Sun Tzu - The Art of War Documentary

0:03 The man known to history as Sun Tzu is traditionally believed to have been

0:09 born in the State of Qi in eastern China in the late sixth century BC.

0:15 Sun Tzu is an honorific name meaning ‘Master Sun’,

0:19 and his original name was Sun Wu.

0:23 Although he is known as the author of the Sun

0:27 Zi Bing Fa or Master Sun’s Art of War,

0:30 one of the most influential military treatises in world history,

0:35 Sun Tzu remains an elusive figure,

0:38 and his biographical details are vague and quite contested.

0:42 Based on the content of The Art of War,

0:46 some historians believe that he actually lived

0:49 no earlier than the fourth century BC.

0:51 There are even scholars who believe that Sun Tzu was not a historical

0:57 figure at all and was instead invented by later generations of Chinese writers

1:02 who wanted to show that the author of The Art of War was

1:06 a successful military leader who was able to put his ideas into practice.

1:11 What follows presents some of the main theories about

1:15 who Sun Tzu was and also what is contained

1:18 in the famous text which this elusive figure of ancient

1:23 China is most keenly associated with, The Art of War.

1:28 The earliest mention of Sun Tzu can be found

1:32 in the Shiji or Records of the Grand Historian,

1:35 the monumental history of early imperial China written by Sima Qian,

1:41 the Han dynasty historian regarded as the father of Chinese history,

1:46 in the late second century BC and early first century BC.

1:51 The Shiji is largely comprised

1:53 of biographical accounts of eminent Chinese figures,

1:56 of which Sun Tzu was just one.

1:59 In the Shiji, Sun Tzu’s biography is paired with that of Wu Zi or Master Wu,

2:06 another military theorist known for writing a famous book on the art of warfare.

2:12 On closer examination, the Shiji’s biography of Sun Tzu contains only a single

2:18 paragraph about the author of the Sun Zi Bing Fa,

2:22 with the remaining section covering episodes

2:24 from the life of his descendant Sun Bin,

2:27 a general and military strategist from the 4th century BC who was

2:32 also known as ‘Master Sun’ and who too wrote a long-lost military treatise,

2:38 now known as Sun Bin’s Art of War.

2:42 This has led some scholars to believe that the two

2:46 ‘Master Suns’ are in fact the same person,

2:48 and that Sun Bin was the author of the famous Art of War,

2:53 though the fragments of Sun Bin’s Art

2:55 of War uncovered at the Yinqueshan tombs in Shandong

3:00 province in 1972 suggest that Sun Tzu and Sun

3:04 Bin were different people who wrote different texts.

3:08 A more extensive account of Sun Tzu’s military career can be found

3:13 in the Wuyue Chunqiu or Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue,

3:19 a historical chronicle of questionable reliability dating to the 1st

3:24 century AD attributed to the scholar Zhao Ye.

3:28 Thus, we have two ancient Chinese accounts which

3:31 purport to relate details of Sun Tzu’s life,

3:35 though both were nevertheless written centuries

3:38 after the military tactician’s alleged lifetime.

3:42 While the Shiji claims that Sun Tzu was born

3:45 in the State of Qi in modern-day Shandong province,

3:49 the Wuyue Chunqiu states that he was a native of the State of Wu,

3:54 which occupied the Yangtze River delta

3:57 in eastern China around modern-day Shanghai.

4:00 Both sources agree that his given name was Sun Wu,

4:04 which rather appropriately means ‘martial’

4:06 or ‘military,’ while the familiar ‘Sun Tzu’

4:09 would have been bestowed upon him by followers who admired his work.

4:13 Neither source gives any details about his parentage or his year of birth,

4:19 but the Shiji claims that he had already written The Art of War when

4:23 he entered the service of King Helü of Wu in or around 512 BC.

4:29 If this is accurate,

4:30 then Sun Tzu would have been born in the middle of the sixth century BC,

4:37 during the late Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history.

4:41 During the Spring and Autumn period,

4:44 China was a patchwork of feudal states which paid homage

4:48 to the King of Zhou at his capital in Luoyang in Henan province.

4:53 The Zhou had gained control over the Central Plain of China

4:58 in the eleventh century BC after

5:00 overthrowing its predecessor, the Shang dynasty.

5:03 The kings of Zhou had their capital in Fenghao

5:06 in Shaanxi province until the eighth century BC,

5:10 when they were driven out by the Quanrong

5:12 barbarians from the west and northwest in 770 BC.

5:16 The surviving members of the royal family relocated the capital to Luoyang,

5:22 marking the beginning of the Later or Eastern Zhou dynasty.

5:27 The Eastern Zhou is further subdivided into the Spring

5:31 and Autumn period between the eighth and fifth centuries BC,

5:35 and the Warring States period between the fifth and third centuries BC.

5:40 The Eastern Zhou was characterised

5:42 by weakened central authority and the emergence

5:46 of de-facto independent states that nominally acknowledged

5:50 the sovereignty of the king of Luoyang.

5:54 Many of these feudal states had been founded in the eleventh

5:58 century by Zhou princes and influential generals and statesmen

6:01 who were granted dukedoms throughout the Central Plain in recognition

6:06 for their contribution to the founding of the dynasty.

6:10 Over several generations,

6:11 these dukes established their own independent power bases

6:14 and began to take less notice of the king,

6:17 though they continued to consider the king of Zhou their nominal sovereign.

6:22 By the time the Zhou court moved to Luoyang,

6:26 the king’s power had severely diminished and he could do little to prevent

6:31 his hundreds of vassals from fighting among

6:33 each other to expand their own territories.

6:36 Hence, China’s history in ancient times is

6:39 a tale of a relatively powerful polity emerging

6:43 as early as the second millennium BC in the shape of the Kingdom of Zhou,

6:48 but then followed by a period

6:51 of royal decline and political fragmentation before

6:54 a new imperial power would eventually emerge and unite China under Qin rule.

6:59 All of this ensured that China was dominated by warfare and conflict

7:05 for many centuries and Sun Tzu apparently lived in the midst of this.

7:10 Surely it was this instability that led figures like him in ancient China

7:15 to consider The Art of War and how conflicts should be won and lost.

7:22 In order to understand the background to Sun Tzu’s alleged government service,

7:27 and how he was immersed in the high politics of late sixth-century BC China,

7:32 we need to understand some of the political

7:35 intrigue and machinations of the time.

