- 我可以往彼可以來曰通
- 通形者先居高陽利糧道以戰則利
2. Ground which can be freely traversed by both sides is called accessible.
Generally speaking, 平陸 “level country” is meant. Cf. IX. § 9: 處易.
3. With regard to ground of this nature,
The T‘ung Tien reads 居通地.
be before the enemy in occupying the raised and sunny spots,
See IX. § 2. The T‘ung Tien reads 先據其地.
and carefully guard your line of supplies.
A curious use of 利 as a verb, if our text is right. The general meaning is doubtless, as Tu Yu says, 無使敵絶己糧道 “not to allow the enemy to cut your communications.” Tu Mu, who was not a soldier and can hardly have had any practical experience of fighting, goes more into detail and speaks of protecting the line of communications by a wall (壘), or enclosing it by embankments on each side (作甬道)! In view of Napoleon’s dictum, “the secret of war lies in the communications,”[1]we could wish that Sun Tzŭ had done more than skirt the edge of this important subject here and in I. § 10, VII. § 11. Col. Henderson says: “The line of supply may be said to be as vital to the existence of an army as the heart to the life of a human being. Just as the duellist who finds his adversary’s point menacing him with certain death, and his own guard astray, is compelled to conform to his adversary’s movements, and to content himself with warding off his thrusts, so the commander whose communications are suddenly threatened finds himself in a false position, and he will be fortunate if he has not to change all his plans, to split up his force into more or less isolated detachments, and to fight with inferior numbers on ground which he has not had time to prepare, and where defeat will not be an ordinary failure, but will entail the ruin or the surrender of his whole army.”[2]
Then you will be able to fight with advantage.
Omitted by Capt. Calthrop.
