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Chapter 181 Thirteen Art of War, the embryonic form of Sun Tzu's Art of War

After finally obtaining such an opportunity to prove himself, Sun Wu naturally cannot be left behind.

Therefore, Sun Wu presented the thirteen articles on the Art of War written by himself to King Wu.

You know, these thirteen articles on the Art of War were written by Sun Wu in a secluded place.

Sun Wu lived in seclusion, irrigated the garden, and wrote the art of war at the same time, and asked Wu Zixu to recommend him.

Finally, Sun Wu completed the writing of thirteen "Sun Tzu's Art of War"... He decided to use this book of war as a gift for meeting He Lu.

What are the contents of these thirteen Art of War?
The first is "Jian Pian", which discusses how to plan before and during the war, and discusses the significance of planning in war.

The second part is "Battle Chapter", which discusses the importance of quick battle and quick victory.

The third chapter is "Mouth Attack", which discusses the problem of using tactics to conquer the enemy.

The fourth chapter is "The Beginning", which discusses that when using troops to fight, we must first create conditions for ourselves not to be defeated by the enemy, and wait for the opportunity when the enemy can be defeated by us, so as to make ourselves "invincible".

The fifth chapter, "Position", discusses the use of troops in combat to create a swift and violent momentum that can overwhelm the enemy, and to be good at using this swift and violent momentum.

The sixth chapter, "Fictity and Reality", discusses that the policy of "avoiding the real and attacking the false" must be adopted in the use of troops.

The seventh chapter, "Military Struggle", discusses how to compete for favorable conditions for victory and enable oneself to grasp the initiative in combat.

The eighth chapter, "Nine Changes", discusses how generals should be flexible in commanding operations according to various specific situations, and should not be mechanically rigid and lead to failure.

The ninth chapter, "March", discusses how to place troops and judge the enemy's situation in marching operations, and also discusses how to deal with troops in various terrains and special terrains.

The tenth chapter, "Terrain", discusses how to use terrain in combat and the benefits of fighting deep into the enemy's country.

No. 11, "Nine Places", discusses nine different combat areas and the principles of using troops, and clearly puts forward the combat idea of ​​surprise attack.

No. 12, "Fire Attack", discusses the methods, conditions and principles of using fire attack in war.

No. 13, "Mian Pian", discusses the significance of using spies to detect the enemy's situation in combat, and discusses the types of spies and the methods of using spies.

The thirteen chapters of "The Art of War" each have their own emphases, with precise insights, thorough analysis, and ups and downs.

King Wu read the thirteen Art of War written by Sun Wu one by one, and felt that the Art of War was well-done, and praised Sun Wu endlessly.

But having said that, as the king of a country, King Wu is quite considerate.

The strategy of war is indeed wonderful, but...

"Sun Wu's Art of War" is well-spoken, but can Sun Wu really put it into practice?
Can it really be used on the battlefield?
Also, how can we prove that Sun Wu is a man of real ability?
He was afraid that Sun Tzu was a man who talked on paper.

If this is the case, it would be miserable to reuse him.

So King Wu thought of a way, which was to test Sun Wu.

After all, empty talk harms the country, and hard work rejuvenates the country.

The King of Wu said to Sun Wu: "Sun Wu, I have read your art of war. It is very well written and has benefited me a lot. But I don't know if you can apply these theories to actual combat. Can you try to command the army? ?”

Sun Wu naturally understood what King Wu meant.

Knowing that this is King Wu testing himself.

So he replied: "Of course, please ask, Your Majesty."

The King of Wu asked again: "What kind of people do you plan to use for the drill?"

Sun Wu replied: "According to the king's wishes, you can use any kind of person, no matter whether he is noble or low, whether he is male or female, there is no limit."

When King Wu heard this, he felt a little interesting.

So he wanted to give Sun Wu a problem.

King Wu sent more than 100 beauties from his harem to Sun Wu for performance.

I thought: If you can really train the beauties in my harem well, then you will be truly capable.

After all, these harem beauties are pampered every day, if they can be trained well, the rest will be easy.

Sun Wu is such a smart person, of course he knows that King Wu is deliberately embarrassing him.

He also decided to show off his talents in front of the King of Wu. The art of war that he wrote after living in seclusion for so long must not have been written in vain.

Therefore, he divided so many court ladies into left and right teams, with two concubines favored by King Wu as the captains of the two teams.

Sun Tzu stood on the podium and seriously preached the essentials of the drill.

He asked: "Do you all know your front heart, left and right hands and back?"

The maids replied: "I know."

Sun Wu explained again: "Forward is to look at the direction facing the front heart; to the left is to look at the direction of the left hand; to the right is to look at the direction of the right hand; backward is to turn to the direction of the back. Do you understand?"

The maids replied: "I understand."

