Art of War 10.8
The Art of War (孫子兵法), Terrain 地形篇
隘形者我先居之必盈之以待敵
With regard to narrow passes , if you can occupy them first,
let them be strongly garrisoned and await the advent of the enemy.
Lionel Giles (1910), Sun Tzŭ on the Art of War (1910), with Giles' notes — public domain.
Lionel Giles's notes
Capt. Calthrop says: “Defiles, make haste to occupy.” But this is a conditional clause, answering to 若敵先居之 in the next paragraph.
Because then, as Tu Yu observes, 皆制在我然後出奇以制敵 “the initiative will lie with us, and by making sudden and unexpected attacks we shall have the enemy at our mercy.” The commentators make a great pother about the precise meaning of 盈, which to the foreign reader seems to present no difficulty whatever.
Character glossary
- 隘àinarrow, confined; a strategic pass
- 形xíngform, shape; to appear; to describe; to
- 者zhěthat which; they who; those who
- 我wǒI, me, my; our, us
- 先xiānfirst, former, previous
- 居jūto live, to reside; to dwell; to sit
- 之zhīmarks preceding phrase as modifier of fo
- 必bìsurely, certainly; must; will
- 盈yíngfull, overflowing; surplus; to fill
- 以yǐaccording to; so as to; because of; then
- 待dàito entertain, to receive, to treat; to d
- 敵díenemy, foe, rival; to match; to resist
Passages with shared wording
- Art of War 10.10
- Mencius 3B.8
- Zhuangzi The Evidence of Virtue Complete
- Tao Te Ching Chapter 9
- Art of War 4.1
- Zhuangzi Autumn Floods
Data: English Wikisource (Public domain texts; transcription CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.