awe, and victory by force. To drill your troops and take the enemy’s measure so that his spirit fails and his army scatters — so that though his penal system is intact it will not work for him — that is victory by the Way. To examine the law, make punishment and reward plain, and put the equipment in good order, so that the people have a mind to fight — that is victory by awe. To break the army and kill the general, to mount the siege ramp and spring the engines, to rout the host, seize the ground and come back with the thing done — that is victory by force. A king or a lord who understands this has all three victories at his disposal.

What the general fights with is his men; what the men fight with is spirit. Full of spirit they fight; robbed of spirit they run. Before a punishment has been inflicted, before the armies have met, there are five ways of robbing the enemy. The first is the reckoning in the ancestral hall; the second, the reckoning at the receiving of the command; the third, the reckoning at the crossing of the frontier; the fourth, the reckoning behind deep ditch and high rampart; the fifth, the reckoning when the line is drawn up and the punishments applied. In all five you take the enemy’s measure and only then move, and so you strike where he is empty and rob him.

A good commander can rob others and not be robbed. Robbing works on the hinge of the mind. The order is what makes the many of one mind. When the many are unsettled, orders change often; and when orders change often, then though the order goes out the many do not believe it. So the rule for giving orders is: do not revise for a small mistake, do not intervene for a small doubt. When there is no hesitating order from above, the many do not listen two ways; when there is no hesitating action, the many are not of two minds. It has never happened that men did not trust a commander and yet gave him their strength; it has never happened that they did not give him their strength and yet fought to the death for him.

A state must therefore have a sense of ritual, good faith and mutual affection, and then hunger can be exchanged for plenty; a state must have a custom of filial love and of shame, and then death can be exchanged for life. In antiquity, those who led the people always put ritual and good faith before rank and salary, shame before punishment, affection before discipline of the person.

So the man who fights must begin by disciplining himself in order to hearten his men, as the mind moves the four limbs. If the will is not heartened the officers will not die at their posts; if they will not die at their posts the host will not fight. The way to hearten men is this: their livelihood must be generous; the grades of rank, the care of the dead and the things men labour for must be made conspicuous. You must build the institution on what they live by and give honour in the line of what they work for. Land and salary that are real, food and drink that someone actually sees to, neighbours encouraging one another, help with funerals, comradeship under arms: this is what heartens a people. Make the squads of five and ten like kinsfolk and the companies like friends; at rest they are a wall, in motion a storm; the chariot wheels do not turn back and the soldier’s heel does not swing round. This is the root of the art of battle.

Land is what feeds the people, walls are what hold the land, battle is what holds the walls. Attend to the ploughing and the people do not starve; attend to the defences and the land is not in danger; attend to the fighting and the walls are not invested. These three were the essential business of the former kings, and of that essential business arms are the most urgent.

There were five things on which the former kings concentrated in the matter of arms. If the stores are not ample the soldiers will not march. If the rewards are not generous the people will not put themselves out. If the fighting men are not selected the host will not be strong. If the equipment is not complete their strength will not tell. If the punishments do not fit, the host will not be afraid. Attend to these five and at rest you can hold what is secure, in motion you can accomplish what you want.

When you attack from a settled base, the base must be solid, the line firm, the shooting complete, the fighting even. In a true king’s state the people are rich; in a hegemon’s, the officers; in a state barely surviving, the great officers; in a doomed state, the treasury and the granaries. That is what is meant by full above and leaking below — a disease for which there is no remedy.

Hence: raise the worthy and employ the able, and affairs go well without picking a day; make the law plain and the orders exact, and the omens are good without divination; value merit and care for the deserving, and blessing comes without sacrifice. Hence also: the seasons of heaven are worth less than the advantages of the ground, and the advantages of the ground are worth less than concord among men. What the sage values is human effort, and nothing else.

In a hard-working army the general goes first. In the heat he does not put up a parasol; in the cold he does not put on a second coat; at a bad place he dismounts and walks. He drinks only when the army’s well is finished, eats only when the army’s food is cooked, takes shelter only when the army’s rampart is up. Labour and ease he shares in his own person. An army like that may be long in the field and it will not go stale and it will not fall apart.

The Attacker’s Leverage攻權第五

Troops conquer by stillness, a state conquers by singleness of purpose — eight words that set the frame, after which the chapter is all their opposite: divided strength, a doubting mind, contradictory voices, an attack that is bound to fail. In the middle comes the calculus of fear and contempt: whom do the soldiers fear, their own officers or the enemy? The question returns in Orders for the Army, Part One, and it is one of the load-bearing ideas of the book. The end lists the moments at which a city may be taken: before the bridges are broken, before the passes are repaired, before the arrow screens are set up, before the outlying forts are brought in, before the livestock is gathered.

Troops conquer by stillness, a state by singleness of purpose. Divided strength is weak; a doubting mind falls away. Weak in strength, they advance and retire without conviction and let a beaten enemy get clear. Officers and men, moving or halted, should be one body. Once the mind is doubtful and falling away, the plan is decided and nothing moves, the movement is decided and nothing can be stopped; voices contradict, the general has no composure, the men have no steady drill, and the attack when it is launched is sure to fail. These are what is called troops in a hurried rout. They are not worth fighting with.

The commander is the mind; those under him are the limbs and joints. When the mind moves in good faith the limbs are strong; when the mind moves in doubt the limbs fall away. If the general does not govern with his mind and the men do not move to a measure, then even a victory is a piece of luck, and not the attacker’s leverage at all.

A people cannot fear two things at once: fear us and they think little of the enemy; fear the enemy and they think little of us. The side that is thought little of loses; the side that establishes awe wins. When a general has the Way of it, the officers fear their general; when the officers fear their general, the men fear their officers; when the men fear their officers, the enemy fears the men. Therefore he who knows the way of victory and defeat must first know the balance of fear and contempt.

A man whose heart you have not won over will not be used by you; a man whose heart you have not made to stand in awe will not be moved by you. Love is seen in the obedience of those below; awe is set up from above. Loved, they are not of two minds; held in awe, they do not transgress. So the good commander has love and awe, and nothing else.

If the battle is not certain to be won, do not speak of battle; if the assault is not certain to carry, do not speak of assault. Otherwise punishments and rewards are not worth believing. Faith is given before the appointed time; the business is done before there is any sign of it. So a host once assembled is not dispersed for nothing and troops once sent out do not come back for nothing. Seek the enemy as you would seek a lost child; strike the enemy as you would pull a man out of the water.

He who holds a strong position has no mind to fight; he who provokes a fight has not his whole spirit; he who is drawn into fighting has no winning army. When you take up arms in a just cause, the merit is in beginning it yourself; when the quarrel is private and bred of resentment, respond only when you must. Though the resentment has broken out, it is better to wait. So in contending, always wait; in resting, always be prepared.

There is a victory won in the court, a victory won on the open plain, and a victory won in the market. Fight and you get it, submit and you lose it; and to escape defeat by luck — to win crookedly because the other side happened to be startled — is not a whole victory. Crooked victory means an incomplete one; and an incomplete victory earns no name for leverage. So on the day an enlightened ruler gives battle, drum answers horn, the blades keep the measure, and he wins without seeking to win.

There are troops that win with their guard down and their display put away, and they do so because they have law. Their equipment was settled early; their response to the enemy is complete and their command is exact. Five men make a squad, ten a section, a hundred a company, a thousand a regiment, ten thousand an army — complete and exact. If an officer dies in the morning he is replaced in the morning; if at dusk, at dusk. They weigh the enemy and take the measure of his general, and only then raise their arms.

In assembling troops, a thousand li takes ten days and a hundred li one day, and the assembly is made on the enemy’s frontier. When the men are gathered and the commander has come up, go deep into his country, cut his roads across, perch on his great cities and towns, drive his people onto the walls and into danger, men and women several ranks deep, and press each part of the ground to attack the key points. Hold one city and cut several roads, then attack; and when the enemy’s commanders cannot be trusted, his officers and men cannot agree, and there are those who will not obey the punishments, then we have beaten him.