When the arrangement was ready, Sun Wu beat the drums and issued orders. However, despite Sun Wu's repeated orders and the court ladies responded verbally, they felt novelty and fun in their hearts.

In the eyes of these beauties in the harem, Sun Wu is just a warrior, and he wants them to obey, which does not exist at all.

Faced with this scene, Sun Wu was not surprised at all.

Sun Tzu said again: "It's because I didn't make clear the regulations, and you are not familiar with military orders and laws. The fault lies with the general."

So repeated orders and repeated orders, beating drums to issue orders.

The maids were still laughing.

Sun Tzu said: "The regulations are not clear, and the military orders and laws are not familiar. It is the fault of the general. Since I have explained it repeatedly and still do not carry out the order, it is the fault of the captain."

Sun Wu then summoned the military officials, and according to the law of war, he wanted to kill the two captains.

King Wu was anxious when he saw that Sun Wu was about to kill his concubine.

Immediately sent someone to pass the order and said: "I already know that the general can use soldiers. Without these two beauties to serve, the widows will not taste like eating. Please don't kill them."

Sun Wu said mercilessly: "Since the minister has been ordered to be a general, he will be in the army, and the king's order will not be accepted."

Sun Wu insisted on killing the two captains, and re-selected two captains to continue training.

When Sun Wu beat the drum again to give the order, all the maids in the court, back and forth, turning around, kneeling, crawling and rolling, all conformed to the rules, and the formation was very neat.

Sun Wu sent someone to report to King Wu: "The team has been well trained, please come and see King Wu!"

Wu Wanggang lost his two beloved concubines, and he was heartbroken and didn't want to see them.

In fact, this is not Sun Wu's fault, who made him think of using his harem beauty as a test object for Sun Wu?

He just wanted to test whether Sun Wu was really talented and whether he could reuse him, but he didn't expect to lose his two concubines because of it.

What a surprise!
Although King Wu was unhappy, he also knew that Sun Wu was a man who could write books and lead troops in battle. He knew that Sun Wu was a rare general who helped him achieve hegemony.

He also knows what is big and what is small.

In the face of national affairs, the issue of the harem is nothing.

Therefore, he made Sun Wu a general and ordered him to train his troops day and night, preparing to attack Chu.

…………

"Hmph, if the King of Wu doesn't know the importance of important national affairs, he will not be far from subjugation."

"Nothing is as important as a national event."

"If the plane is really missed because of a few women, it will be too late."

…………

Under Sun Wu's strict training, Wu Jun's quality has improved significantly.

In 510 BC, Helu, Wu Lexu and Sun Wu commanded the Wu army to conquer Chu's vassal states Zhongwu and Shu.

At this moment, Helu was dazzled by the victory, and wanted to go straight to conquer Chuduying.

Sun Wu thought it was inappropriate to do so, so he said: "Chu's army is a powerful army in the world. It is not comparable to Shu and Zhongwu. Our army has destroyed two countries in a row. We are exhausted and exhausted. It is better to withdraw troops for the time being. Keep up the good work and wait for the opportunity.”

The king of Wu listened to Sun Wu's words and felt that it was reasonable, so he ordered the class teacher.

Wu Zixu also fully agreed with Sun Wu's idea, and offered advice to King Wu: "Although our army is tired and not suitable for expeditions, we can also try to make the Chu people tired."

So Wu Zixu and Sun Wu jointly discussed a set of strategies to disturb Chu and exhaustion, that is, to form three powerful troops to harass Chu in turn.

When the first army attacked, Chu State mobilized the main force to fight.

But as soon as the Chu army came out, Sun Wu led the Wu army to retreat.

When the Chu army had just returned, the second harassing army sent by the state of Wu began to act again.

This kind of wheel-like attack caused Chu State to deal with it passively, the army was exhausted, and the national strength was also seriously consumed, causing some small subordinate countries to defect one after another, but Wu State gained a lot from the harassment.

In [-] BC, Chu State attacked Cai State.

At that time, Cai Guo was already a small country affiliated to Wu State.

Of course Wu Guo would not ignore it.

Therefore, He Lu, Wu Zixu, and Sun Wu commanded [-] well-trained elite soldiers to sail up the Huai River in warships, heading straight for the battle between Cai and Chu.

Seeing that the Wu army was approaching ferociously, the Chu army had to give up the siege of Cai Guo, shrink its troops, mobilize the main force, and use the Han River as the boundary to step up defenses to resist the Wu army's attack.

Unexpectedly, Sun Wu suddenly changed the route of marching along the Huaihe River, abandoned his warships, and instead attacked by land, going straight into the depths of Chu State.

Wu Zixu asked Sun Wu: "Wu's army is accustomed to water and is good at water warfare. Why did they march by land instead?"

