Pre-Qin Military Texts, with Special Regard to the Sunzi

Reviews 231 Pre-Qin Military Texts, with Special Regard to the Sunzi Ralph Sawyer, translator and commentator, with Mei-chün Lee Sawyer. The Seven Military Classics ofAncient China Boulder: Westview Press, 1993. xix, 568 pp. $29.95. D. C. Lau Mf§cft> compiler. Bingshu sizhongzhuzi suoyin ??$???.???^ \ (A Concordance to the Militarists) Taipei: The Commericial Press, 1992. 270 pp. Yang Bing'an HI'M^C. Sunzi huijian J^iU'il (Collected notes on the Sunzi) Henan: Zhongzhou Guji, 1986. xxxii, 232 pp. Wu Jiulong i^Afi et al. Sunzijiaoshi Mrï'^M (Collation and explanation ofthe Sunzi) Beijing: Junshi Kexue, 1990. 17, 438 pp. Roger T. Ames, translator and commentator. Sun-tzu—The Art ofWarfare. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993. xiv, 321 pp. $25.00. In the last ten years Chinese and Western researchers have mightily enhanced our access to the military texts ofancient China. The bulk ofthis work has focused on the Sunzi ^T", both for its international draw and because a Han dynasty redaction ofthe text was archaeologically recovered at Yinqueshan, Shandong , in 1972—on which more below. This essay inquires into the nature ofthese pre-Qin military works and then examines several translations, studies, and scholarly tools that have recently appeared. My objective is bibliographic: to understand these writings qua ancient books and to evaluate the modern studies that give us access to them. Despite recent archaeological discoveries, our knowledge ofancient works on the military remains in considerable partboth the beneficiary and victim ofa lengthy and complex transmission process. I would like to trace one portion of that transmission process backwards, and in doing so loosen some ofthe labels that have become attached to pre-Qin military texts. In particular I will proceed from the notion of wujingMM. or Military Classic, which is a Song dynasty creation, to bingshu AHr or military writing, a designation that originates in the i htHan, and finally to bingfa Ji^ië or military methods, a Warring States term. by UniversityofOnlysixpre-Qin militarytextshave remained in general circulation overthe Hawai'i Presslast one thousand years.1 With one Tang/Song addition, these are the Wujing 232 China Review International: Vol. i, No. i, Spring 1994 qishu SiiS'tilf'—the works translated by Ralph Sawyer as The Seven Military Classics ofAndent China. Each ofthe six addresses strategy and tactics, ofcourse, but many also devote considerable attention to the central concern ofdiscourse among the Masters (zi:-?¦) in the Warring States, namely, human governance. The titles ofthese six, followed by Sawyer's English rendering, are Taigong liutao ^ATa^ (T'ai Kung's Six Secret Teachings)2 Simafa ^MjÌÈ (The Methods ofthe Ssu-ma)3 Sunzi bingfa M^^ÌÈ (Sun-tzu's Art ofWar) Wuzi ^J- (Wu-tzu)4 Wei liaozi üjttí" (Wei Liao-tzu)s Huang shigongsanliie ^CAHB§ (Three Strategies ofHuang Shih-kung)6 We owe the general availability ofthis particular grouping ofbooks to a series ofeleventh-century decisions. Military examinations were instituted for the Song under Emperor Renzong (r. 1023-1063). His successor Shenzong (r. 10681085 ) commissioned He Qufei f5J^fP to edit currently existing militaryworks in order to set a curriculum for these exams. Scores ofmilitary texts were available at the time—the twelfth-century Tongzhi M^c5 lists 240 entries in its military section. He Qufei selected and edited the seven ofthese judged most useful to the empire's defense, namely the six texts listed above with the addition ofthe Li weigong wendui ^íirfi·Pnffí (rendered by Sawyer as Questions and Replies between Vang T'ai-tsung and Li Wei-kung).7 In 1080 the seven Military Classics (Wujingqishu 3£Ü~tl1ir) were officiallypromulgated, with He as China's first Erudite ofMilitary Studies (wuxue boshi Ä^M±).8 Thus He remade the military textual tradition, insuring the prominent survival ofcertain works—and in the process allowing others to disappear.9 Ofequal consequence is the appearance, a thousand years earlier, of the term "bingshu"JsMIr. Our earliest record ofthe word occurs in the bibliographic section ofthe History ofthe FormerHan (Hanshuyiwenzhi ????t??3CcZ)· This bibliography, based on a catalog ofimperial library holdings, records the approximately three score military texts available to the emperor in the last years before the Common Era.10 It gathers them into a section it...