7:38 During the Spring and Autumn period,

7:40 and despite the broad political fragmentation of China at the time,

7:44 the Zhou kings still retained considerable moral

7:47 and spiritual authority over the Central Plain of China.

7:51 For this reason, a series of powerful rulers

7:54 who achieved leadership status among the feudal states

7:57 either by war or diplomacy were granted

8:00 the title ba or ‘protector’ by the Zhou king,

8:04 though the term is usually translated into English

8:07 as ‘hegemon.’ While several ancient sources including

8:10 the Shiji refer to the ‘five hegemons,’ no

8:14 two sources share the same list of five.

8:17 The earlier hegemons were from dukedoms within the Yellow

8:21 River valley who swore allegiance to the Zhou,

8:24 including Duke Huan of Qi in the east in the middle of the seventh century BC,

8:30 and Duke Wen of Jin in the north in the 630s BC.

8:35 By the beginning of the sixth century BC,

8:38 political entities from outside the Yellow River

8:40 basin began to challenge the Zhou feudal system.

8:43 The first of these was the State of Chu south of the Yangtze River,

8:48 whose rulers began calling themselves kings at the beginning

8:52 of the seventh century BC as a challenge to the Zhou.

8:56 Over the next decades these different powers, the Zhou, Chu, Wu,

9:01 Jin and others would continue to intrigue and make war on one another.

9:06 If Sima Qian’s account is true then this is around

9:10 the time that Sun Tzu was born and grew up.

9:15 His experiences were ones of war and political chaos.

9:19 It would only become more chaotic in the years

9:22 ahead and soon Sun Tzu would be personally involved.

9:26 In the spring of 514 BC, forces of the Kingdom of Wu invaded Chu in an attempt

9:33 to take advantage of the death of the ruler there,

9:37 King Ping, the previous winter.

9:39 The Wu armies were commanded by Prince Gaiyu and Zhuyong,

9:43 both of whom were brothers of King Liao.

9:46 Prince Guang, a cousin of the king,

9:49 now seized the opportunity of the princes’ absence waging war on Chu

9:54 to assassinate King Liao and take the throne of Wu for himself.

9:59 He invited the king to his house for dinner,

10:02 where, despite the presence of the royal guards,

10:05 the assassin managed to stab the king with a dagger

10:08 that had been hidden inside a grilled fish, his favourite dish.

10:12 King Liao died instantly, and Prince Guang led a body of armed

10:17 men to overpower the late king’s bodyguards.

10:20 Prince Guang duly established himself as King Helü of Wu.

10:25 Upon hearing the news of the usurpation,

10:28 the late king’s brothers defected to Chu.

10:32 In his biography of Sun Tzu in the Shiji,

10:36 Sima Qian states that Sun Tzu entered the service of this King

10:41 Helü in the third year of his reign, around 512 BC.

10:46 The Wuyue Chunqiu gives further context for the appointment,

10:50 which is once again credited to Wu Zixu.

10:54 By that time, King Helü had advanced his plans

10:58 to launch a campaign against Prince Gaiyu and Prince Zhuyong,

11:03 the two Wu princes who had defected to Chu after

11:06 their brother was killed and his throne was usurped by King Helü.

11:11 Our sources, sporadic as they are, suggest that Sun Tzu was introduced

11:16 to the king around this time with the intention

11:19 that he might lead the campaign against

11:22 Prince Gaiyu and Prince Zhuyong and their followers.

11:26 According to the Wuyue Chunqiu,

11:29 Sun Tzu was an expert in military affairs from Wu who

11:33 lived in seclusion because his talents were not appreciated by others,

11:37 and it was only when emissaries arrived from the Kingdom of Wu to implore

11:42 him to take command of the armies that Sun Tzu’s abilities were recognised.

11:47 During their first meeting,

11:49 King Helü asked Sun Tzu several questions about military

11:53 strategy and was impressed with the perceptiveness of each answer.

11:57 After he was satisfied with Sun Tzu’s knowledge,

12:01 he asked him to demonstrate that he could put his ideas into practice.

12:06 The Shiji offers a simpler explanation,

12:08 namely that King Helü had read The Art of War and invited Sun Tzu

12:14 as its author to his court to offer a practical demonstration of his methods,

12:19 while the Wuyue Chunqiu does not mention The Art of War at all.

12:24 Although Sun Tzu’s Art of War has become

12:27 the most influential military treatise from ancient China,

12:30 many scholars from different philosophical

12:33 traditions wrote extensively about military affairs

12:35 during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods in ancient China.

12:40 It is worth reflecting on the text itself here,

12:44 before exploring the limited details of Sun Tzu’s life further.

12:49 The standard text of Sun Tzu’s Art of War is divided into thirteen chapters,

12:55 each of which opens with the formula,

12:58 “Master Sun says.” While the modern text is based on a compilation

13:02 dating to the eleventh century AD during the Song dynasty,

13:07 Sima Qian quoted King Helü telling Sun Tzu that he

13:12 had read all thirteen chapters of his military treatise.

13:16 Furthermore, fragments of The Art of War written

13:19 on bamboo strips uncovered during excavations at Yinqueshan in 1972

13:24 indicate that the text was already divided into its

13:28 current thirteen chapters in the second century BC.

13:32 Although there are a few references to specific wars,

13:36 such as the rivalry between Wu and Yue,

13:39 or the exploits of the legendary Yellow Emperor,

13:42 the content of The Art of War primarily consists of high-level principles

13:47 that a military commander ought to follow if he is to achieve success in war.

13:52 As such, there is a frustrating lack of internal evidence

13:56 within the text itself which would allow us to accurately

13:59 date it or that could make clear when Sun

14:03 Tzu was writing and what experiences he was drawing upon.

14:08 The book opens with a statement concerning the importance of warfare.

14:13 In modern translation this reads: “War is a vital matter of state.

14:17 It is the field on which life or death is

14:21 determined and the road that leads to either survival or ruin,

14:26 and must be examined with the greatest care.”

14:29 The first chapter then goes on to list

14:31 a set of five criteria to determine the chances of victory for each side.

