by An Liu
[The commander goes] to ask pardon of the ruler. The ruler says, “Spare him.”
[The commander] withdraws and dons fasting garb. For a great victory, he remains secluded for three years; for a middling victory, two years; for a lesser victory, one year.
That against which the military was used was surely a kingdom without the Way.
Thus
one can triumph in battle without retribution,
take territory without returning it;
the people will not suffer illness;
the commander will not die early;
the five grains will flourish;
the winds and rains will be seasonable;
the battle is won without;
good fortune is born within.
Thus one’s reputation will be made, and afterward there will be no further harm. [15/153/13–29]
Translated by Andrew Meyer
1. The phrase “sustain those that are perishing, [and] revive those [lineages] that had been cut off” (cun wang ji jue ) is used in the Chunqiu Guliang zhuan, Duke Xi, year 17, to describe the merit of Duke Huan of Qi.
2. A similar description of animals is found in 19.5. See also 1.7.
3. The primeval conflict between the Yellow Emperor and Yan Di is mentioned in Lüshi chuhqiu 7.2. For Yan Di, the god of the south, fire, and the planet Mars, see 3.6.
4. For the battle between Zhuan Xu and Gong Gong, see 3.1.
5. This refers to the ancient battle between the Yellow Emperor and Chi You. See Zhuangzi 29.
6. Lüshi chunqiu 20.4 records a campaign by Yao against the Southern Man on the River Dan.
7. Shun’s campaign against the Youmiao (Miao) is recorded in the “Shun dian” chapter of the Documents.
8. Qi’s campaign against the Youhu is recorded in the “Gan shi” chapter of the Documents.
9. A cruel punishment famously associated with King Djou, it is also mentioned in 2.14, 10.89, 11.1, 12.35, and 21.4.
10. Following Wang Shumin’s proposed emendation. See Lau, HNZ, 144n.3.
11. Following Wang Shumin’s proposed emendation. See Lau, HNZ, 144n.4.
12. This is a deliberate pun. The character translated (xing ) means both “form” () and “punishment,” and both meanings are being invoked here. The latter sense is that punishing wrongdoing is the ultimate end of the military, but the ultimate fulfillment of this end is achieved when punishments are no longer necessary. The former sense is that “form” (the formation of the army in battle, the form of plans and operations) is the ultimate arbiter of success for the military, but achieving a state of “formlessness” (or accessing the power of the Formless) is the ultimate embodiment of martial skill.
13. “Warring from the temple” alludes to the first chapter of the Sunzi bingfa, which discusses the calculations made in the ancestral temple before battle has been joined. The basic notion here is that victory is achieved in the careful preparation before the battle, not in heroics on the field of battle itself. See 15.9.
14. Compare the “five positions” (wu wei ) in 5.13.
15. “Thoroughbred” (ji ) is literally a horse capable of traversing a thousand li in a single day. The point here is that despite its remarkable talents, the thoroughbred cannot complete the journey unless its rider is equipped beforehand with all the official tallies that will afford passage through government gate stations along the way.
16. Following Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1558n.22.
17. Following Yang Shuda’s reading. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1559n.26.
18. In accordance with William Boltz’s (private communication) identification of the rhyme scheme, preserving sui , instead of Lau’s (HNZ 15/145/1) suggested emendation to dao .
19. Qi and zheng are used here in a special technical sense established by military texts like the Sunzi bingfa. “Extraordinary” and “usual” refer to the commander’s selective and timely use of surprise tactics that break with conventional military doctrine. Both terms are discussed at length in Victor Mair, The Art of War: Sun Zi’s Military Methods (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), and Soldierly Methods: Vade Mecum for an Iconoclastic Translation of Sun Zi bingfa, Sino-Platonic Papers, no. 178 (Philadelphia: Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, 2008).
20. Here xingde is not used in the conventional sense of “punishment and beneficence” but refers to the recision and accretion of yin and yang as seen in various cosmic cycles, especially the cycle of lengthening and shortening days throughout the solar year. See 3.16 and 3.17. Accretion and recision are mentioned in the context of military astrology in 3.33 and 3.39, where the directional movements of counter-Jupiter (taiyin) are linked to victory or defeat. See Major 1993, 122–26, 132–33.
