非攻(中)

Now whenever armies are mobilized, marching in winter they suffer from cold, marching in summer they suffer from heat -- campaigns cannot be conducted in either winter or summer. In spring they prevent the people from plowing and planting; in autumn they prevent the people from harvesting. If even one season is lost, the people who starve and freeze to death from hunger and cold will be beyond counting.

Now to attack a city of three li with an outer wall of seven li -- even without using elite troops and without killing anyone, could one simply obtain it? To kill at most tens of thousands and at least thousands -- only then can a city of three li and an outer wall of seven li be taken. Now a state of ten thousand chariots has deserted cities numbering in the thousands that it cannot fully occupy, and uncultivated land numbering in the tens of thousands that it cannot fully develop. Thus land is what is in surplus; the ruler's people are what is in deficit. Now to exhaust the ruler's people unto death and inflict suffering upon both high and low in order to contend for empty cities -- this is discarding what is scarce and valuing what is surplus.

Therefore Master Mozi said: 'There is an old saying: The gentleman does not use water as his mirror, but uses other people. Mirrored in water, one sees only the appearance of one's face; mirrored in other people, one knows good fortune and bad. Now if one considers offensive warfare to be profitable, has one not reflected on the affair of Zhibo? That this leads not to good fortune but to calamity can already be seen and known.'