If there prove to be any persons who take an interest in these books, let them remember to discriminate between "strategy" and "stratagems," which are by nature extremely similar. For everything achieved by a commander, be it characterized by foresight, advantage, enterprise, or resolution, will belong under the head of "strategy," while those things which fall under some special type of these will be "stratagems." The essential characteristic of the latter, resting, as it does, on skill and cleverness, is effective quite as much when the enemy is to be evaded as when he is to be crushed. Since in this field certain striking results have been produced by speeches, I have set down examples of these also, as well as of deeds.
Types of stratagems for the guidance of a commander in matters to be attended to before battle:
- On concealing one's plans.
- On finding out the enemy's plans.
- On determining the character of the war.
- On leading an army through places infested by the enemy.
- On escaping from difficult situations.
- On laying and meeting ambushes while on the march.
- How to conceal the absence of the things we lack, or to supply substitutes for them.
- On distracting the attention of the enemy.
- On quelling a mutiny of soldiers.
- How to check an unseasonable demand for battle.
- How to arouse an army's enthusiasm for battle.
- On dispelling the fears inspired in soldiers by adverse omens.
