resources of cunning into play." Ho Shih seconds this interpretation, but weakens it. However, it points to the third term as being a calculation of numbers.]
- A victorious army opposed to a routed one, is as a pound’s weight placed in the scale against a single grain.
[Literally, "a victorious army is like an i (20 oz.) weighed against a shu (1/24 oz.); a routed army is a shu weighed against an i." The point is simply the enormous advantage which a disciplined force, flushed with victory, has over one demoralized by defeat. Legge, in his note on Mencius, I. 2. ix. 2, makes the i to be 24 Chinese ounces, and corrects Chu Hsi’s statement that it equaled 20 oz. only. But Li Ch’uan of the T’ang dynasty here gives the same figure as Chu Hsi.]
- The onrush of a conquering force is like the bursting of pent-up waters into a chasm a thousand fathoms deep. So much for tactical dispositions.