Sun Tzŭ on The Art of War: The 1910 Lionel Giles Critical Edition

1. Why the 1910 Lionel Giles Edition Matters

Before 1910, Western readers knew The Art of War (Sun Tzŭ Ping Fa) primarily through Father Joseph Amiot’s loose 1782 French paraphrase or Captain E. F. Calthrop’s flawed 1905/1908 English translations, which omitted difficult passages and ignored two millennia of Chinese philological scholarship. Dr. Lionel Giles, M.A., Assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts at the British Museum, produced the 1910 critical edition to establish a rigorous academic standard comparable to editions of Greek and Latin classics.

Working from the canonical Shih Chia Chu ("Ten Commentators") recension compiled by Sun Hsing-yen, Giles translated not only Sun Wu’s core aphorisms but also the indispensable historical glosses, textual variants, and military anecdotes preserved by China’s greatest strategists and scholars.

2. The Classical Commentators Preserved in This Edition

As you read through the 319 pages of this edition in the Lumen Libri reading room, you will encounter regular commentary notes from eleven historic figures:

• Tsʻao Kung (Cao Cao, 155–220 A.D.): The celebrated general, poet, and statesman of the Three Kingdoms period, whose concise, practical battlefield notes are the earliest surviving commentary on Sun Tzŭ.
• Tu Mu (803–852 A.D.): Tang dynasty poet and historian whose annotations illustrate Sun Tzŭ’s maxims with vivid historical campaigns.
• Chia Lin & Meng Shih: Tang and Liang dynasty scholars focusing on logistics, political cohesion, and textual interpretation.
• Mei Yao-chʻên (1002–1060 A.D.) & Wang Hsi: Northern Song dynasty literati who analyzed the philosophical coherence of the thirteen chapters.
• Chang Yü (fl. 11th century): Author of clear, synthetic explanations uniting earlier military and scholarly perspectives.

3. Overview of the Thirteen Chapters

1. Chapter I — Laying Plans (Shih Chi): Introduces the Five Constant Factors governing strategic outcomes: The Moral Law (Tao), Heaven, Earth, The Commander, and Method and Discipline.
2. Chapter II — Waging War (Tso Chan): Examines the economic cost of prolonged campaigns, inflation, supply line exhaustion, and foraging in enemy territory.
3. Chapter III — Attack by Stratagem (Mou Kung): Articulates the famous maxim that supreme excellence consists not in winning a hundred battles, but in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
4. Chapter IV — Tactical Dispositions (Chün Hsing) & Chapter V — Energy (Ping Shih): Contrasts defensive invulnerability with the release of potential energy (shih) through combinations of direct (cheng) and indirect (chʻi) maneuvers.
5. Chapter VI — Weak Points and Strong (Hsü Shih): Compares strategic initiative to flowing water—avoiding strength and striking vacuity.
6. Chapters VII to XI (Manœuvring, Variation of Tactics, The Army on the March, Terrain, The Nine Situations): Detailed operational analysis of topography, psychological morale on desperate ground, and alliance diplomacy.
7. Chapter XII — The Attack by Fire & Chapter XIII — The Use of Spies: Concludes with environmental warfare and the strategic necessity of foreknowledge through five classes of intelligence agents (local, inward, converted, doomed, and surviving spies).