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27. Hence it is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for purposes of spying,
 
Ch’ên Hao . . . points out that “the god-like wisdom of Ch’êng T’ang and Wu Wang led them to employ I Yin and Lü Shang.”
and thereby they achieve great results.
 
Tu Mu closes with a note of warning: “Just as water, which carries a boat from bank to bank, may also be the means of sinking it, so reliance on spies, while productive of great results, is oft-times the cause of utter destruction.”
Spies are a most important element in war, because on them depends an army’s ability to move.
 
Chia Lin says that an army without spies is like a man without ears or eyes.
APPENDIX: THE COMMENTATORS
by Lionel Giles edited by Dallas Galvin
SUN TZU CAN BOAST an exceptionally long and distinguished roll of commentators, which would do honour to any classic. . . .
1. TS’AO TS’AO, ALSO KNOWN AS TS’AO KUNG AND LATER WEI WU TI, A.D. 155-220
There is hardly any room for doubt that the earliest commentary on Sun Tzu actually came from the pen of this extraordinary man, whose biography in the
San Kuo Chih
reads like a romance. One of the greatest military geniuses that the world has seen, and Napoleonic in the scale of his operations, he was especially famed for the marvellous rapidity of his marches, which has found expression in the line, “Talk of Ts’ao Ts’ao, and Ts’ao Ts’ao will appear.” Ou-yang Hsiu says of him that he was a great captain who
measured his strength against Tung Cho, Lü Pu and the two Yüan, father and son, and vanquished them all; whereupon he divided the Empire of Han with Wu and Shu, and made himself king. It is recorded that whenever a council of war was held by Wei on the eve of a far-reaching campaign, he had all his calculations ready; those generals who made use of them did not lose one battle in ten; those who ran counter to them in any particular saw their armies incontinently beaten and put to flight.
Ts’ao Kung’s notes on Sun Tzu, models of austere brevity, are so thoroughly characteristic of the stern commander known to history, that it is hard indeed to conceive of them as the work of a mere
littérateur.
Sometimes, indeed, owing to extreme compression, they are scarcely intelligible and stand no less in need of a commentary than the text itself. . . . Ts’ao Kung is the reputed author of a book on war in 100,000 odd words, now lost. . . .
2. MÊNG SHIH, C. A.D. 502-557? OR POSSIBLY AS EARLY AS THE THIRD CENTURY
The commentary which has come down to us under this name is comparatively meagre, and nothing about the author is known. Even his personal name has not been recorded. . . . [H]e is named [as the] last of the “Five Commentators,” the others being Wei Wu Ti [Ts’ao Ts’ao], Tu Mu, Ch’ên Hao and Chia Lin.
3. LI CH’ÜAN, EIGHTH CENTURY A.D.
[He] was a well-known writer on military tactics. [One of his treatises] has been in constant use down to the present day. [One of his works recounts the] lives of famous generals from the Chou to the T’ang Dynasties. . . . He is also generally supposed to be the real author of [a] popular Taoist tract. . . . His notes are mostly short and to the point, and he frequently illustrates his remarks by anecdotes from Chinese history. [However, his commentaries are based on a version of the Sun Tzu text that differs considerably from those now extant.]
4. TU YU, DIED 812 A.D.
[He] did not publish a separate commentary on Sun Tzu, his notes being taken from the
T’ung Tien
, the encyclopædic treatise on the Constitution which was his life-work. They are largely repetitions of Ts’ao Kung and Mêng Shih, besides which it is believed that he drew on the ancient commentaries of Wang Ling and others. . . . [The poet and commentator Tu Mu was his grandson.]
5. TU MU, 803-852 A.D.
[He] is perhaps best known as a poet—a bright star even in the glorious galaxy of the T’ang period. We learn from Ch’ao Kung-wu that although he had no practical experience of war, he was extremely fond of discussing the subject, and was moreover well read in the military history of the
Ch’un Ch’iu
and
Chan Kuo
eras. His notes, therefore, are well worth attention. They are very copious, and replete with historical parallels. The gist of Sun Tzu’s work is thus summarised by him: “Practise benevolence and justice, but on the other hand make full use of artifice and measures of expediency.” He further declared that all the military triumphs and disasters of the thousand years which had elapsed since Sun Wu’s death would, upon examination, be found to uphold and corroborate, in every particular, the maxims contained in his book. . . .
6. CH’ËN HAO, T’ANG DYNASTY (618-907 A.D.)
[He] appears to have been a contemporary of Tu Mu. Ch’ao Kung-wu says that he was impelled to write a new commentary on Sun Tzu because Ts’ao Kung’s on the one hand was too obscure and subtle, and that of Tu Mu on the other too long-winded and diffuse. Ou-yang Hsiu, writing in the middle of the 11th century, calls Ts’ao Kung, Tu Mu and Ch’ên Hao the three chief commentators on Sun Tzu. . . . [Ch’ên’s] commentary, though not lacking in merit, must rank below those of his predecessors.
