Art of War 4.19
The Art of War (孫子兵法), Tactical Dispositions 形篇
故勝兵若以鎰稱銖敗兵若以銖稱鎰
A victorious army opposed to a routed one, is as a pound’s weight placed in the scale against a single grain.
Lionel Giles's notes
Literally, “a victorious army is like an 鎰 i (20 oz.) weighed against a 銖 shu (1/24 oz.); a routed army as a shu weighed against an i.” The point is simply the enormous advantage which a disciplined force, flushed with victory, has over one demoralised by defeat. Legge, in his note on Mencius, I. 2. ix. 2, makes the 鎰 to be 24 Chinese ounces, and corrects Chu Hsi’s statement that it equalled 20 oz. only. But Li Ch‘üan of the T‘ang dynasty here gives the same figure as Chu Hsi.
Character glossary
- 故gùreason, cause; happening, instance
- 勝shèngvictory; to excel, to truimph
- 兵bīngsoldier; troops, an army; warlike
- 若ruòif, supposing, assuming; similar
- 以yǐaccording to; so as to; because of; then
- 鎰yìancient of weight for gold, equal to 20
- 稱chēngbalanced; name, brand; to say, to call
- 銖zhūa unit of weight, about 1 gram
- 敗bàifailure; to decline, to fail, to suffer
Passages with shared wording
- Art of War 4.15
- Mencius 2B.7
- Zhuangzi The Identity of Contraries
- Zhuangzi Perfect Happiness
- Zhuangzi Tsê Yang
Data: English Wikisource (Public domain texts; transcription CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.