"The_Art_of_War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tzu Sun)

complete text is to be found, though split up into fragments, intermixed with other matter, and scattered
piecemeal over a number of different sections. Considering that the YU LAN takes us back to the year 983,
and the T`UNG TIEN about 200 years further still, to the middle of the T`ang dynasty, the value of these early
transcripts of Sun Tzu can hardly be overestimated. Yet the idea of utilizing them does not seem to have
occurred to anyone until Sun Hsing-yen, acting under Government instructions, undertook a thorough
recension of the text. This is his own account: --

Because of the numerous mistakes in the text of Sun Tzu which his editors had handed down, the Government
ordered that the ancient edition [of Chi T`ien-pao] should be used, and that the text should be revised and
corrected throughout. It happened that Wu Nien-hu, the Governor Pi Kua, and Hsi, a graduate of the second
degree, had all devoted themselves to this study, probably surpassing me therein. Accordingly, I have had the
whole work cut on blocks as a textbook for military men.

The three individuals here referred to had evidently been occupied on the text of Sun Tzu prior to Sun
Hsing-yen's commission, but we are left in doubt as to the work they really accomplished. At any rate, the
new edition, when ultimately produced, appeared in the names of Sun Hsing-yen and only one co- editor Wu
Jen-shi. They took the "original edition" as their basis, and by careful comparison with older versions, as well
as the extant commentaries and other sources of information such as the I SHUO, succeeded in restoring a
very large number of doubtful passages, and turned out, on the whole, what must be accepted as the closes
Chapter V. 11
approximation we are ever likely to get to Sun Tzu's original work. This is what will hereafter be denominated
the "standard text." The copy which I have used belongs to a reissue dated 1877. it is in 6 PEN, forming part
of a well-printed set of 23 early philosophical works in 83 PEN. [38] It opens with a preface by Sun
Hsing-yen (largely quoted in this introduction), vindicating the traditional view of Sun Tzu's life and
performances, and summing up in remarkably concise fashion the evidence in its favor. This is followed by
Ts`ao Kung's preface to his edition, and the biography of Sun Tzu from the SHIH CHI, both translated above.
Then come, firstly, Cheng Yu-hsien's I SHUO, [39] with author's preface, and next, a short miscellany of
historical and bibliographical information entitled SUN TZU HSU LU, compiled by Pi I-hsun. As regards the
body of the work, each separate sentence is followed by a note on the text, if required, and then by the various
commentaries appertaining to it, arranged in chronological order. These we shall now proceed to discuss
briefly, one by one.

The Commentators ----------------

Sun Tzu can boast an exceptionally long distinguished roll of commentators, which would do honor to any
classic. Ou-yang Hsiu remarks on this fact, though he wrote before the tale was complete, and rather
ingeniously explains it by saying that the artifices of war, being inexhaustible, must therefore be susceptible of
treatment in a great variety of ways.

1. TS`AO TS`AO or Ts`ao Kung, afterwards known as Wei Wu Ti [A.D. 155-220]. There is hardly any room
for doubt that the earliest commentary on Sun Tzu actually came from the pen of this extraordinary man,
whose biography in the SAN KUO CHIH reads like a romance. One of the greatest military geniuses that the
world has seen, and Napoleonic in the scale of his operations, he was especially famed for the marvelous
rapidity of his marches, which has found expression in the line "Talk of Ts`ao Ts`ao, and Ts`ao Ts`ao will
appear." Ou-yang Hsiu says of him that he was a great captain who "measured his strength against Tung Cho,
Lu Pu and the two Yuan, father and son, and vanquished them all; whereupon he divided the Empire of Han
with Wu and Shu, and made himself king. It is recorded that whenever a council of war was held by Wei on
the eve of a far-reaching campaign, he had all his calculations ready; those generals who made use of them did
not lose one battle in ten; those who ran counter to them in any particular saw their armies incontinently
beaten and put to flight." Ts`ao Kung's notes on Sun Tzu, models of austere brevity, are so thoroughly