From the literary point of view Sonshi has a high place and many of his sayings have passed into common use. In an English translation however, it is impossible to suggest the beauties of Chinese prose. Only the bare bones of meaning—often obscure—appear.
The extraordinary terseness, the stately procession of giant parts of speech, unattended by any articles, pronouns or the pawns of grammar, seem to suit the character of a book on war: but the thought which the writer compresses, is apt to take a different form when unfolded by the reader. The exaggeration and the grandiloquent phrasing drown precision; and the reiteration, which in Chinese seems to act like the refrain of a song, is in English tedious. Thus Plain Meaning is sacrificed to Style, and thus arises the need for commentators, who cluster in armies round the Chinese sages.
Sonshi is one of the "Shichisho” (七書), a collection, of the leading Chinese authorities on War. The others are of lesser importance. Sonshi’s commentators have also been sifted, and the best brought together in a collection called "The Ten Critics," (十家註) This, among others, has been consulted in the present translation.
II.
Sonshi, who as far as can be ascertained, was a contemporary of Confucius, lived at a time when China, nominally under one ruler, was divided into a number of different states (at one time some forty in number), continually at war.
These wars were not merely savage raids, but were conducted with a vast amount of intrigue and deep thinking. Strategy was highly specialised, and schools of strategy existed, which, however, were apt to ignore what Western minds consider main issues; and differ in regard to some subtle point, much after the manner of the sects of Buddhism.
In any case, the Chinese realised to the full that war was a matter for a specialist. Behind the popular general or the ambitious ruler was the strategist, who evolved the plan of campaign, and, it must be added, consulted the stars and the ancient books for signs and indications.