Sun Wu told him: "In combat, speed is the most important thing. You should take a path that others don't expect, so that you can't catch it by surprise. If you sail against the current, your speed will be slow. The Chu army will definitely take the opportunity to strengthen your defenses, and it will be very difficult to defeat the enemy."

Wu Zixu admired him for coming up with such a clever move.

In this way, Sun Tzu chose 3000 strong and agile soldiers as vanguards among the [-] elite soldiers.

When they reached the east bank of the Han River, Sun Wu led the troops to retreat when the Chu army met him, luring the Chu army to pursue them, winning three battles and three victories.

Afterwards, the two armies fought a decisive battle in Baiju, and Sun Wu used preemptive tactics to disrupt the Chu army's position, and then King Wu led the main force to attack and encircle, and won a complete victory.

Later, Sun Wu used flexible tactics such as attacking at half-cross and attacking while the Chu army was eating, so that the Chu army had no power to fight back.

Because of Sun Wu's brave command, it only took Wu Jun ten days from the Battle of Baiju to the capture of Ying, the capital of Chu, and the King of Chu fled in a panic.

Sun Wu used 20 to break the Chu army's [-], creating a glorious battle example of winning more with less.

However, at this time, Yue State took the opportunity of Wu's attack on Chu to attack Wu, and Qin sent troops to help Chu deal with Wu's army. In this way, He Lu had to lead his troops back to Wu.

After that, Wu continued to attack Chu, and Chu moved the capital from Ying to the capital in order to avoid subjugation.

In 490 BC, Helu heard that King Yunchang of Yue had passed away. The new King Goujian of Yue was young and immature. When all the preparations were ready, they hurriedly dispatched troops to defeat Yue.

Unexpectedly, Gou Jian rectified his troops and took the initiative to fight. The two armies met at the Wuyue border.

Although Gou Jian was young, he came up with a clever plan to deal with Wu Jun. He sent the condemned prisoners to go out first, lined up in three rows, put their swords around their necks, and after performing performances one by one, they put themselves in front of the battle.

The Wu soldiers didn't know that they were criminals, but they forgot their gods and were dumbfounded. The Vietnamese army took the opportunity to charge, and the Wu army retreated in a hurry.

Sun Wu and Wu Zixu reorganized their armaments to assist Fu Chai in completing the great cause of revenge and shame.

In the spring of 490 BC, Goujian mobilized his troops to march from the water to the state of Wu, and Fucha led [-] elite soldiers to fight against Yu Fujiao.

Under the planning of Sun Wu and Wu Zixu, the Wu army deployed many deceitful soldiers at night, divided them into two wings, and held up the torches. In the dark night, the flames joined together and moved quickly to the position of the Vietnamese army. Terrified and shaken, the Wu army took advantage of the momentum to attack and defeated the Vietnamese army.

Under the pursuit of the Wu army, Gou Jian ran to a small town on Kuaiji Mountain with five thousand soldiers to resist against danger. Because of the siege of the Wu army, Gou Jian had to ask Wu humiliation for peace.

Fu Chai believed that since Gou Jian had been defeated by him, he would not do anything more, so he ignored Wu Zixu's dissuasion and agreed to Gou Jian's request for peace.

In 480 B.C., Sun Wu once again showed his outstanding military ability and assisted Wu King Fuchai to defeat Qi State in the Battle of Ai Ling, which greatly boosted the prestige of Wu State.

Two years later, in the Huangchi Huimeng, he replaced Jin as the overlord.

Sima Qian pointed out in the "Historical Records of Sun Tzu Wu Qi Biography": "Breaking Chu in the west, entering Ying; Wei Qi and Jin in the north, famous princes, grandson and powerful Yan!"

Although Sun Wu helped Wu to establish hegemony, Fu Chai became increasingly arrogant and refused to listen to honest words and slanderous words.

He fell into Goujian's "beauty trick" and forced to death Wu Zixu, the most loyal hero to him.

As for Sun Wu's later fate, it is not clear.

One theory is that after Sun Wu assisted Fuchai, the king of Wu, to establish hegemony, he saw that his friends were all forced to death. Disaster, so he retreated to Linquan, and went to revise his art of war.

There is also a saying that he returned to Qi State and lived in seclusion in his hometown to teach apprentices.

In short, his end is still good.

As Wu Zixu expected, Gou Jian, King of Yue, was humiliated and asked for peace, so he tried his best to take revenge.

He lived together for ten years and learned ten years, making the country rich and the army more powerful.

Later, when the main force of the Wu army gathered in Huangchi and the Central Plains princes alliance, and Wu's internal forces were empty, the Vietnamese army sent troops to attack Wu and invaded the capital of Wu.

From prosperity to decline, and was officially destroyed by the Yue Kingdom, Fu Chai felt ashamed and hated, and committed suicide.

Sun Wu's dream of unifying China by King Wu has also come to naught.

But Sun Tzu's military talent is needless to say.

(End of this chapter)