- 敢問兵可使如率然乎曰可夫吳人與越人相惡也當其同舟而濟遇風其相救也如左右手
- 是故方馬埋輪未足恃也
Strike at its head, and you will be attacked by its tail; strike at its tail, and you will be attacked by its head; strike at its middle,
Another reading in the Yü Lan for 中 is 腹 “belly.”
and you will be attacked by head and tail both.
30. Asked if an army can be made to imitate the shuai-jan,
That is, as Mei Yao-ch‘ên says, 可使兵首尾率然相應如一體乎 “Is it possible to make the front and rear of an army each swiftly responsive to attack on the other, just as though they were parts of a single living body?”
I should answer, Yes. For the men of Wu and the men of Yüeh are enemies;
Cf. VI. § 21.
yet if they are crossing a river in the same boat and are caught by a storm, they will come to each other’s assistance just as the left hand helps the right.
The meaning is: If two enemies will help each other in a time of common peril, how much more should two parts of the same army, bound together as they are by every tie of interest and fellow-feeling. Yet it is notorious that many a campaign has been ruined through lack of co-operation, especially in the case of allied armies.
31. Hence it is not enough to put one’s trust in the tethering of horses,
方 is said here to be equivalent to 縛.
and the burying of chariot wheels in the ground.
These quaint devices to prevent one’s army from running away recall the Athenian hero Sôphanes, who carried an anchor with him at the battle of Plataea, by means of which he fastened himself firmly to one spot. [See Herodotus, IX. 74.] It is not enough, says Sun Tzŭ, to render flight impossible by such mechanical means. You will not succeed unless