When the relief has not come up, one city has already surrendered. When the bridges have not been broken, the passes not repaired, the defences not set, the arrow screens not raised — then they have walls but no defence. When the outlying forts have not been brought in and the garrisons not called back — then they have men but no men. When the livestock has not been gathered, the harvest not brought in, the money and goods not collected — then they have resources but no resources. Where a town is empty and its resources gone, we attack it in its emptiness. The rule says: go in alone and come out alone; bring the enemy to it without crossing blades. That is what is meant.

Scroll Two卷二

Five chapters, and the least military scroll in the book. The Defender’s Leverage is the one purely technical piece of writing here. Twelve Hills is twenty-four maxims — twelve ways of getting a thing done, twelve ways of ruining it — one to a line, with not a connective between them. Deliberations on the Martial is the longest chapter and the one with the most temperament: it opens with “troops do not assault a city that has done no wrong and do not kill men who have committed no crime,” closes with Wu Qi beheading his own best soldier, and in between argues that the Grand Duke sold food at seventy, that King Wu destroyed the Shang without bloodying a blade, and that the market is the foundation of an army. The General as Magistrate turns out to be about prisons: the general is first of all a judge, and the chapter costs out a hundred thousand honest people entangled in litigation at the same rate as a hundred thousand men in the field — a thousand pieces of gold a day. The Origins of Office is twenty-odd clauses of administrative outline. That defence works, maxims, polemic, prison policy and civil administration should stand in one scroll is the plainest sign that this was never merely a “book of war” but a whole programme for governing and fighting — which is why the Han bibliography entered a “Wei Liao” twice, once among the eclectics and once among the military writers.

The Defender’s Leverage守權第六

The one chapter given wholly to siege defence, and the passage in the early literature that reads best beside the defence chapters of the Mozi. It argues a single point: defending is not shutting yourself in and waiting. Pull all your best men and best weapons inside the wall and burn the stores outside, and you have multiplied the besieger’s spirit ten and a hundred times while your own stands at less than half. Real defence means “not losing your strong ground”: the garrison must come out and hold the key points, and work with the relief force from inside and outside at once. The chapter ends on a deception — let the enemy believe the relief is half-hearted, put the old men in front and the good troops behind, and wait for him to relax.

A defender who will not hold the outer wall going forward and will not hold the frontier forts falling back, but tries to stop the enemy by fighting in the open, is not doing it well. When the notables and the picked men, the strong armour and sharp weapons, the stiff crossbows and heavy bolts are all inside the wall, and the storage pits and granaries have been collected in and everything else pulled down and brought inside for safety, you have made the besieger’s spirit ten and a hundred times what it was while the defender’s does not reach a half. The damage the attacker does is grave indeed — and yet the generals of our day cannot see it.

To defend is not to lose your strong ground. The rule of defence: ten men to each zhang of wall, not counting the artisans and the cooks. Those who go out do not defend, and those who defend do not go out. One holds ten, ten hold a hundred, a hundred hold a thousand, a thousand hold ten thousand. So the building of city walls is not merely the expenditure of the people’s labour in piling earth; it is truly for defence. A wall of a thousand zhang takes ten thousand men to hold. The moat deep and wide, the wall firm and thick, the people ready, fuel and food sufficient, crossbows stiff and bolts heavy, spears and halberds to match: this is the rule of defence.

The attacker will not be fewer than a hundred-odd thousand. Where there is an army certain to relieve, there is a city certain to hold; where there is no army certain to relieve, there is no city certain to hold. If the walls are firm and the relief is in earnest, then even the dull husband and the foolish wife will man the wall and spend everything, bloodying the wall. A city that can last a year has a defender with strength to spare over the attacker and a relief force with strength to spare over the defender. But if the walls are firm and the relief is not in earnest, then the dull husband and the foolish wife stand at the parapet and weep; that is simply human nature. And if you then open the granaries to comfort them, even that will not stop it.

You must rouse the notables and the picked men, the strong armour and sharp weapons, the stiff crossbows and heavy bolts, and put them all in front; the small, the broken and the thin all behind. A hundred thousand of the enemy are stalled beneath the walls; the relief must open a way in, the garrison must come out. Coming out, they hold the key points. Strike only at the enemy’s rear; do not cut his line of supply. Inside and outside answer one another.

This is relief that shows itself half-hearted. Showing itself half-hearted, it turns the enemy round and waits on him. Put the strong behind and the old in front; then the enemy finds nothing in front of him and the defence cannot be stopped. This is what is meant by the defender’s leverage.

Twelve Hills十二陵第七

Twenty-four lines of four to seven characters, all in one pattern: X lies in Y. The first twelve are heights that can be reached, the second twelve are pits that can be fallen into. A ling is a great mound — high, and to be climbed; hence the title. It is the most formally regular chapter in the early military literature and the easiest to excerpt. Note that not one of the second twelve is about tactics: they are all faults of rulers and commanders — employing men you suspect, butchery, favouritism, hating to hear of your own mistakes, draining the people’s wealth, swallowing an enemy’s planted story, acting rashly, keeping worthy men at a distance, greed, and keeping mean men close.

Authority lies in not changing. Kindness lies in taking the season. Adaptability lies in answering the event. Fighting lies in husbanding spirit. Attack lies in going beyond expectation. Defence lies in the outward show. Freedom from error lies in measurable standards. Freedom from difficulty lies in preparing beforehand. Prudence lies in fearing small things. Wisdom lies in governing large ones. Removing harm lies in daring to decide. Winning the many lies in putting yourself below them.

Regret lies in employing men you suspect. Evil lies in butchery. Partiality lies in having many private interests. Ill fortune lies in hating to hear of your own faults. Immoderation lies in draining the people’s wealth. Blindness lies in taking in an enemy’s agent. Unsoundness lies in acting on light grounds. Narrowness lies in keeping the worthy at a distance. Disaster lies in loving profit. Injury lies in keeping mean men close. Ruin lies in having nothing you will hold. Danger lies in having no orders at all.

Deliberations on the Martial武議第八

The longest chapter in the book and the one where the argument is thickest. The Qing imperial catalogue singled out the first sentence as something “no Warring States writer on war would say.” Then comes the most unusual passage here — the argument from the market. An army lives by supply: “to attack without assault wagons and defend without arrow screens is what is called an army that is no good,” and where do the engines come from? From the market. Hence “to hold the whole apparatus of command and have no office of the hundred goods is to have no claim to be able to fight.” No other early military text makes commerce the basis of fighting power. The second half gives Wu Qi twice: once sleeping in the furrows with his men, once beheading the soldier who ran forward on his own and came back with two heads. Read together they give the book’s measure — you share the hardship so that men will die for you, and you behead the good soldier so that they will die only to orders.

Troops do not assault a city that has done no wrong and do not kill men who have committed no crime. To kill a man’s father and elder brother, to profit by his goods, to make his sons and daughters servants and concubines — all this is robbery. War is for punishing violence and disorder and stopping injustice. Where such troops come, the farmer does not leave his fields, the merchant does not leave his shop, the officer does not leave his office, because the deliberation of arms is directed at one man only. And so the blade is not bloodied and the world draws near.

A state of ten thousand chariots farms and fights; one of a thousand relieves and defends; one of a hundred provides and maintains. Farming and fighting seek no power outside; relief and defence seek no help outside; provision and maintenance seek no resources outside. For those who cannot go out and fight and cannot stay in and hold, the remedy is the market. The market is what supplies the fighting and the defending. A state of ten thousand chariots without a thousand chariots’ help must have a hundred chariots’ market.

