Student Reference Book Series - Making Use of Sun Tzu's Art of War

Author: Qian Yi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: Decoding the classic book of war, victorious in every competition. Western countries spent 2,500 years and experienced countless wars before realizing the greatness and wisdom of Sun Tzu; subduing the enemy without fighting. After Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany was deposed, he sighed, "If I had read the Art of War twenty years earlier, I would never have suffered the pain of national ruin." When Sun Tzu lived in the State of Qi, internal conflicts and crises were rampant. In 532 BC, the four major families of Tian, Bao, Luan, and Gao in Qi fought for power, leading to internal turmoil. As a branch of the Tian clan, the Sun family feared that if the Tian clan lost power, it would bring misfortune upon themselves. Thus, they abandoned their homes and fled to the State of Wu. Sun Tzu settled in Gusu (now Suzhou), a border town near the capital of Wu. Around the same time Sun Tzu fled to Wu, Wu Zixu and Bo Yi of the State of Chu also fled to Wu, seeking to avenge the wrongful killings of their ancestors by the King of Chu. At that time, Sun Tzu was living a reclusive life in the border town, farming and studying military strategy, while Wu Zixu happened to be his neighbor. Sun Tzu lived in an era of frequent wars and intense competition among feudal lords. Moreover, his ancestors were famous generals, and the unique era and his special background provided him with ample conditions to write military treatises. Wu Zixu highly regarded Sun Tzu and deeply admired his military talent and expertise. In 515 BC, a palace coup occurred in Wu. Prince Guang of Wu conspired with Wu Zixu and sent Zuan Zhu to assassinate the King of Wu, Liang, who then declared himself king, becoming the famous Goujian in history. After Goujian ascended the throne, he heavily relied on Wu Zixu, who recommended Sun Tzu to him. Sun Tzu presented the King of Wu with thirteen essays on military strategy, which impressed the king so much that he decided to appoint Sun Tzu to reform the army. From then on, Sun Tzu and Wu Zixu made significant contributions to Wu's ambition for dominance. In 506 BC, Wu launched a full-scale attack on Chu with the entire army, with Wu Zixu and Sun Tzu as generals. They executed a long-range encircling strategy, deeply penetrating Chu's territory, and decisively defeated the Chu army, capturing the capital of Chu, Yingdu (now Jining City in Jingshan County, Hubei). This war launched by Wu, in terms of scale and actual effect, was the largest in the Spring and Autumn Period, and some historians refer to it as the "Great Eastern Zhou War." The thirteen essays on military strategy that Sun Tzu presented to the King of Wu later became the Art of War. Some of the ideas proposed in the book, such as "know yourself and know your enemy, and you will be invincible in a hundred battles," "concentrate your forces to overwhelm the enemy" (i.e., concentrate superior forces to defeat the enemy), "the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting," "gain the advantage by attacking unexpectedly," "attack the weak points and avoid the strong," and "attack where the enemy is unprepared and strike when they are unguarded," are the crystallization of Chinese wisdom and still hold immense methodological significance today, capable of guiding people's lives. Today, the Art of War has been translated into many languages and is a required reading for many renowned military academies. Many countries have established Sun Tzu Art of War research societies to study his military thought. With the advent of the era of a unified world market, the operational ideas in the Art of War have gradually been applied to the field of management, becoming an important theoretical basis in the treasure trove of management thought.