;

And so one's victories

Critical Text

¬G	¨ä	³Ó	¤£	ÊÖ	¤£
gu	qi	sheng	bu	te	bu
thus	their	victory	not	error	not

ÊÖ	ªÌ	¨ä	©Ò	±¹	³Ó
te	zhe	qi	suo	cuo	sheng
error	one	their	whereby	place	victory

±Ñ	ªÌ	¤]	µ½	¾Ô	ªÌ
bai	zhe	ye	shan	zhan	zhe
defeat	one	(period)	good	battle	one

¥ß	©ó	¤£	±Ñ	¤§	¦a
li	yu	bu	bai	zhi	di
stand	in	not	defeat	's	earth

¦Ó	¤£	¥¢	¼Ä	¤§	±Ñ
er	bu	shi	di	zhi	bai
and	not	lose	enemy	's	defeat

¤]	³Ó	§L	¥ý	³Ó	¦Ó
ye	sheng	bing	xian	sheng	er
(period)	victory	military	first	victory	and

«á	¾Ô	±Ñ	§L	¥ý	¾Ô
hou	zhan	bai	bing	xian	zhan
after	battle	defeat	military	first	battle

¦Ó	«á	¨D	³Ó
er	hou	qiu	sheng
and	after	seek	victory

Yinqueshan Text--A

¬G¨ä³Ó¤£³f¤£³fªÌ¡C¡C¡CÐ`¦Ó«á¾Ô±Ñ¡C¡C¡C¦Ó«á¨D³Ó

Yinqueshan Text--B

Shiyijia zhu Text

Translation

And so one's victories are without error. Being without error, what one arranges is necessarily victorious, since one is victorious over the defeated. Therefore, the victorious military is first victorious and after that does battle. The defeated military first does battle and after that seeks victory.

Annotations

The bi, "necessarily," which is present in the Shiyijia zhu texts, is not found in the Wujing qishu traditions. The Yinqueshan strip for both A and B texts is missing here. We might conjecture that the Shiyijia zhu has added the bi to emphasize and clarify its point.