兵令下

All units that leave the main army to serve as forward defensive positions shall be stationed along the border counties as observation posts, spaced three to five li apart. When it is known that the main army is establishing forward defenses, all civilian movement is prohibited during the campaign. This is the means of securing the interior.

When interior troops are dispatched for garrison duty, the commanding officers issue flags, drums, halberds, and armor. On the day of departure, any officer or soldier who falls behind the column or passes beyond the county boundary is punished under the law for delayed garrison arrival.

Troops garrisoned on the border for one year who then desert without waiting for their replacement are punished under the law for military desertion. If their parents, wife, and children know of the desertion, they share the same crime; if they did not know, they are pardoned.

If a soldier arrives at the supreme general's headquarters one day behind his officer, his parents, wife, and children all share the same crime. If a soldier deserts and returns home, and after one day his parents, wife, and children have not arrested him or reported him, they too share the same crime.

When troops lose their commanding officers in battle, and when officers abandon their troops to flee alone, all are beheaded. If a forward officer abandons his men to flee, and a rear officer can execute him and take command of his troops, the rear officer is rewarded. Troops who gain no merit in campaign shall serve three years of garrison duty.

In a major engagement of all three divisions, if the supreme general is killed and his staff of five hundred or more fail to die fighting the enemy, they are all beheaded. The general's personal guard and nearby troops who were in the formation are all beheaded. The remaining soldiers who have military merit have one rank deducted; those with no merit serve three years of garrison duty.

When a squad member is killed in battle and the squad cannot recover his body, the entire squad forfeits all merit. If they recover the body, all offenses are pardoned.

Whether the army is effective or not depends on the correspondence between the state's registers and reality. Today, the names are on the official rolls while the actual men remain at home. The government does not have the men it claims, and the families do not receive the exemptions they are owed. When soldiers are gathered into an army, there are empty names without substance. Externally it is insufficient to resist the enemy; internally it is insufficient to defend the state. This is why the army is undersupplied and the general's authority is undermined.

Your servant observes that when soldiers desert and return home, their barracks-mates and officers are fined by having to contribute grain to make up the deficit, recorded as 'military provisions.' Thus there is one army in name but a double burden in reality. The state's interior is emptied, the people's annual output is exhausted -- how then can you avoid the disaster of rout and flight?

Now, using law to prevent desertion and prohibit military flight -- this is the army's first victory. Squads and sections linked together so that in battle, soldiers and officers rescue each other -- this is the army's second victory. When the general can establish authority, the soldiers can maintain discipline, orders are clear and trusted, and both attack and defense are effective -- this is the army's third victory.

Your servant has heard that the ancients who excelled at employing armies could execute half their soldiers for violations. The next best could execute three in ten. The lowest could execute one in ten. He who could execute half commanded awe throughout the four seas. He who could execute three in ten imposed his strength on all the lords. He who could execute one in ten could make his orders obeyed by the troops.

Therefore it is said: a million men who will not obey orders are not as good as ten thousand who will fight; ten thousand who will fight are not as good as a hundred who will go all out. When rewards are as constant as the sun and moon, when trustworthiness is as reliable as the four seasons, when orders are as sharp as the executioner's axe, and when weapons are as keen as the sword Ganjiang -- that soldiers should refuse to obey orders has never been known to happen.