Sun Wu and His Book

Ssǔ-ma Chʽien gives the following biography of Sun Tzǔ:¹

孫子武 Sun Tzǔ Wu was a native of the Chʽi State. His Art of War brought him to the notice of 闔盧 Ho Lu,² King of 吳 Wu. Ho Lu said to him:

“I have carefully perused your 13 chapters. May I submit your theory of managing soldiers to a slight test?”

Sun Tzǔ replied: “You may.”

Ho Lu asked: “May the test be applied to women?”

The answer was again in the affirmative, so arrangements were made to bring 180 ladies out of the Palace. Sun Tzǔ divided them into two companies, and placed one of the King’s favorite concubines at the head of each. He then bade them all take spears in their hands, and addressed them thus: “I presume you know the difference between front and back, right hand and left hand?”

The girls replied: “Yes.”

Sun Tzǔ went on: “When I say ‘Eyes front,’ you must look straight ahead. When I say ‘Left turn,’ you must face towards your left hand. When I say ‘Right turn,’ you must face towards your right hand. When I say ‘About turn,’ you must face right round towards your back.”

Again the girls assented. The words of command having been thus explained, he set up the halberds and battle-axes in order to begin the drill. Then, to the sound of drums, he gave the order “Right turn.” But the girls only burst out laughing. Sun Tzǔ said: “If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, then the general is to blame.”

So he started drilling them again, and this time gave the order “Left turn,” whereupon the girls once more burst into fits of laughter. Sun Tzǔ: “If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if his orders are clear, and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers.”

So saying, he ordered the leaders of the two companies to be beheaded. Now the king of Wu was watching the scene from the top of a raised pavilion; and when he saw that his favorite concubines were about to be executed, he was greatly alarmed and hurriedly sent down the following message: “We are now quite satisfied as to our general’s ability to handle troops. If we are bereft of these two concubines, our meat and drink will lose their savor. It is our wish that they shall not be beheaded.”

Sun Tzǔ replied: “Having once received His Majesty’s commission to be the general of his forces, there are certain commands of His Majesty which, acting in that capacity, I am unable to accept.”

Accordingly, he had the two leaders beheaded, and straightway installed the pair next in order as leaders in their place. When this had been done, the drum was sounded for the drill once more; and the girls went through all the evolutions, turning to the right or to the left, marching ahead or wheeling back, kneeling or standing, with perfect accuracy and precision, not venturing to utter a sound. Then Sun Tzǔ sent a messenger to the King saying: “Your soldiers, Sire, are now properly drilled and disciplined, and ready for your majesty’s inspection. They can be put to any use that their sovereign may desire; bid them go through fire and water, and they will not disobey.”

But the King replied: “Let our general cease drilling and return to camp. As for us, We have no wish to come down and inspect the troops.”

Thereupon Sun Tzǔ said: “The King is only fond of words, and cannot translate them into deeds.”

After that, Ho Lu saw that Sun Tzǔ was one who knew how to handle an army, and finally appointed him general. In the west, he defeated the Chʽu State and forced his way into Ying, the capital; to the north he put fear into the States of Chʽi and Chin, and spread his fame abroad amongst the feudal princes. And Sun Tzǔ shared in the might of the King.

About Sun Tzǔ himself this is all that Ssǔ-ma Chʽien has to tell us in this chapter. But he proceeds to give a biography of his descendant, 孫臏 Sun Pin, born about a hundred years after his famous ancestor’s death, and also the outstanding military genius of his time. The historian speaks of him too as Sun Tzǔ, and in his preface we read: 孫子臏脚而論兵法 “Sun Tzǔ had his feet cut off and yet continued to discuss the art of war.”³ It seems likely, then, that “Pin” was a nickname bestowed on him after his mutilation, unless the story was invented in order to account for the name. The crowning incident of his career, the crushing defeat of his treacherous rival Pʽang Chuan, will be found briefly related in note 292.