Execution is for making the martial plain. Kill one man and the whole army shakes: kill him. Kill one man and ten thousand rejoice: kill him. In killing, aim high; in rewarding, aim low. When a man deserves death, kill him however exalted he is: that is punishment reaching all the way up. Let the reward come down to the boy who leads the oxen and the groom who tends the horses: that is reward flowing all the way down. To make punishment reach up and reward flow down is the martial quality of a general; and it is why a ruler sets store by his generals.

The general takes up the drum and swings the stick, faces the crisis and decides the battle; the armies meet and the blades cross. If he beats the drum to the purpose, he is rewarded and his name is made. If he beats it wrong, he dies and the state falls. Ruin or survival, safety or danger, all answer at the tip of a drumstick — how then can a ruler not set store by his generals?

That a ruler should take up the drum and swing the stick, cross blades and succeed by force of arms — that, I say, is not the hard part. The men of old said: “to attack without assault wagons and to defend without arrow screens is what is called an army that is no good.” To look and see nothing, to listen and hear nothing, comes of the state having no market.

The market is the office of the hundred goods. It buys cheap and sells dear, and so keeps the gentry within bounds. A man eats a peck of grain and a horse eats three pecks of beans; the men have the look of hunger and the horses the look of starvation. Why? Because the market has produce and no official is in charge of it. To hold the whole apparatus of command in the world and have no office of the hundred goods is to have no claim to be able to fight.

Raise an army and keep the men so long in armour that lice breed in it, and they will certainly be of use to me. When a hawk stoops on sparrows, one of them will fly into a man’s bosom or into his house; it is not that the bird has stopped caring for its life — there is something worse behind it.

The Grand Duke Wang was seventy: he butchered oxen at Zhaoge and sold food at Mengjin; past seventy and no lord would listen to him, and everyone called him a madman. When he met King Wen he led thirty thousand men, and in one battle the world was settled. Without deliberation on the martial, how could there have been such a meeting? Hence the saying: a good horse with a whip can cover the long road; a worthy man with a hearing can make the great Way plain.

King Wu attacked Zhòu. The army crossed at Mengjin, the yak-tail standard on the right and the great axe on the left, three hundred men sworn to die and thirty thousand fighting men. Zhòu had subjects by the hundred million, and Feilian and Elai went in front of him with halberd and axe, and his line stretched a hundred li. King Wu did not wear out his people; the blade was not bloodied, and he overcame the Shang and punished Zhòu. There was no portent in it. It came of human business attended to or not attended to.

The generals of our day calculate the “empty” days, take the auspices of the Xianchi star, match the tortoise cracks, watch for good and bad luck, study the changes of stars and wind and cloud, and mean to win victories and make their names by these things. I think it hard.

The general is not governed by heaven above, nor by earth below, nor by men between. Weapons are instruments of ill omen; contention is a perverse virtue; the general is an officer of death. So he is used only when there is no choice. No heaven above him, no earth below him, no lord behind him, no enemy in front of him: an army under one man is like a wolf and a tiger, like wind and rain, like thunder and lightning, shuddering and dark, and the whole world is startled by it.

A winning army is like water. Water is the softest and weakest of things, and yet the hills it strikes come down. There is no mystery: its nature is single and its impact true. Now with the edge of Moye, the toughness of rhinoceros hide and the numbers of three armies, if you have the orthodox and the unorthodox in hand, nothing under heaven can stand against you in battle. Hence the saying: raise the worthy and employ the able, and affairs go well without picking a day; make the law plain and the orders exact, and the omens are good without divination; value merit and care for the deserving, and blessing comes without sacrifice. And again: the seasons of heaven are worth less than the advantages of the ground, and the advantages of the ground are worth less than concord among men. The sages of old attended carefully to human business, and to nothing else.

When Wu Qi fought Qin he camped without levelling the furrows and covered himself with scrub oak against the frost and dew. Why? Because he would not set himself above other men. If you are asking men to die for you, do not require their deference; if you are drawing off all their strength, do not stand on ceremony. That is why in antiquity a man in helmet and mail did not kneel: he was showing that he would not trouble others endlessly. To trouble a man and then ask him to die for you and spend all his strength — from antiquity to now, that has never been heard of.

On the day he takes the command the general forgets his household; when the army is drawn up and camped in the field he forgets his family; when he takes the stick and beats the drum he forgets himself. Wu Qi, going into battle, was handed a sword by his attendants. He said: “A general has charge of the standards and the drum, and no more. To face the crisis and resolve the doubt, to point the troops and direct the blade — that is a general’s business. The work of a single sword is not a general’s business.”

When the three armies are drawn up in their files, one day’s march makes them into three days’ worth; and past the third day they run like a river through a broken bank. Look at the enemy before you and use him according to what he is strong in. If the enemy marks himself in white, whiten yourself with chalk; if in red, redden yourself with ochre.

Wu Qi was facing Qin, and before the lines met, one man could not master his own courage: he ran forward, took two heads and came back. Wu Qi had him beheaded on the spot. An officer remonstrated: “That is a man of ability.” Wu Qi said: “A man of ability he is. But it was not my order.” And he beheaded him.

The General as Magistrate將理第九

Li guan is the officer of justice. The whole chapter is about criminal procedure. Two claims: first, that interrogation does not need torture, because torture only produces false confessions — “even a man of the first rank will break under the cruelty and accuse himself falsely”; second, that a single case drags in dozens or hundreds of people, all of them kinsmen, in-laws or old acquaintances, so that farmers leave their fields, merchants their shops and officials their offices. The last paragraph takes Sunzi’s famous figure — a campaign costs a thousand pieces of gold a day — and applies it to the prisons. No one else in early China costs out justice as a military expense.

A general is an officer of justice, master of all things, partial to no single man. Being partial to no single man, he can rule all things as they come before him, and give sentence on all things as they come before him.

A gentleman does not rescue a prisoner from five paces off; even if a corded arrow is shot at him he does not pursue. So a man good at examining the circumstances of a prisoner can have the whole of them without the cane. Flog a man’s back, burn his ribs, crush his fingers, and then ask him the circumstances, and even a man of the first rank will break under the cruelty and accuse himself falsely.

There is a saying now: “a thousand in gold and you do not die; a hundred and you are not punished.” Listen to what I say and put my method in practice, and a man with the wisdom of Yao and Shun could not get a word in, and a man with ten thousand in gold could not spend a single grain of it.

Consider the giving of judgement. A small gaol holds not less than ten, a middling one not less than a hundred, a great one not less than a thousand. Ten men entangle the business of a hundred, a hundred that of a thousand, a thousand that of ten thousand. And those entangled are kinsmen and brothers, then relatives by marriage, then acquaintances and old friends. So there is no farmer who does not leave his fields, no merchant who does not leave his shop, no officer who does not leave his office. Entangle honest people like this and they are all of them in a prisoner’s case.

The art of war says: “send out an army of a hundred thousand and it costs a thousand in gold a day.” Now a hundred thousand honest people are entangled in the gaols and the authorities cannot look into it. I think it dangerous.

The Origins of Office原官第十

Twenty-odd clauses of administrative outline, all in the same frame: X is the Y of Z. From office, regulation, rank and salary, reward and punishment, the well-field, taxation, artisans and equipment, frontiers and passes, through to “the division of office into civil and military is the king’s two arts” and “that persuaders and spies find no way in is the art of keeping deliberation straight.” It ends with the most slogan-like four lines in the book: no business left standing in the offices, no extra bounty needed from the ruler, no litigation among the people, no merchants in the state. The rejection of merchants here does not contradict the market argument of chapter eight: what chapter eight wants is a state office of the hundred goods; what this one rejects is the profit-taking middleman.