14:36 The first is the dao, or the way, referring to the ability of a military leader

14:42 to persuade his subordinates that his cause is just; the second is climate,

14:48 pertaining to weather conditions and changing seasons;

14:51 the third is terrain and how it facilitates or restricts

14:56 the deployment of troops or the supply lines for the army;

15:00 the fourth is command,

15:02 relating to how a leader can motivate and discipline the troops;

15:06 and the fifth is regulation, referring to the organisation of the army,

15:11 its logistics and lines of communication,

15:14 and the structure of the chain of command.

15:17 Sun Tzu argues that by assessing each of these factors,

15:21 it is possible to provide an assessment of the likelihood

15:25 of victory before the start of a campaign.

15:29 In the second and third chapters,

15:32 Sun Tzu discusses the conduct and planning of campaigns.

15:36 He places great importance on the need

15:38 to keep the army well-supplied on campaign,

15:41 advising that it is best to keep campaigns brief

15:44 so that the army does not run out of supplies,

15:47 adding that it is better to fight on foreign territory

15:51 and live off the land than to rely on long supply lines.

15:54 In Chapter 3, Sun Tzu goes even further,

15:58 famously stating that it is best for a commander

16:02 to achieve victory over the enemy without fighting at all.

16:06 Accordingly, a state’s best options are

16:08 to undermine the enemy’s strategy and its diplomacy,

16:11 and only resort to employing military force when there is no other choice.

16:16 While Sun Tzu’s emphasis on avoiding war has become one

16:20 of his most influential concepts outlined in The Art of War,

16:24 he did recognise that there are times when the state

16:28 has no choice but to mobilise its armies and fight.

16:32 Sun Tzu goes on to offer several rules of thumb for how

16:36 to deal with the enemy depending on the size of each army,

16:40 also stressing the importance of knowing the enemy’s strengths

16:43 and weaknesses and acting accordingly in line with these.

16:47 In Chapters 4 to 6, Sun Tzu discusses how

16:51 a commander can recognise and exploit strategic positions and formations,

16:55 and how to manoeuvre to gain strategic advantages from the enemy,

17:01 forcing them to either fight a battle against

17:04 the odds or to abandon their campaign entirely.

17:07 Chapter 7 is about confronting the enemy in action and ensuring

17:10 that enemy troops are in a poor state to fight,

17:14 while Chapter 8 deals with adapting

17:17 to changing circumstances and being prepared for contingencies.

17:21 Chapters 9 to 11 concern the deployment of troops and the use of terrain,

17:27 Chapter 12 covers the use of incendiary weapons,

17:31 and Chapter 13 is on the handling of spies.

17:35 Whether at the strategic, operational, or tactical level,

17:38 Sun Tzu throughout emphasises how to wrong

17:42 foot one’s enemy or enemies through deception.

17:45 While the core text of The Art of War consists of these thirteen chapters,

17:52 the Yinqueshan excavations of 1972,

17:55 uncovered fragments of five hitherto unknown chapters which could have comprised

18:00 a set of ‘outer chapters’ that expanded on the core text.

18:05 These chapters were written out on bamboo slips

18:08 and were found in a Han Dynasty tomb.

18:11 They may have been written by Sun Tzu himself

18:14 or later writers to offer greater clarity to the original text.

18:18 The five chapters in question are structured as dialogues

18:22 between Sun Tzu and the King of Wu.

18:25 Sun Tzu’s first interview with the king of Wu sets

18:28 the scene for one of the most famous anecdotes in Chinese history,

18:32 mentioned in both the Shiji and the Wuyue Chunqiu.

18:36 At King Helü’s request, Sun Tzu used the palace women to demonstrate his methods

18:42 for training and drilling an army in front of the king.

18:46 The Shiji states that 180 women were summoned for the demonstration,

18:51 while the Wuyue Chunqiu gives a figure of 300.

18:55 After the women were equipped with helmets, armour, swords, and shields,

19:00 the group was divided into two companies,

19:03 each commanded by one of the king’s favourite concubines.

19:06 Sun Tzu began by beating the drum signals for advance, right turn, left turn,

19:13 and retreat, repeating the demonstration several times

19:16 to ensure that the instructions were understood.

19:19 However, when Sun Tzu beat the signal for right turn,

19:23 the women collapsed into laughter.

19:26 Recognising that his instructions may not have been clear enough,

19:30 Sun Tzu clarified them and once again repeated them several times.

19:34 When he beat the signal for left turn,

19:38 the women still responded with hysterical laughter.

19:40 The infuriated general then explained that while the failure to follow orders

19:46 on the first occasion may have been down to the general’s commands,

19:50 now that the orders were clear,

19:52 it was the soldiers and officers who were at fault.

19:56 Sun Tzu then gave orders to execute the two company leaders.

20:02 An alarmed King Helü, who was watching proceedings from a terrace,

20:07 climbed down and begged Sun Tzu not to carry out the execution,

20:11 telling him that if the two women were killed he

20:15 would be so distraught that his food would become tasteless.

20:18 Sun Tzu told the king that he had been appointed general,

20:23 and while leading an army on campaign the general had full military

20:28 authority and was not bound to follow the king’s orders on military matters.

20:33 The two women were duly executed

20:35 and replaced as company commanders by two others.

20:38 When Sun Tzu beat the drum on this occasion,

20:41 the women executed their orders to perfection

20:44 without turning their heads or making any sounds,

20:47 marching left and right, advancing and retreating in perfect order.

20:52 Sun Tzu invited the king to inspect the army,

20:56 informing him that it was now ready for war

20:59 and could march through fire and water on his commands.

21:02 The grieving king replied that he had no interest in inspecting

21:07 the troops and advised Sun Tzu to retire to his quarters.

21:11 At this, the general admonished the king

21:14 for only praising military strategies on paper,

21:17 but being unwilling to put them into practice.

21:21 The story was intended to show how Sun

21:24 Tzu’s precepts needed to be put into practice fully,

21:27 not just viewed as theories, even when the implications were brutal.

21:33 According to the Shiji, this rebuke persuaded King Helü that Sun

21:38 Tzu was truly an expert in military affairs,

21:42 though the Wuyue Chunqiu once again claims that another

21:46 official intervened and told the king that he

21:49 could not expect to achieve his ambitions of becoming

21:53 hegemon without employing Sun Tzu to lead the armies.

21:56 Thus, Sun Tzu was picked to lead the campaign against Chu.

22:01 The ensuing campaign was enormously successful

22:04 and the Wu army killed the exiled princes, Gaiyu and Zhuyong, in battle.

