Sun Tzu's Art of War: The Thirty-Six Stratagems

Author: Deng Qitong
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Publishing Date: 2005-02-01
Features: The Art of War was a military treatise contributed by Sun Wu to King Helu of Wu during the Spring and Autumn Period. Emperor Taizong Li Shimin of the Tang Dynasty said: "Among all military books, none surpasses Sun Wu's Art of War." During the Northern Song Dynasty, Emperor Shenzong decreed that the Art of War should be the first of the Six Classics of Martial Arts and made it a mandatory reading for military studies. Sun Wu was even revered as the "Sage of Martial Arts."
The Art of War is a military theory work comprising thirteen chapters, totaling less than 6,000 words. Every word is a gem of wisdom, with extensive content. Especially the profound insights such as "subduing the enemy without fighting," "knowing yourself and the enemy, you will never be in danger in a hundred battles," and "winning by adapting to the enemy" have been widely applied in strategic and tactical warfare, as well as various schemes. It has also been successfully used in non-military fields such as economics, management, medicine, and sports. Currently, it has been translated into over thirty languages and is popular worldwide, creating a long-lasting "Sun Wu fever."
The 36 Stratagems is a famous military treatise discovered in Binxu in 1941. It is based on the Yin-Yang theory of the I Ching to deduce the interplay of offense and defense, hardness and softness, attack and retreat, initiative and passivity, and other mutual transformations in military strategy. It also explains the I Ching through military tactics. Particularly, it has a deep understanding of principles like "extremes lead to reversal." Many of its stratagems are specific applications of the Art of War. Additionally, most stratagems are named after classical idioms, making the language concise, vivid, and easy to remember, understand, and spread. Therefore, some compare it to the Art of War, calling them the "two peerless gems of military strategy." Others even consider it the culmination of military cunning. In reality, the 36 Stratagems has been widely used in politics, diplomacy, economics, science and technology, sports, and other fields, becoming an important source of wisdom for overcoming adversaries.