Preface（Part 3）

These two paragraphs are extremely valuable as evidence of the date of composition. They assign the work to the period of the struggle between Wu and Yüeh. So much has been observed by Pi I-hsun. But what has hitherto escaped notice is that they also seriously impair the credibility of Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s narrative. As we have seen above, the first positive date given in connection with Sun Wu is 512 B.C. He is then spoken of as a general, acting as confidential adviser to Ho Lu, so that his alleged introduction to that monarch had already taken place, and of course the 13 chapters must have been written earlier still. But at that time, and for several years after, down to the capture of Ying in 506, Ch’u and not Yüeh, was the great hereditary enemy of Wu. The two states, Ch’u and Wu, had been constantly at war for over half a century, [31] whereas the first war between Wu and Yüeh was waged only in 510, [32] and even then was no more than a short interlude sandwiched in the midst of the fierce struggle with Ch’u. Now Ch’u is not mentioned in the 13 chapters at all. The natural inference is that they were written at a time when Yüeh had become the prime antagonist of Wu, that is, after Ch’u had suffered the great humiliation of 506. At this point, a table of dates may be found useful.

B.C. 514 Accession of Ho Lu. 512 Ho Lu attacks Ch’u, but is dissuaded from entering Ying, the capital. Shih Chi mentions Sun Wu as general. 511 Another attack on Ch’u. 510 Wu makes a successful attack on Yüeh. This is the first war between the two states. 509 or 508 Ch’u invades Wu, but is signally defeated at Yu-chang. 506 Ho Lu attacks Ch’u with the aid of T’ang and Ts’ai. Decisive battle of Po-chu, and capture of Ying. Last mention of Sun Wu in Shih Chi. 505 Yüeh makes a raid on Wu in the absence of its army. Wu is beaten by Ch’in and evacuates Ying. 504 Ho Lu sends Fu Ch’ai to attack Ch’u. 497 Kou Chien becomes King of Yüeh. 496 Wu attacks Yüeh, but is defeated by Kou Chien at Tsui-li. Ho Lu is killed. 494 Fu Ch’ai defeats Kou Chien in the great battle of Fu- chaio, and enters the capital of Yüeh. 485 or 484 Kou Chien renders homage to Wu. Death of Wu Tzŭ-hsu. 482 Kou Chien invades Wu in the absence of Fu Ch’ai. 478 to 476 Further attacks by Yüeh on Wu. 475 Kou Chien lays siege to the capital of Wu. 473 Final defeat and extinction of Wu.

The sentence quoted above from VI. § 21 hardly strikes me as one that could have been written in the full flush of victory. It seems rather to imply that, for the moment at least, the tide had turned against Wu, and that she was getting the worst of the struggle. Hence we may conclude that our treatise was not in existence in 505, before which date Yüeh does not appear to have scored any notable success against Wu. Ho Lu died in 496, so that if the book was written for him, it must have been during the period 505-496, when there was a lull in the hostilities, Wu having presumably exhausted by its supreme effort against Ch’u. On the other hand, if we choose to disregard the tradition connecting Sun Wu’s name with Ho Lu, it might equally well have seen the light between 496 and 494, or possibly in the period 482-473, when Yüeh was once again becoming a very serious menace. [33] We may feel fairly certain that the author, whoever he may have been, was not a man of any great eminence in his own day. On this point the negative testimony of the Tso Chuan far outweighs any shred of authority still attaching to the Shih Chi, if once its other facts are discredited. Sun Hsing-yen, however, makes a feeble attempt to explain the omission of his name from the great commentary. It was Wu Tzŭ-hsu, he says, who got all the credit of Sun Wu’s exploits, because the latter (being an alien) was not rewarded with an office in the State.

How then did the Sun Tzŭ legend originate? It may be that the growing celebrity of the book imparted by degrees a kind of factitious renown to its author. It was felt to be only right and proper that one so well versed in the science of war should have solid achievements to his credit as well. Now the capture of Ying was undoubtedly the greatest feat of arms in Ho Lu’s reign; it made a deep and lasting impression on all the surrounding states, and raised Wu to the short-lived zenith of her power. Hence, what more natural, as time went on, than that the acknowledged master of strategy, Sun Wu, should be popularly identified with that campaign, at first perhaps only in the sense that his brain conceived and planned it; afterwards, that it was actually carried out by him in conjunction with Wu Yuan, [34] Po P’ei and Fu Kai?

It is obvious that any attempt to reconstruct even the outline of Sun Tzŭ’s life must be based almost wholly on conjecture. With this necessary proviso, I should say that he probably entered the service of Wu about the time of Ho Lu’s accession, and gathered experience, though only in the capacity of a subordinate officer, during the intense military activity which marked the first half of the prince’s reign. [35] If he rose to be a general at all, he certainly was never on an equal footing with the three above mentioned. He was doubtless present at the investment and occupation of Ying, and witnessed Wu’s sudden collapse in the following year. Yüeh’s attack at this critical juncture, when her rival was embarrassed on every side, seems to have convinced him that this upstart kingdom was the great enemy against whom every effort would henceforth have to be directed. Sun Wu was thus a well-seasoned warrior when he sat down to write his famous book, which according to my reckoning must have appeared towards the end, rather than the beginning of Ho Lu’s reign. The story of the women may possibly have grown out of some real incident occurring about the same time. As we hear no more of Sun Wu after this from any source, he is hardly likely to have survived his patron or to have taken part in the death-struggle with Yüeh, which began with the disaster at Tsui-li.

If these inferences are approximately correct, there is a certain irony in the fate which decreed that China’s most illustrious man of peace should be contemporary with her greatest writer on war.

The Text of Sun Tzŭ

I have found it difficult to glean much about the history of Sun Tzŭ’s text. The quotations that occur in early authors go to show that the “13 chapters” of which Ssu-ma Ch’ien speaks were essentially the same as those now extant. We have his word for it that they were widely circulated in his day, and can only regret that he refrained from discussing them on that account. Sun Hsing-yen says in his preface:—

During the Ch’in and Han dynasties Sun Tzŭ’s Art of War was in general use amongst military commanders, but they seem to have treated it as a work of mysterious import, and were unwilling to expound it for the benefit of posterity. Thus it came about that Wei Wu was the first to write a commentary on it.

As we have already seen, there is no reasonable ground to suppose that Ts’ao Kung tampered with the text. But the text itself is often so obscure, and the number of editions which appeared from that time onward so great, especially during the T’ang and Sung dynasties, that it would be surprising if numerous corruptions had not managed to creep in. Towards the middle of the Sung period, by which time all the chief commentaries on Sun Tzŭ were in existence, a certain Chi T’ien-pao published a work in 15 chuan entitled “Sun Tzŭ with the collected commentaries of ten writers.” There was another text, with variant readings put forward by Chu Fu of Ta-hsing, which also had supporters among the scholars of that period; but in the Ming editions, Sun Hsing-yen tells us, these readings were for some reason or other no longer put into circulation. Thus, until the end of the 18th century, the text in sole possession of the field was one derived from Chi T’ien-pao’s edition, although no actual copy of that important work was known to have survived. That, therefore, is the text of Sun Tzŭ which appears in the War section of the great Imperial encyclopedia printed in 1726, the Ku Chin T’u Shu Chi Ch’eng. Another copy at my disposal of what is practically the same text, with slight variations, is that contained in the “Eleven philosophers of the Chou and Ch’in dynasties” [1758]. And the Chinese printed in Capt. Calthrop’s first edition is evidently a similar version which has filtered through Japanese channels. So things remained until Sun Hsing-yen [1752-1818], a distinguished antiquarian and classical scholar, who claimed to be an actual descendant of Sun Wu, [36] accidentally discovered a copy of Chi T’ien-pao’s long-lost work, when on a visit to the library of the Hua-yin temple. [37] Appended to it was the I Shuo of Cheng Yu-Hsien, mentioned in the T’ung Chih, and also believed to have perished. This is what Sun Hsing-yen designates as the “original edition (or text)”—a rather misleading name, for it cannot by any means claim to set before us the text of Sun Tzŭ in its pristine purity. Chi T’ien-pao was a careless compiler, and appears to have been content to reproduce the somewhat debased version current in his day, without troubling to collate it with the earliest editions then available. Fortunately, two versions of Sun Tzŭ, even older than the newly discovered work, were still extant, one buried in the T’ung Tien, Tu Yu’s great treatise on the Constitution, the other similarly enshrined in the T’ai P’ing Yu Lan encyclopedia. In both the complete text is to be found, though split up into fragments, intermixed with other matter, and scattered piecemeal over a number of different sections. Considering that the Yu Lan takes us back to the year 983, and the T’ung Tien about 200 years further still, to the middle of the T’ang dynasty, the value of these early transcripts of Sun Tzŭ can hardly be overestimated. Yet the idea of utilizing them does not seem to have occurred to anyone until Sun Hsing-yen, acting under Government instructions, undertook a thorough recension of the text. This is his own account:—

