And so in the military

Critical Text

Yinqueshan Text

故。 。。 未 之 有 也

Shiyijia zhu Text

故 兵 聞 拙 速 未 睹 巧 之 久 也 夫 兵 久 而　國　利　者 未 之 有 也

Translation

And so in the military one has heard of foolish speed but has not observed skillful prolonging. And there has never been a military prolonging that has brought advantage to the state.

Annotations

The portion of the Yinqueshan strip containing this line is broken off. Several medieval witnesses, however, replace qiao 巧,"skillful," with gong 工, "labor, skill in labor." It is difficult to find an English translation that captures the nuances of this difference, as both graphs and concepts closely resemble each other.