Wujing Qishu (The Seven Military Classics) — the six besides the Sunzi 武經七書 · Ascribed to Jiang Taigong · ascribed to Huang Shigong · Wei Liao · Wu Qi · Sima Rangju · Li Jing · Warring States to Tang (4th century BC to 7th century AD) · 5 passages · 182 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 min
Wujing Qishu (The Seven Military Classics) — the six besides the Sunzi Weiliaozi The six that remain when the Art of War of Sunzi is taken out of the seven military books the Song set as the texts for examining military officers. The Six Secret Teachings is sixty chapters of questions and answers in which King Wen and King Wu ask Taigong Wang, running from the governing of a state to chariots, cavalry, battle in the open and the crossing of water; the Three Strategies is three short books said to have been given to Zhang Liang by Huang Shigong; the Wei Liaozi is twenty-four chapters setting down in detail the military orders and the squads of five and ten around the time of Qin; the Wuzi is six chapters of Wu Qi's answers to Marquis Wu of Wei; the Methods of the Sima is five chapters handing down the military rites of before the Spring and Autumn period; and Questions and Replies with Li Weigong is three books in which Taizong of Tang and Li Jing go back and forth over the unorthodox and the orthodox, the empty and the full, the frontier peoples and the Han, and attack and defense. "Arms are an instrument of ill omen," "bring the enemy to you and do not be brought to him," and "a thousand chapters and ten thousand phrases do not go beyond that one phrase" all come from here. The remaining six streams of the military school, read after the Art of War, are gathered in one place.
1What did the ancients gain, and what have the men of today lost?
In ancient times the land knew no rich soil and no barren, and men knew neither diligence nor sloth. What did the ancients gain, and what have the men of today lost? In plowing there are those who do not finish a furrow, and in weaving there are those who leave the loom day after day. How should they not be cold and hungry? It is because the governing of old was carried out, and the governing of today has stopped.
2When the people make light of one another, greed rises
民相輕佻，則欲心興，爭奪之患起矣。
When the people make light of one another, then greed rises, and the trouble of contending and seizing begins.
The blue, blue sky — no one knows its bounds. Whom then does a hegemon or a king take for his rule? The ages past cannot be reached and the ages to come cannot be waited for, and one who can make his own age clear is called the Son of Heaven. What is called the Son of Heaven has four things: the first is divine clarity, the second is the shedding of light, the third is great ordering, the fourth is having no enemy. These are the works of the Son of Heaven.
4Greed is born of having no measure, wickedness of having nothing forbidden
A beast of the wild is not made a sacrifice, and mixed learning does not make a thorough scholar. Those who speak today say, "A sea a hundred miles wide cannot give one man a drink, while a spring three feet deep is enough to stop the thirst of three armies." Your servant says, "Greed is born of having no measure, and wickedness is born of having nothing forbidden."
5Forbidding is accomplished by the military, rewarding by the civil
夫禁必以武而成，賞必以文而成。
Forbidding is always accomplished by the military, and rewarding is always accomplished by the civil.