Because of the numerous mistakes in the text of Sun Tzŭ which his editors had handed down, the Government ordered that the ancient edition [of Chi T’ien-pao] should be used, and that the text should be revised and corrected throughout. It happened that Wu Nien-hu, the Governor Pi Kua, and Hsi, a graduate of the second degree, had all devoted themselves to this study, probably surpassing me therein. Accordingly, I have had the whole work cut on blocks as a textbook for military men.

The three individuals here referred to had evidently been occupied on the text of Sun Tzŭ prior to Sun Hsing-yen’s commission, but we are left in doubt as to the work they really accomplished. At any rate, the new edition, when ultimately produced, appeared in the names of Sun Hsing-yen and only one co-editor Wu Jen-shi. They took the “original edition” as their basis, and by careful comparison with older versions, as well as the extant commentaries and other sources of information such as the I Shuo, succeeded in restoring a very large number of doubtful passages, and turned out, on the whole, what must be accepted as the closest approximation we are ever likely to get to Sun Tzŭ’s original work. This is what will hereafter be denominated the “standard text.”

The copy which I have used belongs to a reissue dated 1877. It is in 6 pen, forming part of a well-printed set of 23 early philosophical works in 83 pen. [38] It opens with a preface by Sun Hsing-yen (largely quoted in this introduction), vindicating the traditional view of Sun Tzŭ’s life and performances, and summing up in remarkably concise fashion the evidence in its favour. This is followed by Ts’ao Kung’s preface to his edition, and the biography of Sun Tzŭ from the Shih Chi, both translated above. Then come, firstly, Cheng Yu-hsien’s I Shuo, [39] with author’s preface, and next, a short miscellany of historical and bibliographical information entitled Sun Tzŭ Hsu Lu, compiled by Pi I-hsun. As regards the body of the work, each separate sentence is followed by a note on the text, if required, and then by the various commentaries appertaining to it, arranged in chronological order. These we shall now proceed to discuss briefly, one by one.

The Commentators

Sun Tzŭ can boast an exceptionally long distinguished roll of commentators, which would do honour to any classic. Ou-yang Hsiu remarks on this fact, though he wrote before the tale was complete, and rather ingeniously explains it by saying that the artifices of war, being inexhaustible, must therefore be susceptible of treatment in a great variety of ways.

1. TS’AO TS’AO or Ts’ao Kung, afterwards known as Wei Wu Ti [A.D. 155-220]. There is hardly any room for doubt that the earliest commentary on Sun Tzŭ actually came from the pen of this extraordinary man, whose biography in the San Kuo Chih reads like a romance. One of the greatest military geniuses that the world has seen, and Napoleonic in the scale of his operations, he was especially famed for the marvelous rapidity of his marches, which has found expression in the line “Talk of Ts’ao Ts’ao, and Ts’ao Ts’ao will appear.” Ou-yang Hsiu says of him that he was a great captain who “measured his strength against Tung Cho, Lu Pu and the two Yuan, father and son, and vanquished them all; whereupon he divided the Empire of Han with Wu and Shu, and made himself king. It is recorded that whenever a council of war was held by Wei on the eve of a far-reaching campaign, he had all his calculations ready; those generals who made use of them did not lose one battle in ten; those who ran counter to them in any particular saw their armies incontinently beaten and put to flight.” Ts’ao Kung’s notes on Sun Tzŭ, models of austere brevity, are so thoroughly characteristic of the stern commander known to history, that it is hard indeed to conceive of them as the work of a mere littérateur. Sometimes, indeed, owing to extreme compression, they are scarcely intelligible and stand no less in need of a commentary than the text itself. [40]

