The Art of War

3. LI CH’ÜAN, EIGHTH CENTURY A.D.
[He] was a well-known writer on military tactics. [One of his treatises] has been in constant use down
to the present day. [One of his works recounts the] lives of famous generals from the Chou to the
T’ang Dynasties. . . . He is also generally supposed to be the real author of [a] popular Taoist tract. . . .
His notes are mostly short and to the point, and he frequently illustrates his remarks by anecdotes

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from Chinese history. [However, his commentaries are based on a version of the Sun Tzu text that
differs considerably from those now extant.]
4. TU YU, DIED 812 A.D.
[He] did not publish a separate commentary on Sun Tzu, his notes being taken from the T’ung Tien,
the encyclopædic treatise on the Constitution which was his life-work. They are largely repetitions of
Ts’ao Kung and Mêng Shih, besides which it is believed that he drew on the ancient commentaries of
Wang Ling and others. . . . [The poet and commentator Tu Mu was his grandson.]
5. TU MU, 803-852 A.D.
[He] is perhaps best known as a poet—a bright star even in the glorious galaxy of the T’ang period.
We learn from Ch’ao Kung-wu that although he had no practical experience of war, he was extremely
fond of discussing the subject, and was moreover well read in the military history of the Ch’un Ch’iu
and Chan Kuo eras. His notes, therefore, are well worth attention. They are very copious, and replete
with historical parallels. The gist of Sun Tzu’s work is thus summarised by him: “Practise
benevolence and justice, but on the other hand make full use of artifice and measures of expediency.”
He further declared that all the military triumphs and disasters of the thousand years which had
elapsed since Sun Wu’s death would, upon examination, be found to uphold and corroborate, in every