The Art of War: The Definitive Translation of the Linyi Text

孫子兵法

Harper Perennial Modern Classics

"There is no doubt that J. H. Huang's new translation of Sun-tzu will be valuable to scholars of military art for many years to come. ... An important work."

—General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

“May be the greatest book on war ever written… Time-tested poetry for the strategic mind.”  

— Fortune Magazine

“For more than 2,000 years, Sun Tzu’s Art of War has been acknowledged as the most influential work on the art of warfare in China… Huang’s translation sparks with many ingenious viewpoints.”

— Asian Social Science

 

 “A fascinating translation… which served as a source for Rough Justice.”

— Novelist Lisa Scottoline

Excerpt

Book 13 — Espionage

On the necessity of intelligence work:

a. the tremendously high costs of a country’s military operations:

            1. financial costs

            2. physical costs

            3. durational costs

b. commanders are thus entrusted by their country with seeking victory, so they should never let concerns for personal gain cloud their duty to perceive the enemy

c. moreover, a successful mission is based on comprehension prior to action

d. of all the information sources, men are the most reliable

On agents:

a. the types

b. their applications

Sun-tzu said,

Generally, when raising a hundred thousand troops and advancing out of the country for conflict over thousands of miles, the citizenry’s outlay and public financing are thousands of pounds of gold per day.

When there is internal and external unrest and exhaustion on the roads, daily tests are abandoned in seven hundred thousand homes.

Both sides stalk each other over several years to contend for victory in a single day.

To be parsimonious with positions, compensations, or hundred of pounds of gold, and thereby blind to the enemy’s status, is to be extraordinarily inhumane; such a man can never be his people’s commander, can never be his lord’s aide, and can never be the ruler of victory.

So, for enlightened lords or distinguished commanders, the reason they can overcome the adversary when action is taken and achieve unparalleled success is prescience.

Prescience cannot be gained from ghosts or gods, cannot be augured through signs, and cannot be proved through conjectures.

It must be gained from what is learned by men.

So, in espionage are these five: agents-in-place, moles, turned agents, hidden provocation agents, and mobile informants.

Once these five agents all take action, none can penetrate their ways — this is covert mastery, a sovereign’s treasure.

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