Art of War 2.16

These are two difficult sentences, which I have translated in accordance with Mei Yao-ch‘ên’s paraphrase. We may incontinently reject Capt. Calthrop’s extraordinary translation of the first: “Wantonly to kill and destroy the enemy must be forbidden.” Ts‘ao Kung quotes a jingle current in his day: 軍無財士不來軍無賞士不往. Tu Mu says: “Rewards are necessary in order to make the soldiers see the advantage of beating the enemy; thus, when you capture spoils from the enemy, they must be used as rewards, so that all your men may have a keen desire to fight, each on his own account. Chang Yü takes 利 as the direct object of 取, which is not so good.