謀攻

The descending hierarchy from 國 (state) to 軍 (army, ~12,500 men) to 旅 (brigade, ~500 men) to 卒 (company, ~100 men) to 伍 (squad, 5 men) follows the standard Zhou military organization. Sunzi applies the principle of 'taking whole' at every level.

全 (quan, 'whole/intact') vs 破 (po, 'shatter/break') — this is the central opposition of the chapter. 全 means to gain control without destruction; 破 means to gain control through destruction. Sunzi regards destruction as wasteful: you inherit ruins instead of resources.

不戰而屈人之兵 ('subdue the enemy's army without fighting') is perhaps the single most famous line in the Sunzi. It encapsulates his entire strategic philosophy: the supreme commander wins through superior planning, diplomacy, and positioning, making actual battle unnecessary.

伐謀 ('attack the enemy's strategy') means defeating the enemy at the planning stage — disrupting his plans before they can be executed. 伐交 ('disrupt his alliances') means isolating the enemy diplomatically. These two levels of warfare require intelligence and diplomacy rather than military force.

轒轀 (fen wen) were large armored siege wagons with protective roofs, used to approach city walls under cover. 距闉 (ju yin) were earthen siege ramps built against city walls to allow attackers to reach the top — massive construction projects requiring enormous labor.

蟻附 (yi fu, 'ants climbing') is a vivid metaphor for a massed infantry assault on city walls — soldiers climbing scaling ladders in dense swarms like ants crawling up a wall. The image emphasizes both the desperation and the futility of the tactic.

全爭於天下 ('contend for All-Under-Heaven with wholeness intact'): the paradox at the heart of Sunzi's thought. The commander who seeks total victory must avoid total war. By preserving what he conquers rather than destroying it, he gains genuine power rather than pyrrhic victories.

These force ratios became standard doctrine in Chinese military thinking. The ratios are guidelines, not rigid rules — Sunzi himself elsewhere emphasizes that a skilled commander can overcome numerical disadvantage through superior positioning and deception.

小敵之堅，大敵之擒 — literally 'a small enemy's stubbornness is a large enemy's capture.' The point is that courage and determination are not substitutes for strategic sense. A smaller force that refuses to retreat when it should will be destroyed.

輔 (fu) literally means the cheek-piece on a chariot wheel — a structural support without which the wheel collapses. Sunzi's metaphor presents the general not as the wheel itself (the state) but as the critical component that holds it together.

縻軍 (mi jun, 'hobbling the army'): 縻 means to tether or hobble an animal. The image is of a ruler who keeps the army on a leash, preventing it from acting according to battlefield conditions.

三軍 (san jun, 'three armies') refers to the standard Zhou-era military organization dividing forces into upper, middle, and lower armies. By the Warring States period it simply meant 'the entire army' or 'all the armed forces.'

This passage articulates the principle of civilian-military separation: the ruler sets strategic objectives, but the general must have operational autonomy. Civilian micromanagement of military operations is a recurring cause of defeat in Chinese military history — and in military history generally.

上下同欲 ('upper and lower share the same desire'): this echoes the concept of 道 (moral cause) from Chapter 1 — the alignment of ruler, general, and people toward a common purpose. Sunzi considers this political unity a military factor, not merely a political one.

將能而君不御 ('the general is capable and the ruler does not interfere'): this fifth condition directly follows from the preceding section on royal interference. Sunzi insists that the ruler's role is to select a competent general — and then get out of the way.

知彼知己，百戰不殆 is the most quoted line in all of Chinese military literature and has passed into common usage as a proverb. It encapsulates Sunzi's rationalist approach to warfare: victory depends on intelligence (in both senses of the word), not on courage, numbers, or divine favor.

殆 (dai) means 'peril' or 'danger,' not 'defeat.' Sunzi's claim is carefully calibrated: knowledge does not guarantee victory, but it guarantees you will not be caught in a disastrous situation. The distinction between 'not being in peril' and 'winning every battle' is deliberate.