22:09 It was just the first of many campaigns which

22:12 Sun Tzu allegedly led on behalf of the king.

22:16 In 511 BC he led another invasion of Chu and conquered two cities.

22:21 The following year, Wu invaded Yue on the pretext

22:25 that the latter did not join Wu in its campaigns against Chu.

22:29 The Wu armies were victorious and captured Zuili in modern Zhejiang province.

22:35 In 509 BC, King Zhao of Chu sent

22:38 an army under his prime minister Zichang to attack Wu,

22:42 prompting Helü to send Sun Tzu to counterattack and besiege Yuzhang,

22:48 modern-day Nanchang in Jiangxi province,

22:51 with orders to advance on the Chu capital at Ying.

22:54 While the Wu armies successfully captured Yuzhang,

22:58 the Wu commanders once again stopped short of attacking the Chu capital.

23:03 Three years later, in 506 BC, Helü once again suggested a campaign targeting

23:09 the Chu capital and asked Sun Tzu for advice.

23:13 He argued that it was too risky for the Kingdom of Wu to launch such

23:18 a campaign on its own and suggested seeking

23:21 alliances with the states of Tang and Cai.

23:24 After the alliance was formed,

23:26 the coalition army assembled at Yuzhang and defeated Zichang

23:29 in three battles on the eastern bank of the Han River.

23:34 In late 506 BC, the opposing armies met once again at the Battle of Boju.

23:39 The king’s brother Prince Fugai proposed attacking the enemy straight away,

23:44 arguing that Zichang was a poor leader and his soldiers

23:48 would not be willing to fight hard for him.

23:51 Although the king denied Fugai’s request,

23:54 the latter disobeyed orders and led a column

23:57 of 5,000 men to attack Zichang’s division,

24:00 routing them and forcing their commander to escape

24:03 to the State of Zheng in central China.

24:06 The Wu army took advantage of the chaos in the Chu camp to launch a pursuit,

24:11 surprising the Chu army while they were eating.

24:14 The Wu army went on to win another battle

24:17 at Yongxi near the city of Jingshan in Hubei province, opening the road to Ying.

24:22 By the time the Wu armies reached the city,

24:25 King Zhao of Chu had already fled from his capital.

24:29 In the aftermath of the clash, the Wu commanders, including Sun Tzu,

24:34 also carried away the wives of the senior Chu generals as a further humiliation.

24:41 Wu’s victory over Chu in the Boju campaign helped King Helü establish

24:46 himself as the unofficial hegemon over the states of the Central Plain.

24:51 However, the desecration of King Ping’s tomb during

24:54 the campaign prompted a Chu official named Shen

24:58 Baoxu to request an alliance from the powerful

25:01 State of Qin in the west to attack Wu.

25:04 Despite some initial reservations, the ruler of Qin agreed to the alliance,

25:09 as Qin foreign policy looked to Chu as a counterweight against Jin,

25:14 its rival in northern China.

25:16 In 505 BC, while Qin was preparing to send an army to invade Wu,

25:22 the king of Yue took advantage of the fact that most

25:26 of the Wu army was occupying Chu and launched a surprise attack.

25:30 Not long after, Qin forces joined up

25:33 with the Chu army and defeated Fugai in battle, compelling him to return to Wu.

25:39 The Qin then attacked Helü’s main army while

25:42 a Chu detachment conquered Wu’s ally, the State of Tang.

25:46 A couple of months later, with King Helü still fighting the Qin and Chu armies,

25:53 Fugai usurped the throne and proclaimed himself the king.

25:57 Helü was compelled to return to Gusu and retake the throne,

26:02 forcing Fugai to seek refuge with Chu.

26:05 Although Sun Tzu and his fellow commanders remained

26:08 in Chu and managed to defeat the Chu army,

26:11 they were defeated in turn by the Qin.

26:14 After discussing the issue among themselves,

26:17 the Wu commanders decided to abandon the campaign and return home,

26:22 enabling the king of Chu to return to his capital.

26:26 The Kingdom of Wu appears to have recovered quickly following the defeat to Qin.

26:31 Two years later a Wu army commanded by Prince Fuchai, Helü’s son and heir,

26:37 invaded Chu and once again occupied Ying,

26:40 forcing King Zhao to flee his capital once again.

26:44 Fuchai’s victory enabled Helü to maintain

26:47 his hegemony for the remainder of his reign.

26:51 In 496 BC, King Helü invaded Yue but was

26:55 mortally wounded during the campaign and was succeeded by Fuchai.

26:59 The following year, Fuchai conquered Yue

27:02 and made King Goujian of Yue his prisoner.

27:05 Fuchai’s success sowed the seeds of his undoing,

27:09 as Goujian pretended to declare his allegiance to Fuchai and won his trust,

27:15 enabling him to return home to Yue after three years in captivity.

27:20 In the meantime, Yue paid the Wu general Bo Pi a large bribe,

27:25 and the latter advised his king to end his campaign against

27:30 Yue and turn his attention north towards the State of Qi.

27:35 Neither the Shiji nor the Wuyue Chunqiu

27:39 mention Sun Tzu during King Fuchai’s reign,

27:42 although a brief remark in Sun Tzu’s biography

27:45 in the Shiji credits him with the strategies

27:48 that led to the victories over Qi and Jin

27:51 without indicating that he was present in those campaigns.

27:54 The author of the famous The Art of War therefore disappears

27:59 from history without a trace at the end of King Helü’s reign.

28:04 Despite Sima Qian’s reference to Sun Tzu’s contributions

28:07 to the strategy that led to Fuchai’s short-lived hegemony,

28:11 the implication is that Wu would not have

28:14 fallen to Yue had Sun Tzu still been around.

28:18 Since Sun Tzu is commonly mentioned alongside Wu

28:21 Zixu in both the Wuyue Chunqiu and the Shiji,

28:26 it is possible that he was either purged alongside his colleague,

28:30 or he left the Wu court and retreated back into obscurity in protest

28:35 at Fuchai’s tendency to listen to bad advisors and execute good advisors.

28:40 In any case, the sources are silent about how and when Sun Tzu died.

28:48 The biographical details of Sun Tzu from the Shiji

28:52 and the Wuyue Chunqiu are regrettably brief,

28:56 but this is the best picture available

28:58 of Sun Tzu from the earliest Chinese sources.