To return to the elder Sun Tzǔ. He is mentioned in two other passages of the Shih Chi:—

In the third year of his reign [512 BC] Ho Lu, king of Wu, took the field with 子胥 Tzǔ-hsü [i.e. 伍員 Wu Yüan] and 伯嚭 Po Pʽei, and attacked Chʽu. He captured the town of 舒 Shu and slew the two prince’s sons who had formerly been generals of Wu. He was then meditating a descent on 郢 Ying [the capital]; but the general Sun Wu said: “The army is exhausted.⁴ It is not yet possible. We must wait.” …⁵ [After further successful fighting,] in the ninth year [506 BC], King Ho Lu addressed Wu Tzǔ-hsü and Sun Wu, saying: “Formerly, you declared that it was not yet possible for us to enter Ying. Is the time ripe now?” The two men replied: “Chʽu’s general 子常 Tzǔ-chʽang,⁶ is grasping and covetous, and the princes of 唐 Tʽang and 蔡 Tsʽai both have a grudge against him. If Your Majesty has resolved to make a grand attack, you must win over Tʽang and Tsʽai, and then you may succeed.” Ho Lu followed this advice, [beat Chʽu in five pitched battles and marched into Ying.]⁷

This is the latest date at which anything is recorded of Sun Wu. He does not appear to have survived his patron, who died from the effects of a wound in 496.

In the chapter entitled 律書 (the earlier portion of which M. Chavannes believes to be a fragment of a treatise on Military Weapons), there occurs this passage:⁸

From this time onward, a number of famous soldiers arose, one after the other: 咎犯 Kao-fan,⁹ who was employed by the Chin State; Wang-tzǔ,¹⁰ in the service of Chʽi; and Sun Wu, in the service of Wu. These men developed and threw light upon the principles of war. (申明軍約).

It is obvious enough that Ssǔ-ma Chʽien at least had no doubt about the reality of Sun Wu as an historical personage; and with one exception, to be noticed presently, he is by far the most important authority on the period in question. It will not be necessary, therefore, to say much of such a work as the 吳越春秋 Wu Yüeh Chʽun Chʽiu, which is supposed to have been written by 趙曄 Chao Yeh of the 1st century AD. The attribution is somewhat doubtful; but even if it were otherwise, his account would be of little value, based as it is on the Shih Chi and expanded with romantic details. The story of Sun Tzǔ will be found, for what it is worth, in chapter 2. The only new points in it worth noting are: (1) Sun Tzǔ was first recommended to Ho Lu by Wu Tzǔ-hsü. (2) He is called a native of Wu.¹¹ (3) He had previously lived a retired life, and his contemporaries were unaware of his ability.¹²

The following passage occurs in the 淮南子 Huai-nan Tzǔ: “When sovereign and ministers show perversity of mind, it is impossible even for a Sun Tzǔ to encounter the foe.”¹³ Assuming that this work is genuine (and hitherto no doubt has been cast upon it), we have here the earliest direct reference for Sun Tzǔ, for Huai-nan Tzǔ died in 122 BC, many years before the Shih Chi was given to the world.

劉向 Liu Hsiang (80–9 BC) in his 新序 says: “The reason why Sun Tzǔ at the head of 30,000 men beat Chʽu with 200,000 is that the latter were undisciplined.”¹⁴

鄧名世 Têng Ming-shih in his 姓氏辨證書 (completed in 1134) informs us that the surname 孫 was bestowed on Sun Wu’s grandfather by 景公 Duke Ching of Chʽi (547–490 BC). Sun Wu’s father Sun 馮 Pʽing, rose to be a Minister of State in Chʽi, and Sun Wu himself, whose style was 長卿 Chʽang-chʽing, fled to Wu on account of the rebellion which was being fomented by the kindred of 田鮑 Tʽien Pao. He had three sons, of whom the second, named 明 Ming, was the father of Sun Pin. According to this account then, Pin was the grandson of Wu,¹⁵ which, considering that Sun Pin’s victory over 魏 Wei was gained in 341 BC, may be dismissed as chronologically impossible. Whence these data were obtained by Têng Ming-shih I do not know, but of course no reliance whatever can be placed in them.