Office is what takes charge of affairs and is the root of government. Regulation is the apportioning of the four orders of the people, and is the division of government. That rank and salary should be proportionate is the body of high and low. To reward the good and punish the bad and to keep the law of comparison straight is the instrument for counting the people. To equalise the well-fields and moderate the taxes is the measure of taking and giving. To grade the artisans and provide the equipment is the work of the crafts. To divide the land and block the key points is the business of putting down the strange and forbidding the licentious. To keep the law and check judgements is the duty of the subject. To make the law plain and verify it is the ruler’s handling. That an enlightened ruler keeps the gradations is the balance of weight between ruler and subject. To make rewards plain and censure strict is the art of stopping wickedness. To examine what to open and what to close and to hold to one road is the essential of government. That what is below reaches above and what is above passes down is the keenest kind of hearing.

To know the accounts of what the state has and has not is to use its tithe well. To know where the other man is weak is the substance of your own strength; to know where he is moving is the decision of your own stillness. That office is divided into civil and military is the king’s two arts. That the sacrificial vessels are of one pattern is the assembly of the Son of Heaven. That persuaders and spies find no way in is the art of keeping deliberation straight.

That the feudal lords observe the rites of the Son of Heaven, and that ruler and people succeed generation by generation, is the receiving of the king’s mandate. To change what one favours and alter the standing rules, and so go against the king’s bright virtue — for that, by the rites, one may be punished.

No business left standing in the offices, no bounty required from above, no litigation among the people, no merchants in the state: what a height of kingship that would be! That what is clear should reach above rests on the king bending his ear to it.

Scroll Three卷三

Five chapters, twelve hundred characters, the shortest scroll and the hinge of the book. The first two are still argument: Governing the Root is about economics and manners and is the one chapter that never mentions an army; The Leverage of Battle is about holding the initiative. Then at chapter thirteen the genre changes without warning. There is no more reasoning, only clauses. Orders on Heavy Punishment, Orders on the Squad System and Orders on Sectors, together with the five orders that fill Scroll Four, make eight chapters of statute — and they are the only set of Warring States military law to come down to us as a body of transmitted text. The Book of Lord Shang has legalist argument but no statutes; the defence chapters of the Mozi have engines but no penal code; the Qin military-rank statutes from Shuihudi came out of the ground in 1975. Before that, these eight chapters were the only place to see what a Warring States army law looked like. Read the scroll for the drop in register: Governing the Root says that when the people have nothing private the world becomes one household; Orders on Heavy Punishment says the man is executed, his family broken, his name struck from the register, his ancestors’ graves opened and his bones exposed in the market. Two chapters apart.

Governing the Root治本第十一

The one chapter that never mentions an army; it is about production, utensils and manners. The programme is austere: a man needs grain to fill his belly and hemp to cover his body, so the husband is in the field and the wife at the loom, and “where the people have no second occupation there is a surplus.” Then the complaint: metal and wood do not feel the cold and we embroider them, oxen and horses live on grass and water and we feed them beans and grain, while men cannot cover themselves with sacking or fill themselves with husks. The key sentence is “in antiquity the soil was not richer or poorer than now, and men were not more diligent or lazier” — neither the land nor the people have changed; the government has. At the end come the four attributes of a Son of Heaven and the observation that desire is born of having no limit and wickedness of having no prohibition, before the chapter turns back to arms with “prohibition is accomplished by the martial, reward by the civil.”

What is it to govern men? I say: without the five grains there is nothing to fill the belly; without silk and hemp there is nothing to cover the body. So for the belly there is grain and for the body there is thread. The husband is at the hoeing and the wife at the loom; where the people have no second occupation there is a surplus. The husband does no carving and chasing; the woman does no embroidery and braid.

Wooden vessels seep and metal vessels taint. The sage drank from earth and ate from earth, and so kneaded clay into vessels, and the world was at no expense. Today metal and wood are not cold by nature and we clothe them in embroidery; oxen and horses by nature eat grass and drink water and we give them beans and grain. Government has lost its root, and that is why a further apparatus of regulation has to be set up.

In spring and summer the husband goes out to the south acres, in autumn and winter the wife works up the cloth: then the people are not in want. Now short sacking does not cover the body and husks do not fill the belly — government has failed. In antiquity the soil was not richer or poorer than now and men were not more diligent or lazier. What did men then get, and what have men now lost? Ploughing that does not finish the field, weaving that breaks off the loom by day — and how should there not be hunger and cold? It is that the old government worked and the present government has stopped.

What is called government is making the people have nothing private. If the people have nothing private then the world is one household, with no private ploughing and no private weaving; cold, they are cold together; hungry, hungry together. So a man with ten sons adds not one bowl of rice and a man with one son takes away not one bowl: where then is the shouting and drinking that ruins good people? Once the people grow frivolous, appetite stirs and the calamity of grabbing begins. It springs up out of a single man, and then the people have private rice put by and private money put by. And when the people break the prohibition and are then dealt with by the penal law — what sort of being above the people is that?

Good government holds to its institutions and makes the people have nothing private. When those below dare keep nothing private there is no one doing wrong. Go back to the root, follow the principle, come out by one road: then appetite goes, grabbing stops, the gaols are empty, the fields are full and the grain plentiful, the people are at peace and distant men come in; outside there is no trouble from the world and inside no violence and disorder. That is government at its height.

The blue sky — no one knows its bounds. The emperors and kings — who can take them for a pattern? The former age cannot be reached and the coming age cannot be waited for; it is oneself that one must ask. There are four things in what is called a Son of Heaven: the first is spiritual clarity, the second radiance shed downwards, the third great ordering, the fourth having no enemy. These are the Son of Heaven’s business.

A wild beast will not do for a sacrifice; a scattered learning will not make a whole scholar. There are those now who say: “a sea of a hundred li cannot give one man a drink, but a spring three feet across will slake the thirst of three armies.” I say that desire is born of having no limit, and wickedness of having no prohibition. The highest government transforms men as a spirit does; the next follows the nature of things; the lowest lies in not taking the people’s season and not wasting the people’s goods. Prohibition is accomplished by the martial, and reward by the civil.

The Leverage of Battle戰權第十二

The chapter opens by quoting “the art of war says” — the book quotes an art of war three times, and none of the three passages is in any surviving military text; they are fragments of a lost book. The doctrine is a single word: first. “He who brings leverage to bear first leaves the enemy unable to engage with his strength; he who brings force to bear first leaves the enemy without awe to meet him.” Hence “in war, being first is precious.” But being first is not rashness: the chapter insists that “one who knows the Way first considers the defeat that comes of not knowing when to stop.” Push forward carelessly and let the enemy be the one who halts, and you have made him a present of the initiative.

The art of war says: “a thousand men make leverage, ten thousand make force. He who brings leverage to bear first leaves the enemy unable to engage with his strength; he who brings force to bear first leaves the enemy with no awe to meet him.” So in war being first is precious. Prevail here and you prevail there; fail here and you fail there too.

I go and he comes; he comes and I go; each in turn wins and loses. That is the principle of battle. Utter sincerity lies in clarity of mind, and the leverage of battle lies in pushing the principle to its limit. What is there is made not to be; what is not there is made to be: where then is there anything to trust?

What has been handed down from the former kings is this: use the straight and put away deceit; keep mercy and compliance; give judgement and leave nothing in arrears. So one who knows the Way first considers the defeat that comes of not knowing when to stop; where is it written that going forward must bring success? Advance lightly to seek a battle and the enemy will be the one who halts; I have gone forward and he has taken the victory. Hence the art of war says: “if he seeks you, follow him; if he shows himself, strike him; if the defender dare not meet you and you overbear him — he must lose his leverage.”

