“Intellectual powerhouse, economic giant, diplomatic heavyweight. Qi's Jixia Academy attracted thinkers from every school. Wealthiest state through salt and fish monopolies. Capable of brilliant diplomacy but prone to complacency after periods of success.”
Biography 傳
Sun Bin was a descendant of Sunzi (Sun Tzu) and one of the great military strategists of the Warring States period. His life story is dramatic: he studied military arts under the same master as Pang Juan, his jealous rival. Pang Juan, serving Wei, lured Sun Bin to Wei and had his kneecaps removed (the punishment of 'bin' that gave him his name). Sun Bin escaped to Qi, where he became the military advisor to General Tian Ji. He orchestrated two of the era's most famous campaigns — the Battle of Guiling (354 BC) and the Battle of Maling (342 BC) — both times outmaneuvering his rival Pang Juan through clever stratagems. At Maling, he used a 'reduce the cooking fires' deception to draw the Wei army into an ambush. The Sun Bin Bingfa, his military treatise, was lost for two millennia until its rediscovery in 1972.