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  1. 厚而不能使愛而不能令亂而不能治譬如驕子不可用也
  2. 知吾卒之可以擊而不知敵之不可擊勝之半也

the soldiers are suffering severely from the cold.” So he made a round of the whole army, comforting and encouraging the men; and straightway they felt as if they were clothed in garments lined with floss silk. [Tso Chuan, 宣公, XII. 5]. Chang Yü alludes to the same passage, saying: 温言一撫士同挾纊.

26. If, however, you are indulgent, but unable to make your authority felt; kind-hearted, but unable to enforce your commands; and incapable, moreover, of quelling disorder:

Capt. Calthrop has got these three clauses quite wrong. The last he translates: “overindulgence may produce disorder.”

then your soldiers must be likened to spoilt children; they are useless for any practical purpose.

Cf. IX. § 42. We read in the 陰符經, pt. 2: 害生于思 “Injury comes out of kindness.” Li Ching once said that if you could make your soldiers afraid of you, they would not be afraid of the enemy. Tu Mu recalls an instance of stern military discipline which occurred in 219 A.D., when 呂蒙 Lü Mêng was occupying the town of 江陵 Chiang-ling. He had given stringent orders to his army not to molest the inhabitants nor take anything from them by force. Nevertheless, a certain officer serving under his banner, who happened to be a fellow-townsman, ventured to appropriate a bamboo hat () belonging to one of the people, in order to wear it over his regulation helmet as a protection against the rain. Lü Mêng considered that the fact of his being also a native of 汝南 Ju-nan should not be allowed to palliate a clear breach of discipline, and accordingly he ordered his summary execution, the tears rolling down his face, however, as he did so. This act of severity filled the army with wholesome awe, and from that time forth even articles dropped in the highway were not picked up. [San Kuo Chih, ch. 54, f. 13 ro. & vo.].

27. If we know that our own men are in a condition to attack, but are unaware that the enemy is not open to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory.

That is, as Ts‘ao Kung says, “the issue in this case is uncertain.”