Kitabı oku: «Искусство войны. Уровень 2 / The Art of War», sayfa 13
34. The five elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) are not always equally presented; the four seasons make way for each other in turn. There are short days and long; the moonhas its periods of waning and waxing8.
VII. Maneuvering
1. Sun Tzŭ said: In war, the general receives his commands from thesovereign9.
2. After creating an army and concentrating his forces, he must blend and harmonise the different elements of it before setting up his camp.
3. After that, comes tactical maneuvering. This is the most difficult thing. The difficulty of tactical maneuvering consists in turning the indirect into the direct, and misfortune into fortune.
4. Thus, taking a long and roundabout route and making the enemy go out of the way shows knowledge of the art of deviation. This knowledge helps to reach the goal before your enemy even if you started after him.
5. Maneuvering with an army is advantageous; with an undisciplinedmultitude10, most dangerous.
6. If you send a fully equipped armyto march11 in order to snatch an advantage, you probably will be too late. On the other hand, you have to sacrifice your baggage and stores to detach a flying column12 so it can move quickly.
7. Thus, if you order your mento roll up their buff-coats13, and make forced marches without resting day or night, covering double the usual distance at a stretch, doing a hundred li in order to gain an advantage, the leaders of all your three divisions will fall into the hands of the enemy.
8. The stronger men will be in front, the exhausted ones will fall behind, and on this plan only one-tenth of your army will reach its destination.
9. If you march fiftyli in order to overtake the enemy, you will lose the leader of your first division, and only half your force will reach the goal.
