Sun Tzu and The Art of War: China's Classic of Military Strategy

Sun Tzu, or Sunzi (“Master Sun”), is the name attached to The Art of War, a short Chinese treatise on strategy that has become the world’s most famous military classic. Tradition says Sun Tzu was a general named Sun Wu who served the king of Wu around 500 BC, but the text as we know it was probably compiled in the Warring States period. Its central ideas, that war is a matter of calculation and deception and that the best victory comes without battle, have influenced commanders, politicians and business leaders from ancient China to the present.

Who was Sun Tzu?

The main account of Sun Tzu’s life comes from Sima Qian’s Shiji, completed about 400 years after the events it describes. It says Sun Wu came from the state of Qi and offered his thirteen chapters to King Helü of Wu (reigned 514-496 BC), a southern state then fighting its powerful neighbour Chu.

The Shiji tells a famous story about how the king tested him. Sun Wu was asked to drill 180 palace women. When they laughed at his orders, he had the two royal favourites who led them executed, despite the king’s protests; after that the women obeyed perfectly. Sima Qian adds that Sun Wu helped Wu defeat Chu and capture its capital, Ying, in 506 BC.

Wu itself was a newcomer to the Zhou world. Based in the lower Yangtze region around modern Suzhou, it rose quickly in the late 6th century BC with the help of exiles from Chu who brought new military and political techniques. The campaign of 506 BC, in which Wu forces advanced deep into Chu territory and took Ying after a series of battles beginning at Boju, was one of the most dramatic events of the age and naturally attracted later stories of brilliant generalship.

There are good reasons for doubt. The Zuo Zhuan, which describes Wu’s war against Chu in detail and credits the minister Wu Zixu, never mentions Sun Wu. The story of the palace women reads like a moral tale. As a result historians are divided between those who accept a historical general named Sun Wu, perhaps much less important than tradition claims, and those who see “Sun Tzu” mainly as the name of a tradition or school of military thought.

How the text took shape

The Art of War describes warfare with large conscript armies, long campaigns and heavy costs to the state, features that fit the Warring States period better than the chariot warfare of around 500 BC. Earlier battles, such as the Battle of Chengpu in 632 BC, were fought mainly by aristocrats in chariots over a few days. For this reason most scholars date the text in its present form to the 5th or 4th century BC, while accepting that it may contain older material. It was probably refined by teachers and editors before reaching a stable shape.

The transmitted text owes much to Cao Cao (AD 155-220), the late Han warlord whose son founded the state of Wei, who wrote the earliest surviving commentary and may have edited the text into its 13-chapter form. In the 11th century, during the Song dynasty, it was placed first among the Seven Military Classics, a set of texts used to train officers and in military examinations.

The Yinqueshan discovery

In 1972 archaeologists excavating two Han dynasty tombs at Yinqueshan, near Linyi in Shandong, found thousands of bamboo slips buried in the 2nd century BC. Among them were large parts of The Art of War, in a version close to the received text, plus extra material connected with it.

The tomb also held a work long thought lost: the military treatise of Sun Bin, a 4th-century BC strategist from Qi whom the Shiji describes as Sun Wu’s descendant. Sun Bin is credited with Qi’s victories over Wei at Guiling in 354 BC and Maling in 342 BC. The discovery proved that the two “Masters Sun” had separate books and showed that The Art of War was already widely read in the early Han.

What the book teaches

The text is about 6,000 characters long and divided into 13 short chapters, each built from compact, quotable statements. Its themes include:

• Calculation before war: the opening chapter tells the ruler to compare both sides in five factors, among them moral cohesion, weather, terrain, command and discipline, before deciding to fight.
• The cost of war: long campaigns drain the state, so speed and economy matter. “There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare,” in Lionel Giles’s 1910 translation.
• Winning without fighting: the best strategy is to defeat the enemy’s plans, then his alliances, then his army in the field; besieging walled cities is the worst option.
• Deception: in Giles’s words, “All warfare is based on deception.” A commander should appear weak when strong and far when near.
• Strength against weakness: chapters on “energy” and “weak points and strong” teach combining direct and indirect forces and attacking where the enemy is unprepared.
• Terrain and manoeuvre: several chapters classify kinds of ground and describe how to march, camp and fight on each.
• Intelligence: the final chapter, on the use of spies, argues that foreknowledge comes from people, not from omens or spirits.

