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孙子曰：夫用兵之法，全国为上，破国次之；全军为上，破军次之；全旅为上，破旅次之；全卒为上，破卒次之；全伍为上，破伍次之。是故百战百胜，非善之善也；不战而屈人之兵，善之善者也。
Preserve the possessions and all the rights of the prince you serve; this should be your first concern. Expanding them by encroaching on the enemy should be done only when necessary.
Ensure the peace of the cities in your own country; this should be your main concern. Disturb the peace of enemy cities only as a last resort.
Protect friendly villages from all insult; this is what you should consider. Raid enemy villages only when necessary.
Prevent the hamlets, even the huts of your sovereign's subjects, from suffering the slightest damage; this also deserves your attention. Bring devastation to the hamlets or huts of your enemies only when absolutely necessary.
Once these maxims are firmly engraved in your heart, you can go and attack cities or fight battles, and I guarantee success. Moreover, even if you had a hundred battles to fight, you would win a hundred victories. However, do not seek to subdue your enemies through battles and victories; for there are cases where what is above the good is not good in itself, and this is one where the higher you rise above the good, the closer you approach the harmful and the bad.Without fighting battles, strive to be victorious: this is where the higher you rise above the good, the closer you approach the incomparable and the excellent. Great generals achieve this by uncovering all the enemy's tricks, thwarting all his plans, sowing discord among his men, keeping them always on edge, preventing foreign aid that he might receive, and removing all the advantages he might have to decide on something beneficial for him.
故上兵伐谋，其次伐交，其次伐兵，其下攻城。攻城之法，为不得已。修橹轒輼，具器械，三月而后成；距堙，又三月而后已。将不胜其忿而蚁附之，杀士卒三分之一，而城不拔者，此攻之灾也。
If you are forced to attack a town and reduce it, prepare your lou chariots, shields, and all necessary machines for the assault so that everything is in good order when the time comes. Ensure that the surrender of the town is not prolonged beyond three months. If this deadline has passed and you have not yet achieved your goal, there will surely have been some mistakes on your part; do not fail to correct them. At the head of your troops, redouble your efforts; in the assault, imitate the vigilance, activity, ardor, and tenacity of ants. I suppose that beforehand you will have made the necessary entrenchments and other works, you will have built redoubts to discover what is happening among the besieged, and you will have provided for all the inconveniences that your prudence will have foreseen. If, with all these precautions, it happens that of three parts of your soldiers you have had the misfortune to lose one, without being victorious, be convinced that you have not attacked well.
故善用兵者，屈人之兵而非战也，拔人之城而非攻也，毁人之国而非久也，必以全争于天下，故兵不顿而利可全，此谋攻之法也。
A skilled general is never reduced to such extremities: without fighting battles, he knows the art of humbling his enemies; without shedding a drop of blood, without even drawing the sword, he succeeds in taking cities; without setting foot in foreign kingdoms, he finds the means to conquer them; and without wasting much time at the head of his troops, he secures immortal glory for the prince he serves, ensures the happiness of his compatriots, and makes the world indebted to him for peace and order: this is the goal to which all those who command armies must constantly strive without ever losing heart.
故用兵之法，十则围之，五则攻之，倍则分之，敌则能战之，少则能逃之，不若则能避之。故小敌之坚，大敌之擒也。
There are an infinite number of different situations in which you may find yourself relative to the enemy. One cannot foresee them all; that is why I do not go into greater detail. Your intelligence and experience will suggest to you what to do as circumstances arise; nevertheless, I will give you some general advice that you can use as needed.If you are ten times stronger in number than the enemy, surround him on all sides; leave him no free passage; ensure that he cannot escape to camp elsewhere or receive any assistance. If you have five times as many men as he does, arrange your army so that it can attack him from four sides at once, when the time is right. If the enemy is once weaker than you, be content to divide your army in two. But if both sides have an equal number of men, all you can do is risk the battle; if, on the contrary, you are weaker than him, be constantly on your guard, as the slightest mistake would be of the utmost consequence for you. Try to put yourself in safety and avoid, as far as possible, coming to blows with him: the prudence and firmness of a small number of men can manage to tire out and even subdue a numerous army.
夫将者，国之辅也。辅周则国必强，辅隙则国必弱。
He who is at the head of the armies can be considered as the support of the state, and he is indeed. If he is what he should be, the kingdom will prosper; if, on the other hand, he does not have the necessary qualities to fill his post with dignity, the kingdom will suffer infallibly, and may even be reduced to the brink of its ruin. A general can serve the state in only one way; but he can harm it in many different ways. It takes a lot of effort and a conduct constantly accompanied by bravery and prudence to succeed: it takes only one mistake to lose everything; how many kinds of mistakes are there? If he recruits troops out of season, if he makes them go out when they should not, if he has no exact knowledge of the places where he must lead them, if he makes them camp in disadvantageous positions, if he tires them unnecessarily, if he makes them return without necessity, if he ignores the needs of those who compose his army, if he does not make the kind of occupation to which each of them was accustomed beforehand, in order to make use of them according to their talents; if he does not know the strengths and weaknesses of his men, if he has no reason to count on their loyalty, if he does not maintain discipline to the fullest extent, if he lacks the talent to govern well, if he is irresolute and wavers in the moments when he must decide quickly, if he does not know how to compensate his soldiers when they have suffered, if he allows them to be vexed without reason by their officers, if he cannot prevent the dissensions that may arise among the leaders: a general who falls into these faults will exhaust the kingdom of men and supplies, dishonor his country, and himself become the shameful victim of his incapacity.