An interesting document which has survived from the close of the Han period is the short preface written by the Great 曹操 Tsʽao Tsʽao, or 魏武帝 Wu Wei Ti, for his edition of Sun Tzǔ. I shall give it in full:—

I have heard that the ancients used bows and arrows to their advantage.¹⁶ The Lun Yu says: “There must be a sufficiency of military strength.”¹⁷ The Shu Ching mentions “the army” among the “eight objects of government.”¹⁸ The I Ching says: “師 ‘army’ indicates firmness and justice; the experienced leader will have good fortune.”¹⁹ The Shih Ching says: “The King rose majestic in his wrath, and he marshaled his troops.”²⁰ The Yellow Emperor, Tʽang the Completer and Wang all used spears and battle-axes in order to succor their generation. The Ssǔ-ma Fa says: “If one man slay another of set purpose, he himself may rightfully be slain.”²¹ He who relies solely on warlike measures shall be exterminated; he who relies solely on peaceful measures shall perish. Instances of this are Fu Chʽai²² on the one hand and Yen Wang on the other.²³ In military matters, the Sage’s rule is normally to keep the peace, and to move his forces only when occasion requires. He will not use armed force unless driven to it by necessity.²⁴

Many books have I read on the subject of war and fighting; but the work composed by Sun Wu is the profoundest of them all. [Sun Tzǔ was a native of the Chʽi state, his personal name was Wu. He wrote the Art of War in 13 chapters for Ho Lu, King of Wu. Its principles were tested on women, and he was subsequently made a general. He led an army westwards, crushed the Chʽu state and entered Ying the capital. In the north, he kept Chʽi and Chin in awe. A hundred years and more after his time, Sun Pin lived. He was a descendant of Wu].²⁵ In his treatment of deliberation and planning, the importance of rapidity in taking the field,²⁶ clearness of conception, and depth of design, Sun Tzǔ stands beyond the reach of carping criticism. My contemporaries, however, have failed to grasp the full meaning of his instructions, and while putting into practice the smaller details in which his work abounds, they have overlooked its essential purport. That is the motive which has led me to outline a rough explanation of the whole.²⁷

One thing to be noticed in the above is the explicit statement that the 13 chapters were specially composed for King Ho Lu. This is supported by the internal evidence of chapter I (“The general that hearkens to my counsel …”), in which it seems clear that some ruler is addressed.

In the bibliographic section of the Han Shu,²⁸ there is an entry which has given rise to much discussion: 吳孫子八十二篇圖九卷 “The works of Sun Tzǔ of Wu in 82 pʽien (or chapters), with diagrams in 9 chüan.” It is evident that this cannot be merely the 13 chapters known to Ssǔ-ma Chʽien, or those we possess today. Chang Shou-chieh in his 史記正義 refers to an edition of Sun Tzǔ’s 兵法 of which the “13 chapters” formed the first chüan, adding that there were two other chüan besides.²⁹ This has brought forth a theory, that the bulk of these 82 chapters consisted of other writings of Sun Tzǔ—we should call them apocryphal—similar to the 問答 Wen Ta, of which a specimen dealing with the Nine Situations³⁰ is preserved in the 通典 Tʽung Tien, and another in Ho Shih’s commentary. It is suggested that before his interview with Ho Lu, Sun Tzǔ had only written the 13 chapters, but afterwards composed a sort of exegesis in the form of question and answer between himself and the King. 畢以珣 Pi I-hsün, the author of the 孫子敘錄 Sun Tzǔ Hsü Lu, backs this up with a quotation from the Wu Yüeh Chʽun Chʽiu: “The King of Wu summoned Sun Tzǔ, and asked him questions about the art of war. Each time he set forth a chapter of his work, the King could not find words enough to praise him.”³¹ As he points out, if the whole work was expounded on the same scale as in the above-mentioned fragments, the total number of chapters could not fail to be considerable.³² Then the numerous other treatises attributed to Sun Tzǔ³³ might also be included. The fact that the Han Chih mentions no work of Sun Tzǔ except the 82 pʽien, whereas the Sui and Tʽang bibliographies give the titles of others in addition to the “13 chapters,” is good proof, Pi I-hsün thinks, that all of these were contained in the 82 pʽien. Without pinning our faith to the accuracy of details supplied by the Wu Yüeh Chʽun Chʽiu, or admitting the genuineness of any of the treatises cited by Pi I-hsün, we may see in this theory a probable solution of the mystery. Between Ssǔ-ma Chʽien and Pan Ku there was plenty of time for a luxuriant crop of forgeries to have grown up under the magic name of Sun Tzǔ, and the 82 pʽien may very well represent a collected edition of these lumped together with the original work. It is also possible, though less likely, that some of them existed in the time of the earlier historian and were purposely ignored by him.³⁴