Men who have been robbed of spirit have none; men in fear cannot hold; a beaten army has no men. This is war without the Way. When the intention is set and undoubting, follow it; when you have robbed the enemy and nothing stands in front, strike; when you see clearly and hold the high ground, overawe him. That is the whole way of war. Speak without care and you become slight; lose your power to overbear and have no measure, and you are broken. Water bursts through and thunder strikes: the three armies are in confusion. You must settle what is dangerous, put away what is a trouble, and decide by intelligence. Raise it with the reckoning of the ancestral hall, weight it with the reckoning at the receiving of the command, sharpen it with the reckoning at the crossing of the frontier — and an enemy state may be made to submit without a battle.

Orders on Heavy Punishment重刑令第十三

The first and heaviest of the eight orders. Two degrees. A commander of a thousand or more who is beaten and turns back, who surrenders a defence, or who abandons his ground and lets his men scatter is called a traitor to the state: he is executed, his family broken, his name struck from the register, his ancestors’ graves opened, his bones exposed in the market, his children taken by the state. A commander of a hundred or more is called a traitor to the army, and the penalty is one degree less. The last two lines say why: “make the people fear heavy punishment within and they will think lightly of the enemy without.” The weight of the penalty is a device for setting the ratio between the soldier’s fear of the enemy and his fear of the law — the same arithmetic as the balance of fear and contempt in chapter five and “the men who fear their general more than the enemy win” in chapter twenty-three.

Commanders of a thousand men and upwards who are beaten and turn back, who surrender a defence, or who abandon their ground and let their men scatter, are called traitors to the state. The man is executed and his household broken; his name is struck from the register, his ancestors’ graves are opened and his bones exposed in the market; his sons and daughters are taken by the state. Commanders of a hundred men and upwards who are beaten and turn back, who surrender a defence, or who abandon their ground and let their men scatter, are called traitors to the army. The man is put to death and his household broken; his sons and daughters are taken by the state.

Make the people fear heavy punishment within and they will think lightly of the enemy without. So the former kings made the institutions plain first and the awe of punishment heavy after. Heavy punishment makes men fear within; fearing within, they are firm without.

Orders on the Squad System伍制令第十四

Collective liability. Five men a squad, ten a section, fifty a platoon, a hundred a company, each rank standing surety for itself. The same sentence is repeated four times with only the unit name changed — the near-mechanical repetition is the form of a statute, not a failure of style. The important thing is at the end, where the officers are folded in: “from section commander up to the generals of the left and right, above and below all stand surety for one another.” The liability binds the officers as well as the men.

The system in the army: five men make a squad, and the squad stands surety for itself; ten make a section, and the section stands surety for itself; fifty make a platoon, and the platoon stands surety for itself; a hundred make a company, and the company stands surety for itself.

If there is a man in a squad who breaks the orders or violates a prohibition, whoever reports him is excused; whoever knows and does not report, the whole squad is put to death. If there is such a man in a section, whoever reports him is excused; whoever knows and does not report, the whole section is put to death. If in a platoon, whoever reports him is excused; whoever knows and does not report, the whole platoon is put to death. If in a company, whoever reports him is excused; whoever knows and does not report, the whole company is put to death. As for the officers, from section commander up to the generals of the left and right, above and below all stand surety for one another; and if there is one who breaks the orders or violates a prohibition, whoever reports him is excused, and those who know and do not report share his guilt.

When squads and sections are bound together and high and low are linked, there is no wickedness that cannot be found out and no offence that is not reported. A father cannot shield his son and an elder brother cannot shield his younger — how much less men billeted together and messing together. How should they be able to break the orders for one another’s sake?

Orders on Sectors分塞令第十五

The layout of a camp and the control of movement inside it. Centre, left, right, van and rear each have their own ground, fenced off with a temporary wall, and no passing between them. General, commander and company officer each have their ground, each ditched and posted with its own order of closure. Along the roads of the camp a post is set every hundred and twenty paces, post within sight of post; movement is forbidden and the roads kept clear, and without an officer’s tally no one passes. Even woodcutters and herdsmen must move in formed squads. The last line makes the point: “where nothing inside breaks the orders, nothing outside gets past unnoticed.” It is the most concrete description of camp discipline in the early literature.

The centre army and the armies of left, right, van and rear each have their own ground, squared off with a temporary wall, and there is no passing between them. The general has his ground, the commander has his ground, the company officer has his ground; each ditches his own and publishes his own order of closure, so that none but his own hundred may pass. Anyone not of that hundred who enters is put to death by the company officer; and if the company officer does not put him to death he shares his guilt.

On the roads of the camp, running across and along, a post is set up every hundred and twenty paces. Reckon by the numbers and the ground so that post is within sight of post. Movement is forbidden and the roads are kept clear; without an officer’s tally no one may pass. Those who cut firewood or gather fodder must all go in formed squads; those not in formed squads may not pass. Subordinates without a tally and soldiers not in a squad are put to death by the officer of the gate. Anyone crossing the boundary of his sector is put to death.

So where nothing inside breaks the orders or violates the prohibitions, nothing outside gets past unnoticed.

Scroll Four卷四

Five chapters, a thousand characters, statute from beginning to end, with not one line of argument. Orders on Binding the Squads sets out the accounting of squads lost and taken and the powers of execution held by each grade. Orders on Ordering the Troops gives the colours and badges — green for the left army, white for the right, yellow for the centre, and the five ranks of a division wearing their badges on head, neck, chest, belly and waist. It is the fullest description of military insignia anywhere in the early literature. Orders on Drilling the Troops covers the four signalling instruments — gong, drum, bell and flag — and the drill that builds from a hundred men up to three armies. Orders to the General is the ceremony of the axe and the doctrine that there is no second command in an army. Orders for the Trailing Army sets out the spacing of the three bodies, with the distances and the days of cooked rations. Together they are the whole regulation of a Warring States army from establishment through identification and command to the march. Note that the numbers here can be checked against each other: a post every hundred and twenty paces; a hundred li ahead of the main body and three days’ cooked food; twice that distance and six days’ food for the vanguard. These are not figures of speech but orders that could be carried out.

Orders on Binding the Squads束伍令第十六

Two sections. The first is the accounting of squads. Five men make a squad with one tally between them, kept by the officers. Lose your own squad but take one of the enemy’s and the account is balanced; take one and lose none, and there is a reward; lose one and take none, and the man is put to death and his household broken. The same arithmetic runs up through commanders and generals. The second section is the ladder of capital jurisdiction: a section commander may execute ten men, a company officer may execute section commanders, a commander of a thousand may execute commanders of a hundred, a commander of ten thousand may execute commanders of a thousand, the generals of left and right may execute commanders of ten thousand, and the commander-in-chief may execute anyone.

The orders on binding the squads say: five men make a squad, sharing one tally, which is kept with the officers. A man who loses his squad but takes a squad of the enemy’s balances the account; one who takes a squad and loses none is rewarded; one who loses his squad and takes none is put to death and his household broken. A man who loses his commander but takes a commander balances the account; one who takes a commander and loses none is rewarded; one who loses his commander and takes none is put to death and his household broken, unless in a further battle he takes the head of a commander, in which case the sentence is remitted. A man who loses his general but takes a general balances the account; one who takes a general and loses none is rewarded; one who loses his general and takes none falls under the law for abandoning ground and running away.

The law of execution in the field says: a section commander may execute ten men; a company officer may execute section commanders; a commander of a thousand may execute commanders of a hundred; a commander of ten thousand may execute commanders of a thousand; the generals of the left and right may execute commanders of ten thousand; and the commander-in-chief may execute anyone whatever.

Orders on Ordering the Troops經卒令第十七

The identification system, the fullest in the early literature. The three armies take three colours by position: green for the left, white for the right, yellow for the centre, with the flags and the feathers in the men’s caps matching. Within each army there are five ranks with five coloured badges, green, red, yellow, white and black — and the badge is worn lower with each rank, on the head, then the neck, then the chest, the belly, the waist. From the colour and the position of a man’s badge alone you can tell which army he belongs to and which rank he stands in. The chapter ends with the rewards for advance and the penalties for retreat, and with three words: it means there is an order in it.