21. The phrase qi gai zhi shu is somewhat obscure. We follow the commentaries compiled in Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1564n.12, in rendering it as “occult arts.” Xu Shen glosses it as “the strange and secret essentials of yin and yang, extraordinary arts.”
22. This reading rejects Lau’s (HNZ 15/145/13) proposed interpolation of da to read the title as dawei (), or “defender-in-chief” (a court office). All five offices listed here are army ranks, not court offices.
23. Ancient Chu spanned western Hubei and southwestern Henan Province. The geographical frontiers listed in this passage fall within or border on that general region.
24. There seems to be one part of the parallelism missing here. “Concentrated” and “dispersed” (in the following two lines) are in parallel, so immediately after this line there should be a phrase parallel with “at the quick.”
25. Chu was defeated by the combined armies of Qin, Han, Wei, and Qi at Chuisha in 301 B.C.E. The event is recorded in Xunzi 15 and Zhanguoce 179.
26. Chu was defeated by the combined armies of Cai and Wu at Boju in 506 B.C.E. See Zuozhuan, Duke Ding, year 4.
27. King Huai of Chu reigned from 328 to 299 B.C.E.
28. The Second Emperor , or Hu Hai , was the son and heir of the First Emperor of Qin. He reigned from 210 B.C.E. until his death by suicide in 207 B.C.E.
29. Chen Sheng (d. 208 B.C.E.) was a minor Qin official who initiated the uprising that brought down the Qin dynasty. He is commemorated with his own “Hereditary House” in Shiji 48.
30. A ritual performed to mark the beginning of spring. It is presumably noted here to demonstrate that the following events occurred out of season. What follows are a sequence of bad auguries for the endeavor of King Wu, despite which he prevails because of his superior Moral Potency.
31. Following Wang Shumin’s emendation. See Lau, HNZ, 146n.13.
32. Following Wang Shumin’s emendation. See Lau, HNZ, 146n.14.
33. The word translated here as “heft,” quan, is a very richly multivalent term used in a technical military sense. Quan literally refers to the weight of a scale, and in different philosophical contexts it can mean “authority” or “expediency.” In military texts and here in Huainanzi 15, it means the forms of advance training or preparation that can “tip the scales” on the field of battle, ergo “heft.” See app. A.
34. Following Wang Niansun’s emendation. See Lau, HNZ, 148n.2.
35. All four of these phrases seem to be set literary terms for types of terrain.
36. Following commentators’ reading of ling as quan. See Lau, HNZ, 148nn.1, 10.
37. Accepting Lau’s (HNZ, 148n.11) proposed emendation.
38. A similar point about the advantage that humans have over animals is made in 19.5.
39. A fabled tower erected by King Ling of Chu (r. 540–529 B.C.E.).
40. The provenance of this metaphor is obscure. Gao You notes that “nine returns” denotes a spring that is “supremely deep.” Apparently, both this sobriquet and that of the preceding line signify the Way.
41. For the “far-flight” asterism, see Major 1993, 218. Far-flight, at the tip of the “handle” of the Northern Dipper constellation, acts as a moving pointer that indicates the directions assoc
iated with the twelve months. See 5.1–12.
42. For this usage of xingde, see n. 20.
43. The phrase qiwei junlu is obscure. Junlu clearly refers to a type of thin but durable bamboo that is well suited to making arrows. Xu Shen glosses qiwei as the name of a region from which (presumably very excellent) bamboo is harvested, but other commentators offer divergent readings. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1602nn.14, 37.
44. Accepting Sun Yirang’s proposed emendation. See Lau, HNZ, 150n.5. The carriage in question is a two-wheel rig, which is why the force of the wind would not make it simply roll down the hill.
45. One ren is eight Chinese feet, and one zhang is ten Chinese feet.
46. These are constellations marking the four cardinal directions; the orientation implied here is a ruler’s-eye view, facing south.
47. Accepting Lau’s (HNZ, 150n.6) emendation.
48. Sunzi (also known as Sun Wu ) was a native of Qi and general of the state of Wu during the Spring and Autumn period. He is the putative author of the Sunzi bingfa.