Tu Mu, after Tsʽao Kung the most important commentator on Sun Tzǔ, composed the preface to his edition³⁵ about the middle of the ninth century. After a somewhat lengthy defence of the military art,³⁶ he comes at last to Sun Tzǔ himself, and makes one or two very startling assertions:—“The writings of Sun Wu,” he says, “originally comprised several hundred thousand words, but Tsʽao Tsʽao, the Emperor Wei, pruned away all redundancies and wrote out the essence of the whole, so as to form a single book in 13 chapters.”³⁷ He goes on to remark that Tsʽao Tsʽao’s commentary on Sun Tzǔ leaves a certain proportion of difficulties unexplained.³⁸ This, in Tu Mu’s opinion, does not necessarily imply that he was unable to furnish a complete commentary. According to the Wei Chih, Tsʽao himself wrote a book on war in something over 100,000 words, known as the 新書. It appears to have been of such exceptional merit that he suspects Tsʽao to have used for it the surplus material which he had found in Sun Tzǔ. He concludes, however, by saying: “The Hsin Shu is now lost, so that the truth cannot be known for certain.”³⁹

Tu Mu’s conjecture seems to be based on a passage in the 漢官解詁 “Wei Wu Ti strung together Sun Wu’s Art of War,”⁴⁰ which in turn may have resulted from a misunderstanding of the final words of Tsʽao Kung’s preface: 故撰為略解焉. This, as Sun Hsing-yen points out,⁴¹ is only a modest way of saying that he made an explanatory paraphrase,⁴² or in other words, wrote a commentary on it. On the whole, this theory has met with very little acceptance. Thus, the 四庫全書 says:⁴³ “The mention of the 13 chapters in the Shih Chi shows that they were in existence before the Han Chih, and that latter accretions are not to be considered part of the original work. Tu Mu’s assertion can certainly not be taken as proof.”⁴⁴

There is every reason to suppose, then, that the 13 chapters existed in the time of Ssǔ-ma Chʽien practically as we have them now. That the work was then well known he tells us in so many words: “Sun Tzǔ’s 13 Chapters and Chʽi’s Art of War are the two books that people commonly refer to on the subject of military matters. Both of them are widely distributed, so I will not discuss them here.”⁴⁵ But as we go further back, serious difficulties begin to arise. The salient fact which has to be faced is that the Tso Chuan, the greatest contemporary record, makes no mention whatsoever of Sun Wu, either as a general or as a writer. It is natural, in view of this awkward circumstance, that many scholars should not only cast doubt on the story of Sun Wu as given in the Shih Chi, but even show themselves frankly skeptical as to the existence of the man at all. The most powerful presentment of this side of the case is to be found in the following disposition by 葉水心 Yeh Shui-hsin:⁴⁶—

It is stated in Ssǔ-ma Chʽien’s history that Sun Wu was a native of the Chʽi State, and employed by Wu; and that in the reign of Ho Lu he crushed Chʽu, entered Ying, and was a great general. But in Tso’s Commentary no Sun Wu appears at all. It is true that Tso’s Commentary need not contain absolutely everything that other histories contain. But Tso has not omitted to mention vulgar plebeians and hireling ruffians such as Ying Kʽao-shu,⁴⁷ Tsʽao Kuei,⁴⁸ Chu Chih-wu⁴⁹ and Chuan She-chu.⁵⁰ In the case of Sun Wu, whose fame and achievements were so brilliant, the omission is much more glaring. Again, details are given, in their due order, about his contemporaries Wu Yüan and the Minister Pʽei.⁵¹ Is it credible that Sun Wu alone should have been passed over?⁵²

In point of literary style, Sun Tzǔ’s work belongs to the same school as Kuan Tzǔ,⁵³ Liu Tʽao,⁵⁴ and the Yüeh Yü,⁵⁵ and may have been the production of some private scholar living towards the end of the “Spring and Autumn” or the beginning of the “Warring States” period.⁵⁶ The story that his precepts were actually applied by the Wu State, is merely the outcome of big talk on the part of his followers.⁵⁷