To order the troops is to divide them by the rule into three parts: the army of the left with green flags and green feathers in the men’s caps; the army of the right with white flags and white feathers; the centre army with yellow flags and yellow feathers.

The men have five badges. The first rank wears a green badge, the second a red, the third a yellow, the fourth a white, the fifth a black. They are ordered in this way, and a man who has lost his badge is put to death. The first five ranks wear the badge on the head, the second five on the neck, the third five on the chest, the fourth five on the belly, the fifth five on the waist.

In this way no soldier is under the wrong officer and no officer has the wrong soldier. To see what is wrong and not question it, to see disorder and not stop it, carries the same guilt as the offence.

When the drum sounds the advance and the lines engage, for the front rank to go forward is to face the danger, and for the rear rank to fall back is to disgrace the host. A man who goes forward past five ranks is rewarded; a man who falls back past five ranks is put to death. This is how advance and retreat, first and last, and the merits of officers and men are known. Hence the saying: when the drum sounds, the front is like thunder and the movement like a storm; none dare stand before them and none dare tread on their heels. It means there is an order in it.

Orders on Drilling the Troops勒卒令第十八

Signals and the drill that builds upwards. Each of the four instruments has its rule: drum to advance, drum again to strike; gong to halt, gong again to fall back; the bell to pass an order; the flag to point. The drum in turn has three speeds — marching, double, and charge — and three grades, the general’s drum pitched on shang, the commander’s on jue, the company officer’s a small drum. The drill begins at a hundred men; a hundred trained are combined into a thousand, a thousand into ten thousand, ten thousand assembled into three armies. The chapter ends with its one piece of argument, on deciding early, and contains the book’s only sentence on the orthodox and the unorthodox.

The gong, the drum, the bell and the flag each have their rule. The drum means advance, the drum again means strike; the gong means halt, the gong again means fall back; the bell passes an order; the flag waved to the left means left, waved to the right means right. For the unorthodox troops it is the reverse.

One beat of the drum and one stroke to the left; one beat and one stroke to the right. One beat to a pace is the marching drum; one beat to ten paces is the double; an unbroken sound is the charge. The note shang is the general’s drum, jue the commander’s, the small drum the company officer’s. When all three drums beat together, general, commander and company officer are of one mind. For the unorthodox troops it is the reverse.

A man who drums out of turn is put to death; a man who shouts is put to death; a man who moves without attending to gong, drum, bell and flag is put to death.

A hundred men are trained in war; when the hundred are trained they are combined into a thousand; when the thousand are trained they are combined into ten thousand; when the ten thousand are trained they are assembled into three armies. The host of three armies divides and combines, and this makes the method of the great battle; when the training is done it is tested by review. They win in square order and they win in round, they win on the slant and they win in broken country. If the enemy is on a hill they climb after him; if he is in the water they go down after him. Seek the enemy as you would seek a lost child, follow him without hesitation, and so you can beat him and hold his life in your hand.

Decide early and settle beforehand. If the plan is not settled beforehand and the thinking not decided early, then advance and retreat are unsettled, doubt is born and defeat is certain. So for orthodox troops it is precious to be first and for unorthodox troops to be last, and it is by being now first and now last that the enemy is mastered. The generals of our day who do not know the rule act on their own authority and strike first out of bravery, and there is not one of them who is not beaten. To hesitate where there is reason to hesitate and not hesitate; to trust where there is reason to trust and not trust; to be quick or slow where there is reason and be neither — these three are the encumbrances of war.

Orders to the General將令第十九

The ceremony of appointment and the absoluteness of command. The ruler first deliberates in the ancestral temple and issues the order in the court, and hands the general the axe with his own hands. What he says has only two parts: each army has its own charge, and whoever goes outside it to appeal upward dies; and there is no second command in an army — whoever issues a second order dies, whoever holds an order back dies, whoever loses an order dies. The general then makes his own proclamation: outside the gate of the capital, the camp markers are to be set and the gate of shafts put up by noon, and whoever is late is under the law. Once he enters the camp, the gates are shut and the roads cleared, and whoever dares move, dares raise his voice, or dares disobey, dies. In a hundred and seven characters the word “death” falls six times.

When the general receives the command, the ruler must first deliberate in the ancestral temple and issue the order in the court, and with his own hands give the general the axe, saying: “Left, centre and right armies each have their charge; whoever goes outside his charge to appeal upward dies. There is no second command in an army: whoever issues a second order is put to death, whoever holds an order back is put to death, whoever loses an order is put to death.”

The general then makes proclamation: “Outside the gate of the capital, the camp markers are to be set and the gate of shafts put in place by noon; that is the appointed time. Whoever is past it falls under the law.” And when the general enters the camp, the gates are shut and the roads cleared, and whoever dares move is put to death, whoever dares raise his voice is put to death, whoever dares disobey an order is put to death.

Orders for the Trailing Army踵軍令第二十

The spacing of three bodies of troops. The trailing army is a hundred li ahead of the main body, and the vanguard a hundred li ahead of that — twice the distance from the main body. The trailing army carries three days’ cooked food and the vanguard six: distance and rations are in proportion. The signal of junction is the agreed sign on which all three start. The last section is about sealing the frontiers: once the vanguard and the trailing army have moved, no one within the four borders may travel; only officers holding a tally may go, and only after the signal of junction, so that their movements can be checked against each other. The closing line — to fight abroad, first settle things at home — says the same thing as the last line of chapter fifteen.

What is called the trailing army goes a hundred li ahead of the main body, makes for the place of junction, carries three days’ cooked food, and marches in front of the van as the signal for the joining of battle. On the signal it moves; the trailing army feasts its men and makes the posture of battle for them. These are what are called troops hastening to the fight.

The vanguard marches ahead of the trailing army and moves on the signal. It goes twice the distance from the main body, a hundred li ahead of the trailing army, makes for the place of junction, carries six days’ cooked food, makes ready for battle and detaches troops to hold the key ground. If the fighting goes well it pursues the beaten enemy, keeping the ranks in hand as it hurries after him. Any man the trailing army meets coming back is put to death. This is the meaning of saying that the troops of the several commanders win when they are within the four flanking forces.

Troops have their squads and sections, and divide and combine; their charges are settled beforehand, and they are stationed separately to hold the passes, the strong points and the bridges. When the signal of junction goes up they all come together. The main body moves with rations counted out by the day, and no piece of equipment fails to come up; they move on the order, and whoever does not move to the order is put to death.

What is called sealing the sectors applies within the four borders. Once the vanguard and the trailing army have set out, no one within the four borders may travel. Those bearing the king’s command and holding a tally are called officers on lawful duty; anyone travelling who is not an officer on lawful duty is put to death. Only when the signal of junction has gone up do the officers on lawful duty set out, so that their movements may be checked against one another. So to fight abroad, first settle things at home.

Scroll Five卷五

Four chapters, two thousand characters, and the heaviest scroll in the book. Instruction of the Troops, Part One is the ladder of training and the rule that the instructor shares the offender’s guilt. Part Two lists the twelve things by which a ruler is certain to win, then turns to the invasion of a state and the signs of an army coming apart. Orders for the Army, Part One is the theoretical close of the book, on the two handles of civil and martial and on formations. Part Two is nothing but penal clauses on desertion and on losing one’s commander — the chapter the Qing imperial catalogue had in mind when it said that “the chapter on orders for the army is particularly full on the law against running away.” Two things are worth saying first. The Essentials of Government from the Assembled Books, compiled in 631, preserves in its excerpt from “Orders for the Army” a whole passage the received text has lost: a general has for his men no parent’s pity, no tie of blood, no private bond of kin; and yet they go at the enemy as though going home, and though there be a gorge a thousand fathoms deep and an unsounded pool before them they walk into fire and water as if treading level ground — because in front they see a reward made wholly plain, and behind them a punishment that is certain death. That is the book’s plainest answer to the question of what drives men to their deaths, and it is not in the text we have. Second, the closing paragraph of Part Two, with its three grades of “being able to kill half one’s own soldiers,” is the most disturbing sentence in the transmitted military literature: it treats the losses inflicted by one’s own military law as a scale of fighting power. Read it, then look back at “troops do not assault a city that has done no wrong and do not kill men who have committed no crime,” and you have seen both of this book’s faces.