29:01 He was either born in Qi or Wu around the mid-sixth century BC.

29:06 He was invited to the Wu court in around 512 BC,

29:10 either on the recommendation of Wu Zixu,

29:13 or because the ambitious King Helü had been impressed by his military treatise.

29:18 After demonstrating the effectiveness of his disciplinary

29:22 methods with the palace women, Sun Tzu entered Helü’s service.

29:26 During the Spring and Autumn period, there were no specific military ranks,

29:32 and high officials often served concurrently in civil and military roles,

29:37 so Sun Tzu’s role in King Helü’s establishment is unclear.

29:42 Sima Qian states that he served as jiang,

29:46 a term that means ‘general’ or ‘commander’

29:49 rather than military advisor or strategist,

29:51 but such appointments were not permanent and typically

29:55 held for a single campaign or war.

29:57 His presence on the field of battle is

30:00 implied in several of Helü’s campaigns against Chu,

30:04 in particular the Boju campaign and the occupation of Ying in 506 BC.

30:10 While the methods of training and organisation

30:13 that Sun Tzu introduced to the Wu army

30:16 may have contributed to Wu’s continued military

30:19 success in the early part of Fuchai’s reign,

30:22 Sun Tzu himself appears to have left the scene by this point.

30:28 The details of Sun Tzu’s life are frustratingly unclear in places,

30:32 but there is no doubt that The Art of War

30:36 reflected the experiences of a veteran commander of the kind which

30:40 Sun Tzu appears to have become in service to the Kingdom

30:43 of Wu during these events between 512 BC and 506 BC.

30:47 Every stage of leadership and warcraft is laid out in a text

30:52 which in most modern editions comes in at about 10,000 words.

30:58 For instance, Sun Tzu recognised that preparation

31:01 was the key to victory in all instances.

31:04 He who managed the terrain best,

31:07 prepared his forces well and ensured that everything was meticulously

31:11 prepared for would always stand the best chance of victory.

31:15 The varied landscape of China that Sun

31:18 Tzu would have campaigned through in service to the Kingdom of Wu is reflected

31:23 in his discussion of the different types of terrain.

31:27 Equally, the torturous politics of the warring Chinese kingdoms

31:30 and states in the sixth and fifth centuries BC is reflected

31:35 in his perennial statements about the necessity of gathering lots

31:39 of intelligence and maintaining a core of spies to do so.

31:43 The Art of War is a product of its time,

31:47 yet Sun Tzu left the text vague and unspecific

31:51 enough that its precepts could be applied widely, not just to ancient China,

31:56 but any state or region, and not just to warfare,

31:59 but to any sphere of activity which requires shrewd

32:04 leadership and careful planning in order to achieve victory.

32:08 The patchy details about Sun Tzu’s life have

32:12 inspired a scholarly debate about whether the Sun

32:15 Tzu of the Shiji and the Wuyue Chunqiu was a real historical figure or a person

32:22 invented by later generations as both the author of the Art of War and one

32:27 of the contributors to the Kingdom of Wu’s

32:30 ascendancy in the late Warring States period.

32:33 One of the main arguments that Sun Tzu was not a historical figure is that he is

32:39 first mentioned in Sima Qian’s work more than

32:42 four centuries after he is said to have lived.

32:46 As Sima Qian is usually considered a reliable historian,

32:50 it is possible that he used earlier sources about

32:53 the life of Sun Tzu which are now lost.

32:56 It is not uncommon for biographical details of Chinese

32:59 historical figures from this period to be incomplete.

33:02 Furthermore, the biographies in the Shiji are not intended

33:07 to be detailed accounts of individuals from birth to death,

33:11 Sima Qian instead chose a few episodes from an individual’s

33:15 life to illustrate their character and moral values,

33:19 although it is unlikely that Sima Qian would have only chosen

33:24 only a single anecdote from Sun Tzu’s life if others were available.

33:29 Interpretations of Sun Tzu’s biographical details are further

33:33 complicated by the actions of some ancient Chinese rulers.

33:38 For instance, in 213 BC, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China,

33:44 infamously ordered the destruction of many classic Chinese texts that challenged

33:49 the Legalist doctrines he was trying to introduce at the time across China.

33:54 While copies of The Art of War were retained by the imperial library,

33:59 these were destroyed when the rebel leader Xiang Yu sacked the Qin

34:04 capital of Xianyang in 208 BC following the First Emperor’s death.

34:10 These developments were deeply lamented by Sima Qian

34:13 and undermined his efforts to write a comprehensive history.

34:17 Nevertheless, Sun Tzu sceptics point out that the Zuo Zhuan,

34:22 an influential set of commentaries to the Spring

34:26 and Autumn Annals dating to the mid-fourth century BC,

34:29 has a lengthy description of some of the campaigns

34:33 which King Helu oversaw in the late sixth century BC,

34:37 but does not mention Sun Tzu or Sun Wu at all.

34:42 Another common argument deployed against Sima Qian’s Sun Wu

34:46 or Sun Tzu is that the text of The Art

34:50 of War refers to several developments in military organisation and technology

34:54 that did not take place until the Warring States era.

34:58 While The Art of War refers to armies of 100,000 men,

35:03 it is unlikely that armies of this size could be

35:06 deployed by the states of the Spring and Autumn period.

35:10 For these reasons, the American general Samuel B.

35:13 Griffith, who translated Sun Tzu’s The Art of War in 1963,

35:19 rejected Sima Qian’s depiction of Sun Wu or Sun Tzu

35:23 and argued that the text dates from the fourth century BC.

35:28 The American historian Mark Edward Lewis

35:31 suggests in the Cambridge History of Ancient

35:33 China that the biography of Sun Tzu that appears in the Shiji,

35:38 namely the anecdote about training the palace women,

35:41 is a parable that underlines the essential

35:44 principles of military command in Chinese warfare,

35:47 and that the identity of any single individual historical

35:50 figure behind the writing The Art of War is, quote,

35:54 “lost beyond recovery.” This is not to say that Sima

35:58 Qian’s Sun Tzu was invented out of thin air,

36:02 as the bamboo strips at the Yinqueshan tombs indicate that a tradition

36:07 associating Sun Tzu with the Kingdom of Wu existed prior to Sima Qian,

36:13 although the five dialogues with the king of Wu refer to the collapse of Jin,

36:18 a hundred years after Sima Qian’s chronology.

