Art of War 11.49
The Art of War (孫子兵法), The Nine Situations 九地篇
重地吾將繼其食圮地吾將進其塗
On serious ground, I would try to ensure a continuous stream of supplies.
On difficult ground, I would keep pushing on along the road.
Lionel Giles (1910), Sun Tzŭ on the Art of War (1910), with Giles' notes — public domain.
Lionel Giles's notes
The commentators take this as referring to forage and plunder, not, as one might expect, to an unbroken communication with a home base. One text, indeed, gives the reading 掠其食. Cf. § 13. Capt. Calthrop’s “be careful of supplies” fails to render the force of 繼.
Capt. Calthrop’s “do not linger” cannot be called a translation, but only a paraphrase of the paraphrase offered by Ts‘ao Kung: 疾過去也 “Pass away from it in all haste.”
Character glossary
- 重zhòngheavy, weighty; to double, to repeat
- 地deearth, ground, soil; land, region; struc
- 吾wúI, my, our; to resist, to impede
- 將jiāngthe future, what will be; ready, prepare
- 繼jìto continue, to carry on; to succeed, to
- 其qíhis, her, its, their; that
- 食shífood; to eat
- 圮pǐdestroyed, ruined; to injure; to subvert
- 進jìnto advance, to make progress; to come in
- 塗túto smear, to scribble, to daub; surname
Passages with shared wording
- Zhuangzi The Universe
- Mencius 5A.6
- Art of War 11.1
- Art of War 11.13
- Zhuangzi Tsê Yang
- Zhuangzi The Empire
Data: English Wikisource (Public domain texts; transcription CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.