第150页 / 共266页

[The point is that we must not think of undertaking a long and

wearisome march, at the end of which, as Tu Yu says, "we should

be exhausted and our adversary fresh and keen."]

and fighting will be to your disadvantage.

13. These six are the principles connected with Earth.

[Or perhaps, "the principles relating to ground." See, however,

I. § 8.]

The general who has attained a responsible post must be careful

to study them.

14. Now an army is exposed to six several calamities, not arising

from natural causes, but from faults for which the general is

responsible. These are: (1) Flight; (2) insubordination; (3)

collapse; (4) ruin; (5) disorganisation; (6) rout.

15. Other conditions being equal, if one force is hurled against

another ten times its size, the result will be the flight of the

former.

16. When the common soldiers are too strong and their officers

too weak, the result is insubordination.