36:21 It may be possible to consider the Sun Tzu of the Shiji and the Wuyue

36:27 Chunqiu as a composite figure based

36:30 on the lives of other documented historical figures.

36:34 It is worth assessing Sun Tzu’s The Art of War

36:38 alongside the career of another ancient Chinese military writer, Sun Bin,

36:43 whom Sima Qian claims to be a descendant of Sun Tzu,

36:47 not least because some scholars argue that they were possibly the same person.

36:53 While Sun Bin’s life is better documented,

36:56 there are still several gaps in his biography.

36:59 He was born in the fourth century BC in the middle of the Warring

37:03 States period and came from an old aristocratic family in the State of Qi,

37:08 which Sima Qian also claims as Sun Tzu’s native state.

37:13 His birth name is unknown,

37:15 and he acquired the nickname Bin to describe a physical

37:19 deformity that was inflicted on him later in life.

37:22 As a young man, Sun Bin studied with the Daoist

37:27 sage Guiguzi and was recognised as an outstanding student.

37:31 He was given no such recognition by the authorities in his native Qi state,

37:36 and he was compelled to seek employment at the rival state of Wei,

37:41 one of the three states that emerged after the collapse of Jin in 403 BC.

37:47 Following his arrival in Wei,

37:49 Sun Bin had an interview with the Wei commander Pang Juan,

37:54 who had studied alongside him.

37:55 When Pang Juan quickly realised that the new

37:58 arrival’s knowledge of military strategy was far superior

38:01 to his own and was afraid that he

38:04 might be replaced as commander of the Wei army,

38:07 he falsely implicated him in a crime which

38:10 resulted in Sun Bin having his kneecaps removed, permanently crippling him.

38:14 After seeking assistance from a Qi diplomat who recognised his military genius,

38:20 Sun Bin managed to escape captivity and return to Qi.

38:26 After returning to his homeland,

38:28 Sun Bin was presented at court and won the admiration

38:31 of both King Wei and his general Tian Ji.

38:35 The king offered Sun Bin the supreme command,

38:38 but the latter declined due to his disability and was

38:43 instead appointed military advisor and deputy commander to Tian Ji.

38:47 In 354 BC, a Wei army led by Pang Juan attached

38:52 the state of Zhao and laid siege to its capital of Handan.

38:57 Zhao was Qi’s ally, but rather than march to Handan to relieve the siege,

39:03 Sun Bin proposed an invasion of Wei to rescue Zhao,

39:06 which may have been part of a cynical move to exhaust

39:11 both parties to prevent them from reuniting the former Jin territories.

39:16 Although the Qi forces were outnumbered,

39:18 Sun Bin divided his army into three detachments.

39:22 He sent the first into the midst of the enemy troops,

39:25 where they were promptly massacred.

39:27 Having given Pang Juan the impression that he had no clue what he was doing,

39:32 Sun Bin sent a detachment of light troops to the important Wei city of Daliang.

39:38 An overconfident Pang Juan left his heavy infantry behind

39:42 at Handan and hurried to deal with the threat,

39:45 stringing out his army in the process.

39:48 With the third detachment, Sun Bin established a fortified position at Guiling

39:53 on the road between Handan and Daliang.

39:56 When Pang Juan blundered into the trap,

39:59 the Qi army sallied out and routed the enemy,

40:03 capturing the Wei commander in the process.

40:07 Pang Juan was eventually allowed to return

40:09 to Wei and resume command of the army,

40:13 and in 341 BC he invaded the small state of Han in central China.

40:18 In response to Han’s pleas for aid,

40:21 Qi adopted the same strategy as the Guiling campaign

40:24 and Sun Bin and Tian Ji marched on Daliang.

40:28 According to Sima Qian,

40:30 Sun Bin gave the impression that the Qi army was falling apart

40:34 by ordering the men to light 100,000 campfires on the first night,

40:39 50,000 on the second night, and 30,000 on the third.

40:43 Pang Juan repeated his mistake of thirteen years earlier

40:47 and hurried from Han to confront the Qi force.

40:51 Sun Bin laid an ambush at the narrow valley of Maling,

40:55 where he expected Pang Juan to arrive at dusk.

40:59 After hiding 10,000 crossbowmen on both sides of the road

41:03 with orders to shoot once they saw a light,

41:06 Sun Bin carved a message onto a nearby tree and awaited the enemy.

41:11 As Sun Bin had predicted, Pang Juan arrived as darkness fell

41:15 and noticed strange markings on the tree trunk.

41:19 He lit a torch to take a closer look,

41:22 and while he read the words “Pang Juan will

41:26 die under this tree,” 10,000 crossbow bolts flew towards him.

41:30 Although he somehow survived the initial barrage,

41:34 Pang Juan saw he was completely surrounded and cut

41:38 his throat to avoid falling into captivity again.

41:41 Sun Bin’s and Tian Ji’s victories enabled Qi

41:44 to become the leading power in eastern China, but the weakening of Zhao, Wei,

41:50 and Han strengthened Qin in the west,

41:53 eventually leading to the Qin conquest and unification

41:57 of China in the late third century BC.

42:01 Like his reputed ancestor Sun Tzu, Sun Bin was known in antiquity for writing

42:06 a military treatise called The Art of War, which ran to 89 chapters.

42:12 While Sun Bin departs from the historical record after the Battle of Maling,

42:17 the fragments of Sun Bin’s Art of War uncovered in 1972 refer

42:21 to battles fought by Qi armies at the end of the fourth century BC,

42:27 implying he may have lived up to 40 years after his triumph at Maling.

42:32 Both his text and that of Sun Tzu are

42:36 clearly part of the same tradition of military thought,

42:40 placing emphasis on identifying and exploiting the enemy’s weaknesses,

42:44 using deception and espionage to undermine the enemy on and off the battlefield,

42:50 and achieving quick victories on campaign.

42:53 Compared to Sun Tzu, Sun Bin is much better documented as a historical

42:58 figure and there has been a debate about

43:01 whether Sun Bin was even responsible for writing

43:05 the thirteen chapter Art of War attributed to Sun Tzu.

