- In raiding and plundering be like fire,
[Cf. Shih Ching, IV. 3. iv. 6: "Fierce as a blazing fire which no man can check."]
in immovability like a mountain.
[That is, when holding a position from which the enemy is trying to dislodge you, or perhaps, as Tu Yu says, when he is trying to entice you into a trap.]
- Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
[Tu Yu quotes a saying of T’ai Kung which has passed into a proverb: "You cannot shut your ears to the thunder or your eyes to the lighting—so rapid are they." Likewise, an attack should be made so quickly that it cannot be parried.]
- When you plunder a countryside, let the spoil be divided amongst your men;
[Sun Tzŭ wishes to lessen the abuses of indiscriminate plundering by insisting that all booty shall be thrown into a common stock, which may afterwards be fairly divided amongst all.]
when you capture new territory, cut it up into allotments for the benefit of the soldiery.
[Ch’en Hao says "quarter your soldiers on the land, and let them sow and plant it." It is by acting on this principle, and harvesting the lands they invaded, that the Chinese have succeeded in carrying out some of their most memorable and triumphant expeditions, such as that of Pan Ch’ao who penetrated to the Caspian, and in more recent years, those of Fu-k’ang-an and Tso Tsung-t’ang.]