Art of War 7.10
The Art of War (孫子兵法), Manœuvring 軍爭篇
三十里而爭利則三分之二至
If you march thirty li with the same object, two-thirds of your army will arrive.
Lionel Giles (1910), Sun Tzŭ on the Art of War (1910), with Giles' notes — public domain.
Lionel Giles's notes
In the T‘ung Tien is added: 以是知軍爭之難 “From this we may know the difficulty of manœuvring.”
Character glossary
- 三sānthree
- 十shíten, tenth; complete; perfect
- 里lǐunit of distance equal to 0.5km; village
- 而érand, and then, and yet; but
- 爭zhēngto dispute, to fight, to contend, to str
- 利lìgains, advantage, profit, merit
- 則zérule, law, regulation; grades
- 分fēnto divide, to allocate; fraction; small
- 之zhīmarks preceding phrase as modifier of fo
- 二èrtwo; twice
- 至zhìreach, arrive; very, extremely
Passages with shared wording
Data: English Wikisource (Public domain texts; transcription CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.