774: VI. Fiction and Reality

Sun Tzu said: Those who occupy the battlefield first and wait for the enemy will take the initiative to be comfortable, and then those who arrive at the battlefield in a hurry will be tired and passive. Therefore, a person who is good at directing operations is always able to mobilize the enemy without being mobilized by the enemy. What can make the enemy automatically enter my predetermined territory is because of the lure of small profits; What prevents the enemy from reaching his intended territory is the result of many obstacles. When the enemy is well rested, he tries to fatigue him; When the enemy has enough food, he tries to starve them; When the enemy is stationed, he tries to make it move.

Attack where the enemy can't save, and run where the enemy doesn't expect it. The march of a thousand miles without fatigue is due to the fact that the march is in an area where the enemy is unprepared; The attack is guaranteed to be victorious because the attack is on a place that the enemy has not defended; The defense will be stable because it is holding a place that the enemy cannot capture. Therefore, he who is good at attacking can make the enemy not know how to defend; Those who are good at defense can make the enemy not know how to attack. It's subtle, so subtle that you can't see any of it. It's magical, it's so magical that you can't hear the slightest sound. So, I was able to be the master of the fate of my enemies. Advancing and making the enemy unable to defend against it is by attacking the enemy's slack and empty places; If the enemy retreats so that the enemy cannot pursue, it is because of the swiftness of the action that the enemy cannot catch up. Therefore, when our army is about to fight, the enemy has to come out and fight us, even if it is high and deep, because we have attacked the place where the enemy must save; When our army did not want to engage in battle, the enemy could not engage us even though we drew a ground to defend it, because we induced the enemy to change the direction of attack.

It is necessary to show the true feelings of the enemy and not show the traces of our troops, so that our forces can be concentrated and the enemy's forces have to be dispersed. Our forces are concentrated in one place, and the enemy's forces are scattered in ten, so that we can attack the enemy with ten times the enemy's strength, thus creating a favorable situation in which we are outnumbered. If we can concentrate superior forces to attack an inferior enemy, then the enemy who can engage our army head-on will be limited. It is difficult for the enemy to know where we are going to attack, and there is no way to know it, so there are many places for him to be guarded against; The more places the enemy is guarded against, the thinner the enemy we have to attack. Therefore, if you are on guard in front, the forces behind are weak; If you are on guard at the rear, the forces in front will be weak; If you are on the left, your forces on the right are weak; If you are on the right side, the forces on the left will be weak. If we are prepared everywhere, we will be weak everywhere. The reason why the troops are weak is because they are divided everywhere to be prepared; The reason why the troops are sufficient is because I forced the other side to divide troops everywhere to defend myself.

Therefore, if you can predict the place and time of the battle, you can go to battle the enemy even if you travel thousands of miles. If you can't predict where to fight, and when you can't predict when to fight, then it will lead to a situation where the left wing can't save the right wing, the right wing can't save the left wing, the front can't save the back, and the back can't save the front. According to my analysis, although the Vietnamese country has a large army, what is the benefit of deciding the outcome of the war? Therefore, victory can be inflicted, and although the enemy army is numerous, it can make it impossible for him to compete with me.

Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the enemy's battle plan, as well as the gains and losses through careful calculation; It is necessary to understand the laws of the enemy's activities by provoking the enemy; It is necessary to test the location of the enemy's lifeline through feints; It is necessary to understand the strength of the enemy's forces through small encounters. Therefore, when the feint and the feint enter the highest realm, there is no trace of it anymore. If you can't see the traces, then even the hidden spies can't see the details, and the scheming enemy can't come up with countermeasures. Tactics are used flexibly according to the changing situation of the enemy, and even if the victory is placed in front of everyone, the people still cannot see the secret. People can only know the methods I use to defeat the enemy, but they have no way of knowing how I use them to win by surprise. Therefore, every victory is not a simple repetition of the same old routine, but adaptation to different situations, and there are endless changes.

The law of using soldiers is like water, and the attribute of flowing water is to avoid high places and flow to low places; The law of warfare is to avoid the enemy's solid points and attack the enemy's weak points. The flow of water is restricted by the height of the terrain, and the strategy of victory is formulated according to the different enemy situations. Therefore, there is no fixed and rigid posture for fighting a war, just as the flow of water has never been immutable. Those who can flexibly and maneuver to win according to changes in the enemy's situation can be called using troops like gods. There is no fixed victory for the five elements, and there is no constant position for the four seasons to alternate, the day is long and short, and the moon is round and short.