43:09 The rediscovery of part of the Sun Bin

43:12 Art of War at Yinqueshan undermines this theory,

43:16 and the Canadian Sinologist Roger Ames notes

43:19 that ancient Chinese authors distinguished between two ‘Master

43:23 Suns,’ and that the two military treatises

43:26 by Sun Tzu and Sun Bin were different texts.

43:30 Despite this, the ancient military historian

43:33 Chris Peers speculates that Sun Bin could

43:37 have written the Sun Zi Bing Fa outlining the general principles of war,

43:42 attributing it to a mythical ancestor who came from Qi but served Wu,

43:47 before writing the lengthier treatise that bears his name

43:51 as a more practical guide based on his own experiences on campaign.

43:57 Although both treatises are part of the same cultural

44:00 format and come from the same milieu of ancient China,

44:04 a comparison between the two Arts of War uncovers important differences

44:09 that suggest they were written at different times by different people.

44:13 One major difference is that while Sun Tzu’s

44:17 Art of War advises against besieging walled cities,

44:21 Sun Bin considers siege warfare a more legitimate method of waging

44:25 war and gives advice on how to conduct siege operations.

44:29 This would seem to indicate that Sun Tzu was writing

44:33 during an earlier period in history when chariots dominated the battlefield,

44:38 while by the time of Sun Bin the development of military technology

44:43 meant that it was easier for armies to successfully besiege and plunder cities.

44:48 The American scholar Ralph Sawyer, an expert in Chinese warfare,

44:53 argues that Sima Qian’s Sun Wu was a real historical figure who was

44:58 responsible for writing most of the thirteen chapters of Sun Tzu’s Art of War,

45:04 but that subsequent additions were made by later

45:07 generations which became part of the core text.

45:10 Roger Ames holds a similar view,

45:12 but argues that Sun Tzu’s teachings might have been

45:16 passed orally to his followers and descendants including Sun Bin,

45:20 who then compiled the text and added their own commentaries.

45:24 Sun Bin’s Art of War may have initially been part of this corpus before being

45:30 regarded as an independent text given Sun Bin’s

45:34 own subsequent reputation as a talented military strategist.

45:39 While it is unlikely that there will ever be a satisfactory or conclusive

45:44 answer to the question of the authorship of The Art of War,

45:48 and just exactly who its author was and how he

45:51 came to know so much about the nature of military leadership,

45:54 the influence of the text is undeniable.

45:58 According to ancient Chinese scholar, Roger Ames,

46:01 several Chinese classics from the third century BC

46:05 display an intimate knowledge of Sun Tzu’s writings.

46:08 By that time the study of warfare had become especially important

46:13 among Chinese scholars and officials serving the seven major warring states

46:18 which were fighting each other for dominance of the Central Plain

46:22 in the decades prior to the Qin Dynasty’s rise to imperial power.

46:26 The eminent Legalist scholar of that time, Han Fei,

46:29 who lived during the mid-third century BC,

46:32 wrote, “Everyone in the realm discusses military affairs,

46:36 and every family keeps a copy of the Wu

46:40 Zi and the Sun Zi.” According to the traditional histories,

46:44 the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang,

46:47 relied on The Art of War when planning his conquest of the warring states.

46:52 The Shiji’s descriptions of the Qin conquests regularly mention battles

46:57 and campaigns in which Qin armies only managed to achieve victory after

47:02 prolonged stalemates by sending agents into the enemy capital and undermining

47:08 the enemy command structure in ways which Sun Tzu had recommended.

47:14 In spite of his great influence, Sun Tzu’s ideas did not fit neatly

47:18 into the major Chinese philosophical traditions and had many critics.

47:23 Although his invocation of the dao or “way”

47:27 appears to endorse a Daoist view of the world,

47:31 his view that warfare is an undeniable fact

47:34 of life distances himself from the more pacifist Daoists.

47:39 Confucians criticised Sun Tzu’s emphasis on deception

47:42 and assassination as the key to military victory,

47:46 while Legalists such as Han Fei criticised Sun

47:50 Tzu’s humanitarian instincts and his desire to avoid war.

47:54 The Han dynasty cavalry general Huo Qubing,

47:57 who led devastating raids against the Xiongnu

48:01 tribal confederation in the northern steppes,

48:03 dismissed Sun Tzu by saying, quote,

48:06 “the only thing that matters is how one’s own strategies are going to work.

48:11 There is no need to study the old-fashioned rules of warfare!” Nevertheless,

48:15 The Art of War retained its key position in the Chinese literary canon,

48:21 and the statesman Cao Cao, who conquered northern China at the beginning

48:25 of the Three Kingdoms period in the third century AD,

48:30 left behind extensive commentaries on Sun Tzu’s work.

48:35 By the Song dynasty in the eleventh century AD,

48:38 the Sun Zi Bing Fa became one of the Seven Military Classics,

48:42 a compilation of seven texts which became required

48:46 reading for aspiring army officers in imperial China.

48:50 More speculatively, Sun Tzu’s ideas could also have been familiar to Genghis

48:56 Khan even before the Mongol conquest of China in the thirteenth century.

49:01 The Mongols certainly used swift manoeuvre and deception of the kind

49:06 advocated for by Sun Tzu to great effect in their conquests.

49:10 Despite the reverence shown to The Art

49:13 of War in China over the following centuries, in the late seventeenth century,

49:18 the Qing Dynasty emperor Kangxi echoed Huo Qubing

49:22 by criticising Sun Tzu in the following way:

49:26 “In war it’s experience of action that matters.

49:29 The so-called Seven Military Classics are full of nonsense about water and fire,

49:35 lucky omens and advice on the weather,

49:38 all at random and contradicting each other.

49:41 I told my officials once that if you followed these books,

49:46 you’d never win a battle.” Sun Tzu first came

49:51 to the attention of the Western world in 1772,

49:54 when the Jesuit missionary Jean Joseph Marie Amiot

49:58 published a translation of The Art of War.

50:01 Napoleon Bonaparte, who trained as an artillery officer

50:04 at several French military academies in the 1780s,

50:08 is likely to have read Amiot’s translation as a young man.

50:13 Napoleon’s own campaigns reflect several of Sun Tzu’s principles such as taking

50:17 calculated risks based on an assessment of the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses,

50:22 fighting on enemy territory to shorten supply lines,

50:26 seeking a quick decisive confrontation with the enemy

50:29 on the field of battle rather than resort to long sieges.