49. Accepting Wang Shumin’s emendation. See Lau, HNZ, 15n.9A. The reference is probably to dismounting from a chariot, not from riding astride.
50. Liubo was a board game, played for gambling stakes and used as a form of divination. For an anecdote involving a chesslike game, possibly liubo, see 18.27. “Tossing pots” was also a popular game.
51. Following the reading in Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1613, of tan in place of shi .
52. Accepting Lau’s (HNZ, 151n.12) emendation of the character quan: , not .
53. This appears to refer to the “five conducts” (and the implicitly corresponding “five failings”) listed earlier in this section as aspects of the ideal commander.
54. These all are cosmological categories and forms of divination used to forecast battlefield conditions. Observing qi is a form of military prognostication by means of which one ascertains victory or defeat by surveying the qi emanating from the enemy army. It is described in Mozi 68.
55. That is, rituals, and prayers, used to solicit the aid of the spirit world.
56. The character jian is a superfluous intrusion into the text. See Lau, HNZ, 152n.2.
57. A chun is a kind of bell with a bulbous top, played by being struck with a stick or mallet. The word yue in this sentence is used as an onomatopoetic representation of the sound of a bell; thus we translate yue freely as a verb, “sounds.”
58. Reading zhi as “will.” See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1620n.8.
59. Reading yan as having a water radical on the left: . See Sun Yirang’s proposed emendation in Lau, HNZ, 152n.4.
60. Following Yang Shuda’s proposed emendation. See Lau, HNZ, 153n.3.
61. The battle at Kuaiji occurred in 494 B.C.E., that at Ailing in 489 B.C.E., and that at Huangchi in 482 B.C.E.
62. Fuchai’s final defeat at the hands of Yue occurred in 473 B.C.E.
63. The yue and fu axes are military regalia of the ruler. The conferring of these symbols on the commander represents the transfer of sovereign authority to him for the duration of the campaign.
64. Here “within” is used with the meaning of “within the king’s court.”
65. Following Yang Shuda (although retaining the original order of the text). See Lau, HNZ, 153n.5.
66. These all are rituals demonstrating the commander’s resolve to die. The “ill-augured” portal is the north portal.
67. In other words, the commander makes sure that all lands dispensed as rewards fall outside the sacred ground used for the ancestral cult of the defeated sovereign, so that sacrifices to the ancestors of the defeated line may be continued.
Sixteen and Seventeen
A MOUNTAIN OF PERSUASIONS AND
A FOREST OF PERSUASIONS
AS THEIR similar titles suggest, chapter 16, “A Mountain of Persuasions,” and chapter 17, “A Forest of Persuasions,” are collections of brief, persuasive utterances that share the same literary form and didactic function in the text. Given these similarities, we have chosen to treat these chapters together as a pair and to follow chapter 21 of the Huainanzi, “An Overview of the Essentials,” which similarly summarizes these chapters together. Their purpose seems to be to provide a kind of repository of aphorisms that could be used in a variety of settings where the performative aspects of language were crucial, such as in oral deliberation, instruction, and debate. According to the summary in chapter 21, the brief utterances collected in these two chapters would enable the reader “to skillfully and elegantly penetrate and bore open the blockages and obstructions of the many affairs and thoroughly and comprehensively penetrate and pierce the barriers and hindrances of the myriad things.” These “talking points” then would give a person engaged in oral argument or instruction a kind of arsenal of well-turned phrases with which to capture the essence of difficult concepts and thereby avoid potential snags and obstructions.
The Chapter Titles
The character can be read, as we explain at greater length later, as either shuo or shui. We read the titles of chapters 16 and 17 as “Shui shan” and “Shui lin” and have translated them as “A Mountain of Persuasions” and “A Forest of Persuasions.” Even though an alternative reading of “Shuo shan” and “Shuo lin” (with the rendering “A Mountain of Talk” and “A Forest of Talk”) also would be legitimate, we have chosen “Persuasions” to highlight the particular genre of persuasive oratory collected in these chapters and to underscore its possible function in oral argument and debate. In other words, the short sayings collected in these chapters were meant both to illustrate and to persuade the listener to accept some fundamental point about the nature of a wide array of topics from the “many affairs” to the “myriad things.”