Instruction of the Troops, Part One兵教上第二十一

The system of training, built on one rule of collective liability: the instructor shares the offender’s guilt. “If in a squad drawn up for battle one man does not die at the enemy, then the man who trained him is guilty as the offender is guilty.” In the middle come the badges (compare chapter seventeen) and the apparatus of drill: the squad commander trains his four men with a plank for a drum, a roof-tile for a gong and a pole for a flag — the only notice of training with substitutes in the whole early literature. When each level has been trained it is combined into the next, all the way up to the commander-in-chief. The end describes the great review: the army drawn up in open country with a great marker every three hundred paces, and the distance run in three stages of a hundred paces each — off, at the double, at the charge — to drill the rhythm.

In the instruction and orders of an army, when the camps are divided and the lines drawn up, anyone who advances or retires without orders is guilty as one who has broken the instruction. Those of the front rank are instructed by the front rank, those of the rear by the rear, those of the left by the left, those of the right by the right. Instruct a squad of five and its chief man is rewarded; fail to instruct and you are guilty as one who has broken the instruction. A man who has straggled reports his own squad, and the men of the squad report one another, and they are excused.

If in a squad drawn up for battle one man does not die at the enemy, then the man who trained him is guilty as the offender is guilty. If in a section standing surety for a section one man is lost and the other nine do not all die at the enemy, then the man who trained them is guilty as the offender is guilty. From section commander up to the second-in-command, where any man does not keep to the rule, the man who trained him is guilty as the offender is guilty. To make punishment plain and reward right must rest on the method of instructing the troops.

Each general has a different flag and each soldier a different badge. The army of the left wears its badge on the left shoulder, the army of the right on the right shoulder, the centre army on the breast. On the badge is written the man’s name and standing. The badges of the front and rear ranks go five ranks each; the badge of highest place is worn on the head and the rest are set lower by degrees.

The squad commander trains his four men with a plank for a drum, a roof-tile for a gong and a pole for a flag. Beat the drum and they advance; lower the flag and they go at the double; strike the gong and they fall back; wave to the left and they go left, wave to the right and they go right; strike gong and drum together and they sit down. When the squad commander has trained them they are combined under the section commander; when he has trained them they are combined under the company commander; then under the officer of a hundred; then under the military commandant; then under the second-in-command; then under the commander-in-chief.

When the commander-in-chief has trained them they are drawn up in open country, with a great marker set every three hundred paces. Once drawn up, they go a hundred paces from the marker at the start, a hundred at the double and a hundred at the charge, drilling the fight so as to get the rhythm of it, with rewards and punishments for it. From the commandants downward every man has a flag; and those who take an enemy flag in a victory are rewarded each according to the rank he holds, to make plain the mind that rewards and encourages.

Victory rests on establishing awe; establishing awe rests on the joining of strength; the joining of strength rests on punishing rightly. Punishing rightly is what makes reward plain. That the people can be made to turn their backs on the gate of the capital and settle the question of life and death, and be trained to die without hesitation — there is a reason for it.

That those who defend hold fast and those who fight will fight; that no treacherous plan is laid and no seditious talk is heard; that an order once given is not altered and an army once moved has no misgiving; that the light troops are like a thunderbolt and the assault on the enemy like a shock of alarm; that merit and worth are distinguished as plainly as black from white, and the people follow the order from above as the four limbs answer the mind; that the leading division breaks the enemy’s ranks and throws his line into disorder and shatters his strength as though it collapsed — there is a reason for all of it. This is what is meant by instructing the troops: it is how borders are opened, the altars of the state are kept, harm is put away and martial virtue is achieved.

Instruction of the Troops, Part Two兵教下第二十二

Two halves. The first is “twelve things by which a ruler is certain to win” — linked penalties, closed ground, the whole army, opening and blocking, sector limits, order of signals, the five badges, the whole company, gong and drum, the wagon line, the death-defying men, the men of strength — each with its own gloss attached. It is the only self-annotated list in the book and it is also a table of contents to the institutions of all the other chapters (linked penalties is chapter fourteen, closed ground is chapter fifteen, the five badges chapter seventeen, gong and drum chapter eighteen). The second half turns to invading a state: weigh the balance inside and out, then decide by the shape of the country whether to take the land first or the city first. The last two sections list the signs of an army breaking: a light general, a low rampart and a restless host may be attacked; a heavy general, a high rampart and a frightened host may be invested; men who strike out at night are startled, men who dodge duty have gone in heart. It closes in eight words: wounded spirit loses an army, a crooked plan loses a state.

I have heard that a ruler of men has a way of being certain to win, and so can annex and enlarge and make his institutions one, and then his awe extends over the world. There are twelve things in it. The first is linked penalty, which means shared guilt within the squads. The second is closed ground, which means forbidding movement on the roads so as to net wickedness from outside. The third is the whole army, which means that the men of a squad hold to one another and the threes and fives correspond, so binding them together. The fourth is opening and blocking, which means dividing the ground into limits, each man dying at his post and holding firm. The fifth is the limit of sectors, which means that left and right restrain one another and front and rear wait for one another, with the wagon line for a defence, so as to meet and to halt. The sixth is order of signals, which means that the front rank presses forward so as to be marked off from those behind, and none may contend to be first up out of turn. The seventh is the five badges, which means making the ranks plain so that from first to last there is no confusion. The eighth is the whole company, which means that the bends of the formation follow one another and all have their divisions. The ninth is gong and drum, which means rousing those who have merit and bringing on those who have virtue. The tenth is the wagon line, which means joining the leading pikes and blinkering the horses. The eleventh is the death-defying men, which means that those in the host who have ability and wit ride in the war chariots and go to and fro before and behind, striking by surprise. The twelfth is the men of strength, which means holding to one’s own company and not moving unless the flag waves. When these twelve are taught, no breach of orders is let pass.

An army that is weak can be made strong; a ruler who is lowly can be made honoured; orders that have decayed can be set up again; a people that has drifted away can be drawn close; a host that is numerous can be governed; a territory that is large can be held. Then the war chariots need not go past the threshold, nor the laced armour come out of its bag, and the world submits in awe.

There are five extremities in war: as a general, forget your household; crossing the frontier, forget your family; pointing at the enemy, forget yourself; be resolved to die and you will live; be in a hurry to win and you are beneath consideration. A hundred men under the blade break the ranks and throw the line into disorder; a thousand under the blade take the enemy and kill his general; ten thousand under the blade go where they please in the world.

King Wu asked the Grand Duke Wang: “I should like a little leisure to get at the heart of employing men.” Wang replied: “Reward like a mountain and punish like a ravine. Best of all is to make no mistake; next to that, to repair one; and let no man be able to speak of it privately. Whoever pleads that a man due to be punished should not be punished dies; whoever pleads that a man not due to be rewarded should be rewarded dies.”

To invade a state you must take hold of a change in it. Show it wealth to see where it is in want; show it decay to see where it is sick. When above and below are at odds and falling apart — anything of this kind is a handle for invasion.

Whenever you raise an army you must examine the balance within and without and reckon what it will cost. Arms are complete or wanting, provisions are ample or short; measure the roads in and out, and then raise the army and punish the disorder, and you will certainly get in. Where the territory is large and the city small, take the territory first; where the city is large and the territory narrow, attack the city first; where the land is wide and the people few, cut off the defiles; where the land is narrow and the people many, raise a great ramp and overlook them. Do not spoil their livelihood, do not take their season, be easy in your government of them, level their occupations, relieve their distress — and that is enough to be extended over the world.

