Chapter 3: Attack By Stratagem

III. ATTACK BY STRATAGEM

1. Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best
thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to
shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to
recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a
regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.

[The equivalent to an army corps, according to Ssu-ma Fa,
consisted nominally of 12500 men; according to Ts'ao Kung, the
equivalent of a regiment contained 500 men, the equivalent to a
detachment consists from any number between 100 and 500, and the
equivalent of a company contains from 5 to 100 men. For the last
two, however, Chang Yu gives the exact figures of 100 and 5
respectively.]

2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not
supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the
enemy's resistance without fighting.

[Here again, no modern strategist but will approve the words
of the old Chinese general. Moltke's greatest triumph, the
capitulation of the huge French army at Sedan, was won
practically without bloodshed.]

3. Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the
enemy's plans;

[Perhaps the word "balk" falls short of expressing the full
force of the Chinese word, which implies not an attitude of
defense, whereby one might be content to foil the enemy's
stratagems one after another, but an active policy of counter-
attack. Ho Shih puts this very clearly in his note: "When the
enemy has made a plan of attack against us, we must anticipate
him by delivering our own attack first."]

the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces;

[Isolating him from his allies. We must not forget that Sun
Tzu, in speaking of hostilities, always has in mind the numerous
states or principalities into which the China of his day was
split up.]

the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field;

[When he is already at full strength.]

and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.

4. The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can
possibly be avoided.

[Another sound piece of military theory. Had the Boers
acted upon it in 1899, and refrained from dissipating their
strength before Kimberley, Mafeking, or even Ladysmith, it is
more than probable that they would have been masters of the
situation before the British were ready seriously to oppose
them.]

The preparation of mantlets, movable shelters, and various
implements of war, will take up three whole months;

[It is not quite clear what the Chinese word, here
translated as "mantlets", described. Ts'ao Kung simply defines
them as "large shields," but we get a