We believe the various readings and usages of this character, shuo /shui , are important keys to understanding the manner in which oral literature—by which we mean any composition (either transmitted orally or recorded in writing) that was meant to be performed orally rather than simply read—was collected, collated, anthologized, and interpreted to serve the broader philosophical purposes of various Warring States and Han collections.
The character is found in a number of chapter and book titles from the late Warring States period through the Han dynasty, with several distinct readings and related connotations as shuo and shui. When read as shuo, the term in its most general sense of “talk” indicates the originally oral character of materials collected in a chapter or book or materials in the literary form of a spoken story. In this broadest sense, shuo could be either short expressions or narratives or more extended conversations between two or more people. Thus Liu Xiang’s famous collection Shuo yuan might be rendered A Garden of Talk. It was likely given that title to indicate the author’s intention of creating an anthology of various types of oral lore and performative literature. Its chapter titles give a sense of the collection’s range, from well-known brief maxims, ditties, or sayings (Tan cong [A Thicket of Remarks]) to exemplary exchanges between famous statesmen and philosophers trying to persuade those who held power to accept their particular point of view (Shan shui [Admirable Persuasions]) to outright remonstrations meant specifically to critique and redirect the actions or policies of a ruler (Zheng jian [Upright Remonstrances]). When read as shuo, the character could also denote more specifically an “explanation” or “illustration,” as in the “Nei chu shuo” (Inner Collection of Illustrations), “Wai chu shuo” (Outer Collection of Illustrations), and “Shuo yi” (Illustrations of Questionable [Conduct]) chapters of the Hanfeizi.
Read as shui, the character indicates a particular form of oral exchange or discourse for which we use the English term “persuasion” somewhat unconventionally as a countable noun. Accordingly, shui could be understood as a particular type of shuo —that is, as a recorded conversation or exchange in which the chief speaker tries to persuade the listener of a clearly articulated point of view or policy position. As Xunzi explained, a successful persuasion adheres to a carefully modu
lated series of techniques of oration:
Approach the topic with dignity and gravity; dwell on it with seriousness and sincerity; hold to it with firmness and strength; clarify it by providing examples and precepts; illustrate it by making distinctions and differences; and present it with exuberance and ardor. If you make it something precious, rare, noble, and sublime, your persuasion will always and invariably be well received. Even if you do not persuade others [of your point], none will fail to esteem you. This may indeed be described as “being able to bring esteem to what one esteems.” A tradition says: “It is only the gentleman who is capable of bringing esteem to what he esteems.” This expresses it.1
A well-known early example of such a usage of the term denoting a collection of persuasions is the similarly titled “Shui lin” (A Forest of Persuasions) chapter of the Hanfeizi. The “Shui nan” (The Difficulties of Persuasion) chapter of the Hanfeizi discusses the principal challenges that might impede a successful persuasion. (According to the Hanfeizi, the greatest difficulty is “to know the mind of the one to be persuaded, so as to match your persuasion to it.”) A Han example of a similar usage of shui is the “Shan shui” (Admirable Persuasions) chapter of the Shuo yuan, in which a number of outstanding persuasions are collected.
Summary and Key Themes
Both chapters 16 and 17 open with introductory paragraphs meant to frame the chapters as a whole and elucidate their main purpose. Chapter 16 begins with an anecdote in which the Way is related to the subject of “form and names”—that is, speech. This playful anecdote, reminiscent of the Zhuangzi, recounts a conversation between a person’s po (substantive spirit) and hun (ethereal spirit). These are fitting characters to embody within a single figure, and to frame a discussion of, the dual aspects of the Way: what has form and what is formless. This critical distinction between what has form and what is formless is used throughout the Huainanzi to harmonize and demonstrate the unity of two apparently separate approaches to the Way. Here this distinction reminds the reader that speech may assume various forms as particular expressions of the Way in a given moment and in a given context but that words do not possess universal or eternal validity. They are useful as transitory and instrumental expressions of the formless and inexpressible “Dark Mystery” or “Ancestor” that is the ultimate sense of the Way. So we also are given to understand that the forms of the myriad things are contingent and transitory, not fixed and immutable, that only the Way is unchanging.