Art of War 7.23

It is perhaps significant that none of the earlier commentators give us any information about this work. Mei Yao-Ch‘ên calls it 軍之舊典 “an ancient military classic,” and Wang Hsi, 古軍書 “an old book on war.” Considering the enormous amount of fighting that had gone on for centuries before Sun Tzŭ’s time between the various kingdoms and principalities of China, it is not in itself improbable that a collection of military maxims should have been made and written down at some earlier period.

Implied, though not actually in the Chinese.

I have retained the words 金鼓 of the original text, which recur in the next paragraph, in preference to the other reading 鼓鐸 “drums and bells,” which is found in the T‘ung Tien, Pei T‘ang Shu Ch‘ao and Yü Lan. 鐸 is a bell with a clapper. See Lun Yü III. 24, Chou Li XXIX. 15, 29. 金 of course would include both gongs and bells of every kind. The T‘u Shu inserts a 之 after each 爲.