50:34 Napoleon’s ability to take advantage of his army’s marching speed

50:37 to surround the unfortunate Austrian general Karl Mack at Ulm

50:42 in October 1805 encapsulates Sun Tzu’s doctrine of exploiting military advantage

50:48 to defeat the enemy with as little actual engagement as possible.

50:53 His use of deception a few weeks later at the Battle of Austerlitz,

50:58 ahead of which he evacuated the high ground,

51:01 left his right flank deliberately weak, and gave the impression to enemy envoys

51:06 that his army was in no condition to fight,

51:09 is reminiscent of Sun Bin’s campaigns against Pang Juan.

51:13 The Napoleonic era inspired the two most

51:16 influential military treatises in the Western canon,

51:20 Antoine Henri-Jomini’s The Art of War and Carl von Clausewitz’s On War.

51:26 Both writers describe a new era of warfare characterised

51:30 by full mobilisation of a state’s resources for war,

51:34 and Clausewitz appears to reject Sun Tzu’s desire to, quote,

51:39 “defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed” by stating that “war is such

51:45 a dangerous business that the mistakes that come

51:48 from kindness are the very worst.” Nevertheless,

51:51 Clausewitz’s famous observation that war is a continuation of policy

51:57 by other means is reminiscent of Sun Tzu’s declaration

52:00 that war is an important matter of state and a state

52:05 can achieve its objectives through both political and military means,

52:10 though it is still a matter of debate whether

52:13 Clausewitz had read a translation of Sun Tzu or not.

52:18 The British soldier and military theorist Basil Liddell-Hart,

52:21 a veteran of the First World War,

52:24 developed the concept of the ‘indirect approach,’ arguing

52:28 that it was more effective to strike indirectly and rapidly

52:32 at an army’s nerve centre than to rely on the costly

52:37 frontal against fortified enemy positions of the Great War.

52:41 After being introduced to an English translation of The Art of War in 1927,

52:47 Liddell-Hart was astonished to find that many

52:50 of Sun Tzu’s ideas coincided with his own.

52:53 During the following years, Liddell-Hart further developed his indirect

52:58 approach theory and wrote several influential

53:00 books on how tanks could be used as a rapid strike force.

53:05 In his foreword to General Samuel Griffith’s 1963 translation of The Art of War,

53:11 Liddell-Hart describes a meeting in 1942

53:14 with the military attaché of the Chinese Nationalist government,

53:18 who informed him that his writings were among

53:21 the principal texts of the Chinese military academy.

53:25 When Liddell-Hart asked about Sun Tzu,

53:27 he was informed that the younger officers considered The Art

53:31 of War out of date in an era of mechanised warfare.

53:35 Liddell-Hart advised the Chinese officers to return to Sun Tzu,

53:40 whose thirteen chapters were what he called, quote,

53:43 “the best short introduction to the study of warfare,

53:47 and no less valuable for constant reference in extending

53:51 study of the subject.” Unlike the young Chinese Nationalist officers,

53:56 the Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was an admirer of Sun Tzu

54:01 and used The Art of War to develop his theories on guerilla warfare.

54:06 In more recent history, General Norman Schwarzkopf was one of the leading

54:11 proponents of Sun Tzu in the US Army,

54:14 and put many of his principles into practice

54:18 during the Gulf War in 1990 to 1991, using his tanks to roll over the Iraqi army

54:25 from the west while threatening an amphibious invasion from the east,

54:30 securing a quick and decisive victory at the cost of minimal casualties.

54:36 Finally, while The Art of War was not well-known

54:39 to the English-speaking world until after the Second World War,

54:43 its influence as a guidebook for strategy

54:46 and leadership now extends far beyond the military sphere.

54:50 Brazilian football manager Luiz Felipe Scolari quoted Sun Tzu in team talks

54:56 to inspire Brazil’s national team to victory in the 2002 World Cup,

55:02 while New England Patriots general manager Bill Belichick has cited

55:06 Sun Tzu as a major inspiration in his coaching philosophy.

55:11 The writer and consultant Mark McNeilly,

55:14 a former officer in the US National Guard,

55:17 has written books adapting Sun Tzu’s theories

55:19 to military and business leadership in the modern age.

55:22 The Art of War is considered essential

55:25 reading for aspiring business leaders and may

55:28 be found in the business and management

55:30 sections of bookshops as well as military history.

55:34 American interest in The Art of War is partly inspired by the rise

55:40 of China as a competitor to American

55:43 global hegemony in the early twenty-first century.

55:46 Any assessment of Sun Tzu must conclude by accepting

55:50 that we know very little about him as a historical character.

55:54 Indeed, there is still a debate as to whether or not he ever existed,

55:59 with some scholars arguing that he was simply an invented

56:03 figure who The Art of War was attributed to.

56:06 This latter argument probably goes too far.

56:09 What we can say, is that Sun Tzu was a military

56:14 tactician and scholar who lived in the highly unstable political

56:18 and military environment of the Spring and Autumn Period in ancient

56:23 Chinese history or perhaps the Seven Warring Kingdoms Period that followed.

56:27 What is clear is that the text had emerged as an important

56:32 piece of ancient Chinese literature by at least the third century BC.

56:37 Out of Sun Tzu’s observations on the utter instability

56:40 and chaos of his time came this short little guidebook.

56:44 On the surface of it,

56:46 The Art of War reads like a straight-forward text on military strategy,

56:51 and there is quite a bit on that topic within its pages,

56:56 but more than this, it is a reflection on leadership and knowing

57:00 how to lead and when to choose to fight one’s battles.

57:04 It is this latter feature that has made it a timeless text,

57:08 one which is cherished as much by business

57:12 leaders today as it is by military generals.

57:15 All in all, it is something

57:17 of a shame that, barring some great archaeological discovery,

57:21 we will probably never learn more about the mysterious Sun

57:25 Tzu who compiled it two and a half millennia ago.

57:30 What do you think of Sun Tzu and The Art of War?

57:35 Does the identity of the historical figure behind The Art of War even matter,

57:40 or should we focus more on the ideas

57:43 and principles contained within its thirteen chapters?

57:46 Is the Art of War out of date in the age of satellites and drones or does

57:52 Sun Tzu continue to offer valuable insights

57:55 into the art of leadership in the modern age?

57:59 Please let us know in the comment section and in the meantime,

58:17 thank you very much for watching.