2. MENG SHIH. The commentary which has come down to us under this name is comparatively meager, and nothing about the author is known. Even his personal name has not been recorded. Chi T’ien-pao’s edition places him after Chia Lin, and Ch’ao Kung-wu also assigns him to the T’ang dynasty, [41] but this is a mistake. In Sun Hsing-yen’s preface, he appears as Meng Shih of the Liang dynasty [502-557]. Others would identify him with Meng K’ang of the 3rd century. He is named in one work as the last of the “Five Commentators,” the others being Wei Wu Ti, Tu Mu, Ch’en Hao and Chia Lin.

3. LI CH’UAN of the 8th century was a well-known writer on military tactics. One of his works has been in constant use down to the present day. The T’ung Chih mentions “Lives of famous generals from the Chou to the T’ang dynasty” as written by him. [42] According to Ch’ao Kung-wu and the T’ien-i-ko catalogue, he followed a variant of the text of Sun Tzŭ which differs considerably from those now extant. His notes are mostly short and to the point, and he frequently illustrates his remarks by anecdotes from Chinese history.

4. TU YU (died 812) did not publish a separate commentary on Sun Tzŭ, his notes being taken from the T’ung Tien, the encyclopedic treatise on the Constitution which was his life-work. They are largely repetitions of Ts’ao Kung and Meng Shih, besides which it is believed that he drew on the ancient commentaries of Wang Ling and others. Owing to the peculiar arrangement of T’ung Tien, he has to explain each passage on its merits, apart from the context, and sometimes his own explanation does not agree with that of Ts’ao Kung, whom he always quotes first. Though not strictly to be reckoned as one of the “Ten Commentators,” he was added to their number by Chi T’ien-pao, being wrongly placed after his grandson Tu Mu.

5. TU MU (803-852) is perhaps the best known as a poet—a bright star even in the glorious galaxy of the T’ang period. We learn from Ch’ao Kung-wu that although he had no practical experience of war, he was extremely fond of discussing the subject, and was moreover well read in the military history of the Ch’un Ch’iu and Chan Kuo eras. His notes, therefore, are well worth attention. They are very copious, and replete with historical parallels. The gist of Sun Tzŭ’s work is thus summarized by him: “Practice benevolence and justice, but on the other hand make full use of artifice and measures of expediency.” He further declared that all the military triumphs and disasters of the thousand years which had elapsed since Sun Tzŭ’s death would, upon examination, be found to uphold and corroborate, in every particular, the maxims contained in his book. Tu Mu’s somewhat spiteful charge against Ts’ao Kung has already been considered elsewhere.

6. CH’EN HAO appears to have been a contemporary of Tu Mu. Ch’ao Kung-wu says that he was impelled to write a new commentary on Sun Tzŭ because Ts’ao Kung’s on the one hand was too obscure and subtle, and that of Tu Mu on the other too long-winded and diffuse. Ou-yang Hsiu, writing in the middle of the 11th century, calls Ts’ao Kung, Tu Mu and Ch’en Hao the three chief commentators on Sun Tzŭ, and observes that Ch’en Hao is continually attacking Tu Mu’s shortcomings. His commentary, though not lacking in merit, must rank below those of his predecessors.

7. CHIA LIN is known to have lived under the T’ang dynasty, for his commentary on Sun Tzŭ is mentioned in the T’ang Shu and was afterwards republished by Chi Hsieh of the same dynasty together with those of Meng Shih and Tu Yu. It is of somewhat scanty texture, and in point of quality, too, perhaps the least valuable of the eleven.