Art of War 11.30

The Art of War (孫子兵法), The Nine Situations 九地篇

敢問兵可使如率然乎曰可夫吳人與越人相惡也當其同舟而濟遇風其相救也如左右手

Asked if an army can be made to imitate the shuai-jan ,

I should answer, Yes. For the men of Wu and the men of Yüeh are enemies;

yet if they are crossing a river in the same boat and are caught by a storm, they will come to each other’s assistance just as the left hand helps the right.

Lionel Giles (1910), Sun Tzŭ on the Art of War (1910), with Giles' notes — public domain.

Lionel Giles's notes

That is, as Mei Yao-ch‘ên says, 可使兵首尾率然相應如一體乎 “Is it possible to make the front and rear of an army each swiftly responsive to attack on the other, just as though they were parts of a single living body?”

Cf. VI. § 21.

The meaning is: If two enemies will help each other in a time of common peril, how much more should two parts of the same army, bound together as they are by every tie of interest and fellow-feeling. Yet it is notorious that many a campaign has been ruined through lack of co-operation, especially in the case of allied armies.

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Data: English Wikisource (Public domain texts; transcription CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.