Sun Bin:   The Art of Warfare (Military Methods)

The following is an outline of chapters found in Roger Ames' translation of Sun Bin: The Art of Warfare (1):

1. Capturing Pang Juan
2. An Audience with King Wei of Qi
3. The Questions of King Wei
4. T'ien Chi Inquiring About Battlefield Defenses
5. On Selecting the Troops
6. The Moon and Warfare
7. The Eightfold Division of Formations
8. Terrain as a Treasure
9. Preparing the Strategic Advantage
10. The Real Nature of Military
11. Carrying out the Selection of Personnel
12. Sacrifice in Battle
13. Raising and Keeping Morale High
14. Coordinating Military Assignments
15. The Five Kinds of Training Methods
16. Strengthening the Military
17. Ten Military Formations
18. Ten Questions
19. Overwhelming an Armed Infantry
20. The Position of Invader and Defender
21. The Expert Commander
22. Five Postures and Five Situations in which an Army Respects
23. Military Mistakes
24. The Rightness (yi) of the Commander
25. The Excellence (de) of the Commander
26. Fatal Weakness of the Commander
27. Fatal Mistakes of the Commander
28. Males and Females Fortifications
29. Five Considerations and Nine Objectives
30. Concentrated and Sparse Troops
31. Straightforward and Surprise Operations
32. Ten Advantages of Using Cavalry
33. Attacking the Heart and Mind
34. Fragments

Trivia

For a long time, people presumed Sun Tzu and Sun Bin were the same person. The household Chinese name, Sun Tzu, possess two different meanings. Besides referring to the great military strategist Sun Wu, it also refers to his descendant Sun Bin.

Sun Bin's perception of the consummate strategist can be described in this quote: "He who has mastered this art [of war] knows the way of heaven and earth, has the support of the populace, and is fully aware of the enemy situation. When he needs to determine his battle array, he knows how to set up the formations. He fights when there is assurance of victory. He stops fighting when there isn't. Such a commander is a general worthy of his sovereign. … For one who has really mastered the way of warfare, his enemy can do nothing to escape death."

Sun Bin's mentor Wang Xu was supposed to be the head of a relatively obscure Taoist school of thinking known as "Zongheng xue." This term can be translated as "the study of vertical and horizontal geographical patterns." It is a science of strategic diplomacy and statecraft that can be used in a rapidly changing world.

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