From the flourishing period of the Chou dynasty⁵⁸ down to the time of the “Spring and Autumn,” all military commanders were statesmen as well, and the class of professional generals, for conducting external campaigns, did not then exist. It was not until the period of the “Six States”⁵⁹ that this custom changed. Now although Wu was an uncivilized State, is it conceivable that Tso should have left unrecorded the fact that Sun Wu was a great general and yet held no civil office? What we are told, therefore, about Jang-chu⁶⁰ and Sun Wu, is not authentic matter, but the reckless fabrication of theorizing pundits. The story of Ho Lü’s experiment on the women, in particular, is utterly preposterous and incredible.⁶¹

Yeh Shui-hsin represents Ssǔ-ma Chʽien as having said that Sun Wu crushed Chʽu and entered Ying. This is not quite correct. No doubt the impression left on the reader’s mind is that he at least shared in these exploits; but the subject of the verbs 破, 入, 威 and 顯 is certainly 闔廬, as shown by the next words: 孫子與有力焉.⁶² The fact may or may not be significant; but it is nowhere explicitly stated in the Shih Chi either that Sun Tzǔ was general on the occasion of the taking of Ying, or that he even went there at all. Moreover, as we know that Yüan and Po Pʽei both took part in the expedition, and also that its success was largely due to the dash and enterprise of 夫㮣 Fu Kai, Ho Lu’s younger brother, it is not easy to see how yet another general could have played a very prominent part in the same campaign.

陳振孫 Chʽên Chên-sun of the Sung dynasty has the note:—⁶³

Military writers look upon Sun Wu as the father of their art. But the fact that he does not appear in the Tso Chuan, although he is said to have served under Ho Lü King of Wu, makes it uncertain what period he really belonged to.⁶⁴

He also says:—

The works of Sun Wu and Chʽi may be of genuine antiquity.⁶⁵

It is noticeable that both Yeh Shui-hsin and Chʽên Chên-sun, while rejecting the personality of Sun Wu as he figures in Ssǔ-ma Chʽien’s history, are inclined to accept the date traditionally assigned to the work which passes under his name. The author of the Hsü Lu fails to appreciate this distinction, and consequently his bitter attack on Chʽên Chên-sun really misses its mark. He makes one of two points, however, which certainly tell in favor of the high antiquity of our “13 chapters.” “Sun Tzǔ,” he says, “must have lived in the age of Ching Wang [519–476], because he is frequently plagiarized in subsequent works of the Chou, Chʽin and Han dynasties.”⁶⁶ The two most shameless offenders in this respect are Wu Chʽi and Huai-nan Tzǔ, both of them important historical personages in their day. The former lived only a century after the alleged date of Sun Tzǔ, and his death is known to have taken place in 381 BC. It was to him, according to Liu Hsiang, that 曾申 Tsêng Shên delivered the Tso Chuan, which had been entrusted to him by its author.⁶⁷ Now the fact that quotations from the Art of War, acknowledged or otherwise, are to be found in so many authors of different epochs, establishes a very strong anterior to them all—in other words, that Sun Tzǔ’s treatise was already in existence towards the end of the 5th century BC. Further proof of Sun Tzǔ’s antiquity is furnished by the archaic or wholly obsolete meanings attaching to a number of the words he uses. A list of these, which might perhaps be extended, is given in the Hsü Lu; and though some of the interpretations are doubtful, the main argument is hardly affected thereby.⁶⁸ Again, it must not be forgotten that Yeh Shui-hsin, a scholar and critic of the first rank, deliberately pronounces the style of the 13 chapters to belong to the early part of the fifth century. Seeing that he is actually engaged in an attempt to disprove the existence of Sun Wu himself, we may be sure that he would not have hesitated to assign the work to a later date had he not honestly believed the contrary. And it is precisely on such a point that the judgment of an educated Chinaman will carry most weight. Other internal evidence is not far to seek. Thus in chapter XIII (“Raising a host of a hundred thousand men …”), there is an unmistakable allusion to the ancient system of land-tenure which had already passed away by the time of Mencius, who was anxious to see it revived in a modified form.⁶⁹ The only warfare Sun Tzǔ knows is that carried on between the various feudal princes (諸侯), in which armored chariots play a large part. Their use seems to have entirely died out before the end of the Chou dynasty. He speaks as a man of Wu, a state which ceased to exist as early as 473 BC. On this I shall touch presently.

