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02 Waging War - The Art of War - Lao Tzu · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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  Chapter two, Waging War, Sansu says, in the operations of war,
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  where there are in the field a thousand swift chariots, as many heavy chariots,
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  and a hundred thousand male clant soldiers with provisions enough to carry them a
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  thousand lee. The expenditure at home and at the front, including entertainment of
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  guests small items such as glue and paint and sums spent on chariots and armor,
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  will reach the total of a thousand ounces of silver per day. Such
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  is the cost of raising an army of one hundred thousand men. When you
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  engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons
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  will grow dull and their order will be damped. If you lay siege to
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  a town, you will exhaust your strength again. If the campaign is protracted,
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  the resources of the state will not be equal to the strain. Now,
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  when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted,
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  and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your
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  extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the
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  consequences that must ensue. Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste and
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  war cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays. There is no instance
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  of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. It is only one who is
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  thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of
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  carrying it on. The skillful soldier does not raise a second levee, neither
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  are his supply wagons loaded more than twice. Bring war material with you from
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  home, but forage on the enemy. Thus the army will have food enough
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  for its needs. Poverty of the state exchequer causes an army to be maintained
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  by contributions from a distance. Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes
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  the people to be impoverished. On the other hand, the proximity of an
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  army causes prices to go up, and high prices cause the people's substance to
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  be drained away. When their substance is drained away, the peasantry will be
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  afflicted by heavy exactions. With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength,
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  the homes of the people will be stripped bare, and three tenths of their
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  income will be dissipated, while government expenses for broken chariots, worn out horses,
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  breastplates and helmets, bows and arrows, spears and shields, protective mantles,
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  draft oxen, and heavy wagons will amount to four tenths of its total
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  revenue. Hence, a wise general makes a point of foraging on the enemy.
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  One court load of enemies provisions is equivalent to twenty of one's own,
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  and likewise a single pecool of his provender is equivalent to twenty from one's own
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  store. Now, in order to kill the enemy, our men must be
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  roused to anger that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy. They must
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  have their rewards. Therefore, in chariot fighting, when ten or more chariots
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  have been taken, those should be rewarded who took the first. Our own
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  flags should be substituted for those of the enemy, and the chariots mingled and
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  used in conjunction with ours. The captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept.
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  This is called using the conquered foe to augment one's own strength in war.
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  Then let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns. Thus it
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  may be known that the leader of armies is the arbiter of the people's fate,
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  the man on whom it depends whether the nation shall be in peace or
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  in peril. End of Chapter two