Underlying all of this is the idea that a commander must know both the enemy and himself. Then, the text says, he need not fear the result of many battles.

The Art of War also has a clear view of the relationship between ruler and general. Once a campaign has begun, it argues, the sovereign should not interfere with a capable commander in the field, because orders from a distant court cannot respond to changing conditions. At the same time it treats war as a grave matter of state, to be undertaken only after careful thought, since a ruined state cannot be restored and the dead cannot be brought back to life.

The text was not alone. The Warring States period produced several military works, including the Wuzi, attributed to the general Wu Qi, and the Methods of the Sima. Thinkers of other schools also wrote about war: the followers of Mozi condemned aggression but became experts in defending cities. What set The Art of War apart was its concise, general approach, which made it useful far beyond the battlefield conditions of its own time.

Key people

• Sun Wu (Sun Tzu): the traditional author, said to have served King Helü of Wu in the late 6th century BC.
• King Helü of Wu (reigned 514-496 BC): the ruler who, according to the Shiji, employed Sun Wu in his war against Chu.
• Wu Zixu: a Chu exile who became Wu’s leading minister and the main architect of its victories in the Zuo Zhuan account.
• Sun Bin: a 4th-century BC strategist of Qi, author of a separate military text rediscovered in 1972.
• Cao Cao: warlord of the late Han dynasty, whose commentary is the oldest that survives.

Myths and facts

Myth: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” comes from The Art of War. Fact: it does not appear in the text and is associated with the film The Godfather Part II (1974).

Myth: Napoleon studied The Art of War and owed his victories to it. Fact: although a French translation existed from 1772, there is no reliable evidence that Napoleon read it.

Myth: the book is mainly about fighting battles. Fact: much of it is about avoiding unnecessary battles, sparing resources and winning through planning, alliances and information.

Timeline

• 514 BC: Helü becomes king of Wu.
• 506 BC: Wu defeats Chu and captures its capital, Ying.
• c. 5th-4th century BC: The Art of War probably takes shape in roughly its present form.
• 342 BC: Qi, advised by Sun Bin, defeats Wei at Maling.
• c. AD 200: Cao Cao writes the earliest surviving commentary.
• 1080s: the Song court includes the work among the Seven Military Classics.
• 1772: Jean Joseph Marie Amiot publishes a French translation in Paris.
• 1910: Lionel Giles publishes his English translation.
• 1972: bamboo-slip texts of Sun Tzu and Sun Bin are found at Yinqueshan.

Influence and legacy

In imperial China The Art of War was required reading for military officials and the subject of many commentaries. It reached Japan by the 8th century, and Japanese warriors adapted its language: the banner of the 16th-century lord Takeda Shingen bore the phrase “swift as the wind, quiet as the forest, fierce as the fire, immovable as the mountain”, drawn from its seventh chapter.

In the 20th century Mao Zedong cited Sun Tzu in his writings on guerrilla and protracted war, and the text was studied by Vietnamese commanders. After the Vietnam War it gained a large Western readership; it is taught at military colleges such as West Point and the US Naval War College and is quoted in business schools, sports coaching and popular self-help books. Its brevity and aphoristic style allow readers to apply it to almost any form of competition, which explains both its popularity and the frequent misreading of its ideas.

Why it matters

The Art of War offered one of the earliest systematic treatments of war as a matter of policy, planning and psychology rather than courage and luck alone. It became the foundation of East Asian military thought and, through translation, a shared reference point for strategists worldwide, while the debate over its authorship shows how ancient texts grew out of traditions rather than single authors.