The Art of War

X. TERRAIN
Living high up on a cliff monastery, surrounded by hostile armies in command of all the roads,
Mao was compelled to revise all his thinking on revolutionary tactics and strategy. . . . [H]e had

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commanded small guerrilla battles where his own troops possessed swift mobility . . . [and]
suffered dreadful losses. His next step was to acquire the good will of the villagers on the plains,
the second was to employ them as his intelligence staff, and the third was to invite the provincial
armies to attack, so that he could replenish his diminishing supply of ammunition. He said later
that there was not a single machine gun among his troops at the beginning. . . . [They] were
successful because they knew their terrain better, because they were trained for guerrilla
warfare, and because they observed all the classic tenets of guerrilla warfare without ever
forgetting their main objective: loot, elbowroom, secure footholds.
Robert Payne, Mao Tse-tung (1969)
Only about a third of the chapter, comprising paragraphs 1-13, deals with ground. . . . The “six
calamities” are discussed in paragraphs 14-20, and the rest of the chapter is again a mere string of
desultory remarks, though not less interesting, perhaps, on that account.
1. Sun Tzu said: We may distinguish six kinds of terrain, to wit: (1) Accessible ground;
Mei Yao-ch’ên says: “Plentifully provided with roads and means of communication.”
(2) entangling ground;
Mei Yao-ch’ên says: “Net-like country, venturing into which you become entangled.”
(3) temporising ground; (4) narrow passes; (5) precipitous heights;
The root [ideas are] narrowness [and] steepness
(6) positions at a great distance from the enemy.
It is hardly necessary to point out the faultiness of this classification.
2. Ground which can be freely traversed by both sides is called accessible.

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Generally speaking, “level country” is meant.
3. With regard to ground of this nature, be before the enemy in occupying the raised and sunny
spots, and carefully guard your line of supplies.
The general meaning is doubtless, as Tu Yu says, “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, or
enclosing it by embankments on either side! In view of Napoleon’s dictum, “the secret of war lies in
the communications” [Pensées de Napoléon I
er
, no. 47], we could wish that Sun Tzu had done more
than skirt the edge of this important subject here and in chapter I, paragraph 10, and chapter VII,
paragraph 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 duelist 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 surrender of his whole army” [The Science of War, chapter 2].
Then you will be able to fight with advantage.
4. Ground which can be abandoned but is hard to re-occupy is called entangling.
5. From a position of this sort, if the enemy is unprepared, you may sally forth and defeat him. But
if the enemy is prepared for your coming, and you fail to defeat him, then, return being impossible,
disaster will ensue.
6. When the position is such that neither side will gain by making the first move, it is called