故君之所以患于军者三：不知军之不可以进而谓之进，不知军之不可以退而谓之退，是谓縻军；不知三军之事而同三军之政，则军士惑矣；不知三军之权而同三军之任，则军士疑矣。三军既惑且疑，则诸侯之难至矣。是谓乱军引胜。
故知胜有五：知可以战与不可以战者胜，识众寡之用者胜，上下同欲者胜，以虞待不虞者胜，将能而君不御者胜。此五者，知胜之道也。
To be victorious over one's enemies, five things are principally necessary for a general.1. To know when it is appropriate to fight and when it is appropriate to withdraw.2. To know how to use the few and the many according to circumstances.3. To show as much affection to the common soldiers as one can show to the main officers.4. To exploit all anticipated and unanticipated circumstances.5. To be sure that the sovereign will not contradict him in everything he ventures for his service and the glory of his arms.With this, if you join the knowledge you must have of yourself and of all that you can or cannot do, that of all those under your orders, even if you had a hundred wars to sustain, you would win a hundred victories. If you only know what you can do yourself, if you ignore what your men can do, you will win once; once you will be defeated: but if you have no knowledge of yourself and no knowledge of those you command, you will only count your battles by your defeats.
故曰：知己知彼，百战不贻；不知彼而知己，一胜一负；不知彼不知己，每战必败。
If you know your enemies and you know yourself, you will not fear the outcome of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not your enemies, for every victory, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither your enemies nor yourself, you will lose every battle.
A Chinese commentator gives a slightly different meaning to the beginning of this article. Although his explanation conforms to ancient Chinese morality, I nevertheless thought that I should not follow it, as it seemed to me not to render the true meaning of the author, even contradicting some of his principles. Here is the interpreter's version: 'Preserving the enemy's possessions is what you must do first, as what is most perfect; destroying them must be the effect of necessity. Ensuring the peace and tranquility of the jun, lü, zu, and wu of your enemies is what deserves all your attention; disturbing and worrying them is what you must consider unworthy of you... If a general acts in this way, his conduct will not differ from that of the most virtuous characters; it will agree with heaven and earth, whose operations tend to the production and preservation of things rather than their destruction... Heaven never approved the shedding of human blood: it is he who gives life to men; he alone must be the master of cutting it... Here, he adds, is the true meaning of Sunzi's words.'
What I have rendered as 'cities, villages, hamlets, and huts' is what the Chinese call jun (or kun), lü, zu, and wu. Here is the literal explanation of each of these words. A jun is a place containing twelve thousand five hundred men; a lü contains five hundred families; a zu contains one hundred inhabitants; a wu is the dwelling of five families only.
The author speaks here of the chariots called lou. These chariots had four wheels and could comfortably hold about ten people. They were covered with leather or animal skins; all around there was a kind of gallery made of large wooden pieces. On the leather cover there was earth for the safety of those who were in these chariots, to prevent them from being bothered by arrows, stones, and other things that the enemies threw. Each of these chariots was like a kind of small fortress, from which one attacked and defended oneself. They were especially used in sieges: they were also used in pitched battles. In the latter case, they were placed at the rear of the army, and after a defeat, one took refuge behind them, and defended oneself as one would in a fortified place. As long as the victor was not master of them, he could not boast of having subdued the enemy. It was also in the midst of these chariots that the most precious things were placed.
The comparison of an army to ants may seem misplaced to those who have not closely observed these insects; but our naturalists know better than the Chinese that the ant is perhaps the most tenacious of all animals in combat. One can see ants that, when cut in two, do not let go, and even provoke the enemy.
What I have rendered as 'redoubts' were kinds of towers made of earth. They were higher than the walls of the cities being besieged; from the top of these towers, or rather these terraces, one tried to discover the various maneuvers of the besieged for the defense of the place. The Chinese interpreter calls them 'earth mountains.'
The number ten is the most common term of comparison for the Chinese. Thus, instead of translating as I have done: 'If you are ten times stronger in number than the enemy,' etc., one could say: 'If you are to the enemy as ten is to one, as ten is to five,' etc.
It seems that the author demands too much detail from a general, especially when he says that he must know the type of work to which all those who make up an army were accustomed before they were enlisted, which detail does not seem practicable, let alone possible. It is likely that Sunzi does not mean that the one at the head of an army should know the names of all those who compose it; but only that he should know them in general through the office of the subordinate officers. Moreover, the Chinese words san jun and the Tartar words ilan chohai jun, which are their translation, can also mean the three different classes that make up an army, that is to say, the general officers, the subordinate officers, and the private soldiers. Then the author would only require the general to have an exact knowledge of the three orders of his army, designated by the words san jun, which mean the three jun. A jun, literally, is properly an assembly of four thousand men. Thus, in this sense, the army of which Sunzi speaks would be composed of twelve thousand men. It would be even weaker if a jun, as is found in some dictionaries, were only an assembly of two thousand five hundred men; it would be an army of only seven thousand five hundred men, which is not likely; in general, by the words san jun, in ancient books that treat of war, one understands an entire army, whatever its number.
