Wei Liaozi — The Orders for the Soldiers, First Part尉繚子 兵令上
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 · 179 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.
1Soldiering is an ill-omened instrument and goes against virtue
兵者，凶器逆德；爭者，事之末也。王者所以伐暴亂，而定仁義也。戰國所以立威侵敵也，弱國所以不能廢也。
Soldiering is an ill-omened instrument and goes against virtue, and contention is the last of all affairs. The king takes it as his means of striking the cruel and the disordered and settling benevolence and righteousness; the warring states take it as their means of setting up awe and preying on their enemies; and the weak state takes it as what it cannot do away with.
2The martial is the ridgepole, the civil is the post
Soldiering takes the martial for its ridgepole and the civil for its post; it takes the martial for the outside and the civil for the lining; it takes the martial for what is without and the civil for what is within. He who can examine these three knows the reason of victory and defeat. The martial is what overbears the enemy and parts life from death; the civil is what sees gain and harm and looks to safety and danger. The martial is what falls upon the enemy; the civil is what guards against him.
3Wholly one, they win; scattered, they lose
專一則勝，離散則敗。
Wholly one, they win; scattered, they lose.
4When soldiers fear their general more than the enemy, they win
卒畏將甚於敵者，戰勝；卒畏敵甚於將者，戰敗。未戰，所以知勝敗者，固稱將於敵也，敵之與將猶權衡焉。
When the soldiers fear their general more than the enemy, they win the battle; when the soldiers fear the enemy more than their general, they lose the battle. What lets one know victory and defeat before the fighting is truly the weighing of the general against the enemy, for the enemy and the general are like the two arms of a balance.
5Join the orthodox troops first, and grip him after
善禦敵者，正兵先合，而後扼之，此必勝之術也。
He who is good at holding off the enemy joins the orthodox troops first and grips him after, and this is the art that is sure to win.