Sun Tzu

Lezt said:

We also have to remember that Sun Tze is actually two person, basically, the term Sun tze meant "man with surname Sun" and the two generals we refer to is the grand father and the grand son. Both author parts of the art of war. Sun Wu and Sun Bin were the two men.

The brilliance of Sun Tze is that he is a Bismark figure whose policies and helped transformed as vesicles have said. he is also a statesman. Importantly. he left a manual.

There are many more war focused generals in Chinese history, Wang Jian who unified china for Qin, Yue Fei perfected Chinese area denial warfare; Bai Qi who probably slaughtered more men in antiquity than any other until modern times - estimates are around 1 million to 2 million enemy soldiers killed. But the key is, they are no stateman when Sun Tze was.

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There were many more brilliant strategists whose policies helped transformed the country. I can recall one. He was Shang Yang from Qin. Compared to what Shang Yang did to Qin, Sun Tzu's transformation to Wu was nothing.

I think Sun Tzu was not sort of Bismarck Figure. He was more of Guderian Figure who write a revolutionary military tactic / strategy that ahead of their era. Just like Guderian who write "Blitzkrieg", Sun Tzu or whoever write that book wrote Sun Tzu Art of War.

And what revolutionary of the Sun Tzu Bing Fa bring to his era? Know your own and your enemy? Nope. I think the most revolutionary think that he brought to his book was "War is the most important matter of the country". He change the mindset of the strategists of his era from seeing that War as a kind of sport to a war that victory / defeat was the most important matter of the Country survival.

vesicles said:

Yeah... Most of that is myth. If you follow the Weki link that you provided, you will find an archeological dig site, where they unearthed BOTH Sun Tzu's Art of War (13 chapters) AND Sun Bin's Art of War (16 chapters). So definitely two different books from two different individuals.

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Because of the legendary nature of both Sun Tzu and Sun Bin, there have been many myths and legends about them. Another myth says that Sun Bin's teacher, Gui Gu Zi (master of ghost valley) was actually the reincarnation of Sun Tzu.

And there has been no evidence that Sun Bin was related to Sun Tzu. Most of that has been myth and rumors. In fact, some scholars since the 17th century actually thought Sun Tzu should actually be the alter ego of a famed military and political strategist, Wu Zixu, who escaped from Chu and seeked asylum in the state of Wu (his entire family of 300 was all executed by the Lord of Chu and he was the only one who got out). It made certain sense. Sun Tzu's full name is Sun Wu. "Sun" in ancient Chinese could sometimes mean "fugitive" and Wu is the last name of Wu Zixu. And to add to the confusion, "Wu" in Wu Zixu and "Wu" in Sun Wu are the same: meaning military or martial. So Sun Wu could mean a fugitive with the family name of Wu, or a military genius with a last name "Sun". Who knows...

And in the most widely accepted accounts of Sun Tzu, Sun Wu was a simple farmer. It was Wu Zixu who invited Sun Tzu to the Lord of Wu. And Wu Zixu accompanied Sun Tzu in the campaign against Chu.

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If I'm not mistakenly remember, Wu Zixu was the Wu king right hand who took out the Chu King's corpse from his grave and bit him in front of the people, wasn't he?

Brainsuker said:

If I'm not mistakenly remember, Wu Zixu was the Wu king right hand who took out the Chu King's corpse from his grave and bit him in front of the people, wasn't he?

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Yep! He's the one.

The Lord of Chu killed Wu Zixu's entire family of 300 (immediate, distant relatives, neighbors, good friends, etc). Wu Zixu was the only one that got out. So he has always wanted to avenge his family. In fact, the entire campaign against Chu launched by the state of Wu, which was led by Sun Tzu, was to fulfill Lord Wu's promise to Wu Zixu to avenge his family.

Wu Zixu's goal was to kill the Lord of Chu himself. Unfortunately the Lord died of natural causes during the campaign. So once they sacked the capital city of Chu, Wu Zixu dug out the Lord's corpse from his tomb and whipped the corpse 300 times, each time for a member of his family killed by the Lord.

vesicles said:

Yep! He's the one.

The Lord of Chu killed Wu Zixu's entire family of 300 (immediate, distant relatives, neighbors, good friends, etc). Wu Zixu was the only one that got out. So he has always wanted to avenge his family. In fact, the entire campaign against Chu launched by the state of Wu, which was led by Sun Tzu, was to fulfill Lord Wu's promise to Wu Zixu to avenge his family.

Wu Zixu's goal was to kill the Lord of Chu himself. Unfortunately the Lord died of natural causes during the campaign. So once they sacked the capital city of Chu, Wu Zixu dug out the Lord's corpse from his tomb and whipped the corpse 300 times, each time for a member of his family killed by the Lord.

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We can say Wu Zixu was hungry for revenge.

The thing about Shang Yang is that he was a purely civil servant, he never lead armies, Sun Tze did.

I also disagree that the art of war boils down to that the ability of war is the most important for a country. But that war for it to be successful must be waged on favorable terms and how to identify, nurture and exploit these terms is the art.

It is very different from Guardian's Blitzkrieg, which focus on the operation of a war; just like Mahan's "The Influence of Sea Power upon History". It is more like "On War" by Carl Von Clausewitz; for the art of war talks about the love of the people and the psyche of the soldiers and commanders.

Lezt said:

The thing about Shang Yang is that he was a purely civil servant, he never lead armies, Sun Tze did.

I also disagree that the art of war boils down to that the ability of war is the most important for a country. But that war for it to be successful must be waged on favorable terms and how to identify, nurture and exploit these terms is the art.

It is very different from Guardian's Blitzkrieg, which focus on the operation of a war; just like Mahan's "The Influence of Sea Power upon History". It is more like "On War" by Carl Von Clausewitz; for the art of war talks about the love of the people and the psyche of the soldiers and commanders.