Today the warring states attack one another and make great war on those who have virtue. From squads to pairs and from pairs to divisions, their orders are not one; those who lead them leave the people’s minds unsettled, they set store by arrogance and extravagance, they breed trouble in their planning and wrangle in their pleading, and the officials dig into the business of it — all of which is a drag and ends in defeat. The day is late and the road long, and there is broken spirit in the return; the army grows stale and the general greedy, they scramble for plunder and are easily beaten.

Where the general is light, the rampart low and the host restless, you may attack. Where the general is heavy, the rampart high and the host frightened, you may invest. When you invest a place you must leave a small advantage open to it, so that it wastes away by degrees and, husband as they may, there are men who go without food. A host that strikes out at night is a host that has been startled; a host that shirks duty is a host whose heart has gone. Waiting on rescue from others and shrinking at the appointed battle are both signs of a mind lost and a spirit wounded. Wounded spirit loses an army; a crooked plan loses a state.

Orders for the Army, Part One兵令上第二十三

The theoretical close of the book, and the chapter furthest from the Tang excerpt: of the three hundred and forty-nine characters the Essentials of Government quotes under “Orders for the Army,” only thirty-six per cent agree with the text we have. Two doctrines. First the two handles: “take the martial for the post and the civil for the seed; the martial is the outside and the civil the lining” — the civil is for seeing where advantage and danger lie, the martial for closing with a strong enemy and pressing attack and defence. Second, the most famous sentence in the book: when the men fear their general more than they fear the enemy, they win; when they fear the enemy more than their general, they lose. The balance of fear and contempt of chapter five has here become a theorem. The second half is on formations — facing inward, facing outward, standing and seated, the seated men with swords and axes and the standing men with halberds and crossbows, the general in the middle. The last section reads noise as intelligence: those who shout before the fight are hollow, those who shout after are solid, and those who make no sound at all are the secret ones.

Weapons are instruments of ill omen; contention is a perverse virtue. Everything must have a root, and so a true king punishes violence and disorder with humanity and right for his root. The warring states use arms to establish their awe, to resist their enemies and to scheme against one another, and cannot do without them.

In war, take the martial for the post and the civil for the seed; the martial is the outside and the civil the lining. Understand these two and you know victory and defeat. The civil is for seeing where advantage and harm lie and telling safety from danger; the martial is for closing with a strong enemy and pressing the attack and the defence.

Singleness wins, scattering loses. A line that is dense is firm; a point that is thin gets through. When the men fear their general more than they fear the enemy, they win; when they fear the enemy more than their general, they lose. To know which will win and which lose, weigh the general against the enemy: the enemy and the general are the two pans of a balance. Steady and quiet, there is order; hasty and violent, there is disorder.

There is a standing order for bringing troops out and drawing up the line, a standing rule for the spacing of the files, and a fitness in the sequence of front and rear. The standing order is not what is used in pursuing a beaten enemy or falling on a town. Front and rear out of sequence is a fault, and whoever confuses front and rear is beheaded.

A standing line always faces the enemy; there are lines facing inward and lines facing outward, lines standing and lines seated. Facing inward is for keeping watch on the middle; facing outward is for guarding against what is outside; standing is for moving; seated is for halting. Standing and seated are set alternately, moving and halting together, with the general in the midst of them. The seated men’s weapons are the sword and the axe, the standing men’s the halberd and the crossbow; and the general is in the middle of them too.

A man who handles an enemy well engages first with orthodox troops and then takes him by the throat. This is the art of certain victory. Set out the axes, deck out the flags and badges, let merit be certainly rewarded and breach of orders be certainly death: survival and ruin, life and death, hang on the tip of the drumstick, and though there be men in the world who are good at war, none can withstand it.

Before the arrows have crossed and the long blades met: those who shout in front are called hollow, those who shout behind are called solid, and those who do not shout at all are called secret. Hollow, solid and secret — these are the body of war.

Orders for the Army, Part Two兵令下第二十四

Penal clauses throughout, on desertion, on losing one’s commander, on collective liability and on frontier duty; the most complete body of military penal law in the transmitted early literature. Two things weigh heaviest. Liability reaches the soldier’s parents, wife and children: a man who serves his year on the frontier and runs off without waiting to be relieved is treated as a deserter from the army, and his parents, wife and children share his guilt if they knew and are pardoned if they did not. And when a commander-in-chief is killed, every officer of his retinue from five hundred men upward who does not die at the enemy is beheaded, and every one of his close guard who was in the line is beheaded. In the middle of the clauses stands a short essay on names and realities: men whose names are on the roll while their bodies are at home, an army with an empty muster — which cannot keep the enemy out or hold the state within. The last paragraph is the coldest in the book.

For those posted out from the main body as a forward guard, the frontier districts and their watch-posts are to be set three to five li from one another. When it is heard that the main body has set its forward guard, then once the fighting begins all movement is forbidden. This is how things are kept quiet at home.

When soldiers of the interior go out on garrison duty, the officers issue them flags, drums, dagger-axes and armour. On the day of departure, those who fall in behind their officers or who have already crossed the district boundary fall under the law for late garrison. A man who has served a year on the frontier and then runs off without waiting to be relieved is treated under the law for deserting the army; his parents, wife and children, if they knew of it, share his guilt; if they did not know, they are pardoned. If a soldier reaches the commander-in-chief a day later than his officers, his parents, wife and children all share his guilt. If a soldier runs home and is there a day, and his parents, wife and children neither seize him nor report him, they too share his guilt.

All who lose their officers in battle, and all officers who abandon their men and turn back alone, are beheaded. If an officer in front abandons his men and turns back, and an officer behind him is able to behead him and take over his men, that officer is rewarded. Any unit that earns no merit serves three years on the frontier.

In a great battle of the three armies, if the commander-in-chief is killed, then of the officers of his retinue commanding five hundred men and upwards, those who do not die at the enemy are beheaded; the commander-in-chief’s close guard who were in the line are all beheaded; of the remaining soldiers, those with military merit lose one grade of it and those with none serve three years on the frontier. If a man of a squad is killed in battle, or is killed and his body not recovered, the whole squad loses its merit; if the body is recovered, the guilt is entirely pardoned.

The good and harm of an army lie in the names and realities of the state. Now the name is on the official roll and the man is at home: the office does not get the reality and the household does not get the name. Men are mustered into an army and there is an empty name and no substance; outside it is not enough to keep off an enemy and inside it is not enough to hold the state. This is why an army falls short and a general is robbed of his awe. I say that where soldiers run home, the men of their mess and squad and their officers should be fined in grain for the supply and the grain entered as army substance. Otherwise there is one army’s name and two armies’ worth of real expenditure going out; the state is emptied and the people’s year is drained; and how shall the disaster of flight and rout be avoided?

Now to stop men running home by law and to forbid desertion is the army’s first victory. That squads and sections are linked, so that in battle men and officers rescue one another, is the army’s second victory. That the general can establish awe, the men can be kept in measure, the orders are plain and trusted, and attack and defence both succeed, is the army’s third victory.

I have heard that of those in antiquity who were good at using troops, some could kill half their own soldiers, the next sort three in ten, the next one in ten. He who could kill half of them extended his awe within the four seas; he who killed three in ten brought his strength to bear on the feudal lords; he who killed one in ten got his orders carried out among his men. Hence the saying: a host of a million that will not obey is worth less than ten thousand who will fight; ten thousand who will fight are worth less than a hundred who will throw themselves forward. Let reward be like the bright moon, good faith like the four seasons, orders like the axe, discipline like the sword Ganjiang — and soldiers who will not obey have never been heard of.