Pagina 158 de 266

[Cf. I. § 6. In this connection, Tu Mu draws for us an engaging

picture of the famous general Wu Ch'i, from whose treatise on war

I have frequently had occasion to quote: "He wore the same

clothes and ate the same food as the meanest of his soldiers,

refused to have either a horse to ride or a mat to sleep on,

carried his own surplus rations wrapped in a parcel, and shared

every hardship with his men. One of his soldiers was suffering

from an abscess, and Wu Ch'i himself sucked out the virus. The

soldier's mother, hearing this, began wailing and lamenting.

Somebody asked her, saying: 'Why do you cry? Your son is only a

common soldier, and yet the commander-in-chief himself has sucked

the poison from his sore.' The woman replied, 'Many years ago,

Lord Wu performed a similar service for my husband, who never

left him afterwards, and finally met his death at the hands of

the enemy.