[Defined as "low-lying places, so heavy with mud as to be impassable for chariots and horsemen."]
and crevasses,
[Defined by Mei Yao-ch’en as "a narrow difficult way between beetling cliffs." Tu Mu’s note is "ground covered with trees and rocks, and intersected by numerous ravines and pitfalls." This is very vague, but Chia Lin explains it clearly enough as a defile or narrow pass, and Chang Yu takes much the same view. On the whole, the weight of the commentators certainly inclines to the rendering "defile." But the ordinary meaning of the Chinese in one place is "a crack or fissure" and the fact that the meaning of the Chinese elsewhere in the sentence indicates something in the nature of a defile, make me think that Sun Tzŭ is here speaking of crevasses.]
should be left with all possible speed and not approached.
- While we keep away from such places, we should get the enemy to approach them; while we face them, we should let the enemy have them on his rear.
- If in the neighbourhood of your camp there should be any hilly country, ponds surrounded by aquatic grass, hollow basins filled with reeds, or woods with thick undergrowth, they must be carefully routed out and searched; for these are places where men in ambush or insidious spies are likely to be lurking.
[Chang Yu has the note: "We must also be on our guard against traitors who may lie in close covert, secretly spying out our weaknesses and overhearing our instructions."]
- When the enemy is close at hand and remains quiet, he is relying on the natural strength of his position.