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Maybe Shang Yang was a civil servant, but his legalism reform was also touch the Qin's military.
And it was surely make the previously mediocre country into the most powerful one in 7 kingdoms.

Your statement is right about on favorable term and how to identify, nurture, and exploit these terms. But, you must understand that at that era (Sun Tzu era), rulers tend to consider War as sport. I take this quote from some website

"In ancient China war had been regarded as a knightly contest. As such, it had been governed by a code to which both sides generally adhered. Many illustrations of this are found…For example, in 632 BC the Chin commander, after defeating Ch’u at Ch’eng P’u, gave the vanquished enemy three days’ supply of food. This courtesy was later reciprocated by a Ch’u army victorious at Pi. "

So his statement about "War is the most important matter for a country" was the game changer of his era. That's why Sun Tzu wrote this : In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns. Thus it may be known that the leader of armies is the arbiter of the people's fate, the man on whom it depends whether the nation shall be in peace or in peril” (2.19-20).

That's the game changer to the war, because it change the mindset of the rulers and the generals who lead the army. While your statement of " that war for it to be successful must be waged on favorable terms and how to identify, nurture and exploit these terms is the art" is only a part of strategy to win the war.

Of course, if you see the Sun Tzu Ping Fa from the modern point of view, your statement is truer because of our current condition and mindset.

I would not say it was a "knightly contest" before Sun Tzu. It was more of a different honor code at the time.

Additionally, you should know that military campaigns among different lords in China at that time was vastly different than different factions fighting in a civil war. Although each state had their own military and everything, they all still claimed loyalty to the King of Zhou dynasty (no emperor yet, only the King of Zhou). Especially during the Spring and Autumn period, all lords still viewed themselves as the subjects of the King. Very few lords dared to annex / destroy other lords and other states. Wars and battles were simply means to gain better political position. The goal was more of political domination. Hence the term "five dominating states". This is actually a lot like what is going on now in the world today. You see a lot of fighting. But there is virtually no annexation. No country has been destroyed or annexed by others. Even the US, the nation that fights the most foreign wars, pulls out of most of its troops once the fighting is done. It was similar in China back then. As it was more for polItical purposes, it makes sense to do a few good deeds to gain some political points, such as giving food to the POWs, once the fighting was done.

Warring State period, on the other hand, was vastly different. No one cared about the King any more. The goal became different too: to flat out destroy all other states so that one could become the ultimate ruler of all lands. Then we begin to see much more brutal fights. As the goal had changed, the method was changed as well: to weaken and destroy enemy to the best of your abilities. That's when you begin to see mass-killing POW's. At that time, once the fighting ended, the winning state didn't want to spend any of their precious resources to support the POWs. They didn't want to simply release the POWs since these soldiers would simply go back to their own state, pick up weapons and come back and fight them again. So their solution was to kill them all. The most infamous example would be general Bai Qi of the state of Qin. He once killed 400,000 POW's after a battle with the state of Zhao. Hence the nickname "butcher of men".

So the nice gestures that you see after battles during the Spring and Autumn period was not because people saw wars as games. Instead, It was mainly because of the different political atmosphere and different political goals between the fighting states.

Completely agreed with vesicles. People didn't fight "honorable" wars because they didn't know better. They did it because of political reasons. Same thing for the medieval europe tales of "honorable combat". In both cases, the goal was not to destroy the enemy, as that would invite retaliation by other lords, but rather to show dominance and score political points.

I'd also like to point out that when Sun Tzu says "war is the most important matter for the state", he preceded it by saying that "war is a necessary evil". He is establishing his thesis that warfare is something that you want to avoid as much as possible, but paradoxically, you need to prepare as well for it as possible. This is concluded by his argument that the greatest kind of victory is a victory that requires no battle, in other words, to have peace.

Although the Art of War is an incredible literature on military tactics, it should not be viewed as groundbreaking like Einstein's theory of relativity.

It is more of a compilation of the best understanding of military conflicts. At the time when Sun Tzu wrote the book, China had already been in a constant civil war / political struggle for close to 600 years (400 years of West Zhou dynasty and 200 years of Spring and Autumn period, which is the first half of the East Zhou dynasty), where hundreds of lords fought for political and military gain. You see countless examples of winning and losing battles. Wise actions led to victories. On the other hand, stupid, selfish, greedy actions led to defeat. This is indeed the most eventful time in China's history. Most of the "Cheng Yu", or the 4-character phrases, which are used by Chinese to describe certain complex and hard-to-describe situation or feeling, had been inspired by events occurred in this era.

Sun Tzu derived his theories from all the what-should-be-done and what-should-not-be-done cases, aka how people won or lost battles. The Art of Wars is so comprehensive, not only because Sun Tzu was a brilliant tactician but also because virtually every kind of weird and strange, wise or stupid, things under the sun has been tried. This wealth of experience allowed Sun Tzu to derive comprehensive theories.

Sun Tzu theories can be applied to any person of power, whether that be in politics, business, or military the human nature and action plays hand in hand with strategy. It is popular because for the first time in human history someone has actually taken calculated historical events into a science in leadership behavior and traits that leads to either victory or failure. It's the art of observing the events, leaders personality, and strategy to combine with the outcome and reason for it. If one watch the HBO tv series Game of Thrones it is full of examples of Sun Tzu's theories.

What make The Art of War such a living classic is not just about war or business strategies applicalbe in todays world.

The entire effort of this document is about creating harmony under the heavens i.e. order and balance. Maintaining peace that is.

The Art of War is just one application of the Tao Te Ching.

If a student puts these two jewels together things make a deeper sense.