But once refer the work to the 5th century or earlier, and the chances of its being other than a bona fide production are sensibly diminished. The great age of forgeries did not come until long after. That it should have been forged in the period immediately following 473 is particularly unlikely, for no one, as a rule, hastens to identify himself with a lost cause. As for Yeh Shui-hsin’s theory, that the author was a literary recluse,⁷⁰ that seems to me quite untenable. If one thing is more apparent than another after reading the maxims of Sun Tzǔ, it is that their essence has been distilled from a large store of personal observation and experience. They reflect the mind not only of a born strategist, gifted with a rare faculty of generalization, but also of a practical soldier closely acquainted with the military conditions of his time. To say nothing of the fact that these sayings have been accepted and endorsed by all the greatest captains of Chinese history, they offer a combination of freshness and sincerity, acuteness and common sense, which quite excludes the idea that they were artificially concocted in the study. If we admit, then, that the 13 chapters were the genuine production of a military man living towards the end of the “Chʽun Chʽiu” period, are we not bound, in spite of the silence of the Tso Chuan, to accept Ssǔ-ma Chʽien’s account in its entirety? In view of his high repute as a sober historian, must we not hesitate to assume that the records he drew upon for Sun Wu’s biography were false and untrustworthy? The answer, I fear, must be in the negative. There is still one grave, if not fatal, objection to the chronology involved in the story as told in the Shih Chi, which, so far as I am aware, nobody has yet pointed out. There are two passages in Sun Tzǔ in which he alludes to contemporary affairs. The first is in VI:—

Though according to my estimate the soldiers of Yüeh exceed our own in number, that shall advantage them nothing in the matter of victory. I say then that victory can be achieved.

The other is in XI:—

Asked if an army can be made to imitate the shuai-jan, I should answer, Yes. For the men of Wu and the men of Yüeh are enemies; yet if they are crossing a river in the same boat and are caught by a storm, they will come to each other’s assistance just as the left hand helps the right.

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-hsün. But what has hitherto escaped notice is that they also seriously impair the credibility of Ssǔ-ma Chʽien’s narrative. As we have seen above, the first positive date given in connection with Sun Wu is 512 BC. 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, 楚 Chʽu and not Yüeh, was the great hereditary enemy of Wu. The two states, Chʽu and Wu, had been constantly at war for over half a century,⁷¹ whereas the first war between Wu and Yüeh was waged only in 510,⁷² and even then was no more than a short interlude sandwiched in the midst of the fierce struggle with Chʽu. Now Chʽu 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 Chʽu had suffered the great humiliation of 506. At this point, a table of dates may be found useful.

BC

514

Accession of

Ho Lu

.

512

Ho Lu

attacks

Chʽu

, but is dissuaded from entering

郢

Ying

, the capital.

Shih Chi

mentions

Sun Wu

as general.

511

Another attack on

Chʽu

.

510

Wu

makes a successful attack on

Yüeh

. This is the first war between the two states.

509

or

508

Chʽu

invades

Wu

, but is signally defeated at

豫章

Yü-chang

.

506

Ho Lu

attacks

Chʽu

with the aid of

Tʽang

and

Tsʽai

. Decisive battle of

柏舉

Po-chü

, 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

Chʽin

and evacuates

Ying

.

504

Ho Lu

sends

夫差

Fu Chʽai

to attack

Chʽu

.

497

勾踐

Kou Chien

becomes King of

Yüeh

.

496

Wu

attacks

Yüeh

, but is defeated by

Kou Chien

at

檇李

Tsui-li

.

Ho Lu

is killed.

494

Fu Chʽai

defeats

Kou Chien

in the great battle of

夫椒

Fu-chiao

, and enters the capital of

Yüeh

.

485

or

484

Kou Chien

renders homage to

Wu

. Death of

Wu Tzǔ-hsü

.

482

Kou Chien

invades

Wu

in the absence of

Fu Chʽai

.

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 chapter VI 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 Chʽu. 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.⁷³ 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 Tzǔ-hsü, 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.⁷⁴

How then did the Sun Tzǔ 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 Yüan,⁷⁵ Po Pʽei and Fu Kai?

It is obvious that any attempt to reconstruct even the outline of Sun Tzǔ’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.⁷⁶ 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.