7. CHIA LIN, NO DATES, BUT HE LIVED DURING THE T’ANG DYNASTY (618-907 A.D.)
[His commentary on Sun Tzu] is of somewhat scanty texture, and in point of quality, too, perhaps the least valuable of the eleven.
8. MEI YAO-CH’ËN, 1002-1060
[C]ommonly known by his “style” as Mei Shêng-yü,[he] was, like Tu Mu, a poet of distinction. His commentary was published with a laudatory preface by the great Ou-yang Hsiu, from which we may cull the following:
Later scholars have misread Sun Tzu, distorting his words and trying to make them square with their own one-sided views. Thus, though commentators have not been lacking, only a few have proved equal to the task. My friend Shêng-yü has not fallen into this mistake. In attempting to provide a critical commentary for Sun Tzu’s work, he does not lose sight of the fact that these sayings were intended for states engaged in internecine warfare; that the author is not concerned with the military conditions prevailing under the sovereigns of the three ancient dynasties (the Hsia, the Shang, and the Chou), nor with the nine punitive measures prescribed to the Minister of War. Again, Sun Wu loved brevity of diction, but his meaning is always deep. Whether the subject be marching an army, or handling soldiers, or estimating the enemy, or controlling the forces of victory, it is always systematically treated; the sayings are bound together in strict logical sequence, though this has been obscured by commentators who have probably failed to grasp their meaning. In his own commentary, Mei Shêng-yü has brushed aside all the obstinate prejudices of these critics, and has tried to bring out the true meaning of Sun Tzu himself. In this way, the clouds of confusion have been dispersed and the sayings made clear. I am convinced that the present work deserves to be handed down side by side with the three great commentaries; and for a great deal that they find in the sayings, coming generations will have constant reason to thank my friend Shêng-yü
Making some allowance for the exuberance of friendship, I am inclined to endorse this favourable judgment, and would certainly place him above Ch’ên Hao in order of merit.
9. WANG HSI, SUNG DYNASTY (960-1279 A.D.)
[He] is decidedly original in some of his interpretations, but much less judicious than Mei Yao-ch’ên and on the whole not a very trustworthy guide. He is fond of comparing his own commentary with that of Ts’ao Kung, but the comparison is not always flattering to him. We learn from Ch’ao Kung-wu that Wang Hsi revised the ancient text of Sun Tzu, filling up lacunæ and correcting mistakes.
10. HO YEN-HSI, SUNG DYNASTY (960-1279 A.D.)
[There is some controversy over his personal name and biography.] . . . he appears simply as Ho Shih in the
Yü Hai
, and [it has been said] that his personal name is unknown. . . . [His] commentary . . . “contains helpful additions” here and there, but is chiefly remarkable for the copious extracts taken, in adapted form, from the dynastic histories and other sources.
11. CHANG Yü, LATE SUNG DYNASTY?
The list closes with a commentator of no great originality perhaps, but gifted with admirable powers of lucid exposition. His commentary is based on that of Ts’ao Kung, whose terse sentences he contrives to expand and develop in masterly fashion. Without Chang Yü, it is safe to say that much of Ts’ao Kung’s commentary would have remained cloaked in its pristine obscurity and therefore valueless. His work . . . finds a niche in the
T’ung Chih
, [a literary history] which also names him as the author of the “Lives of Famous Generals.”
It is rather remarkable that the last-named four should all have flourished within so short a space of time. Ch’ao Kung-wu accounts for it by saying,
During the early years of the Sung dynasty the Empire enjoyed a long spell of peace, and men ceased to practise the art of war. But when [Chao] Yüan-hao’s rebellion came (1038-42) and the frontier generals were defeated time after time, the Court made strenuous enquiry for men skilled in war, and military topics became the vogue amongst all the high officials. Hence it is that the commentators of Sun Tzu in our dynasty belong mainly to that period.
FOR FURTHER READING
The first thing to know about Sun Tzu, author of
The Art of War
, is that he would be amazed and horrified to learn that you are reading his book! As Burton Watson, the great translator of classical Chinese and Japanese literature, points out, it was assumed in ancient China “that anyone to whom the text was transmitted would receive instruction in its meaning when he received the text.” Writing still carried the charge of the supernatural, of sacred knowledge. Only a warrior scholar could have composed this text, and only those who were initiated could have received it. The following list of books and sources is offered for today’s readers who would like to gain a deeper comprehension of
The Art of War
in the fullness of how it should be understood.

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