#msc2020

27. Hence it is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for purposes of spying and thereby they achieve great results. Spies are a most important element in water, because on them depends an army’s ability to move.

2. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, the men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.

24. Carefully compare the opposing army with your own, so that you may know where strength is super abundant and where it is deficient.

18. All warfare is based on deception

7. The general who is skilled in defense hides in the most secret recesses of the earth; he who is skilled in attacks flashes forth from the topmost heights of heaven.

31. “ Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you make your victory complete.

10. In the battle, there are not more than two methods of attack—the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers.