This post continues our project explaining each stanza of Sun Tzu’s work. The English translation and Chinese transliterations are from my award-winning book, The Art of War and The Ancient Chinese Revealed.
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This article discusses three stanzas near the end of the first section of Chapter 11 of The Art of War. This chapter discusses the “nine grounds.” These “grounds” explain the different common situations that arise in competitive meetings that continue over time. Sun Tzu lists these situations in the order they commonly arise as competitive battles continue. A competitive move may not progress through every stage, but they can.
In these stanzas, Sun Tzu describes three “late stage” situations briefly. As a competitive campaign goes on, its challenges become more difficult. These difficulties are likely to end the campaign for better or worse, winning supporters or losing them. To be successful, we must recognize when we are in these situations and respond correctly. All campaigns become more difficult and dangerous as we approach our goal.
These situations arise deep in hostile areas. Sun Tzu’s description in this stanza makes it sound like the problem is the land itself, but later on in his book, he describes why these land conditions are so dangerous. They create opportunities for opposition attacks against us. Indeed, this is why they are often called dangerous situations.
<Mountain> <forest>
There are mountain forests.<Danger> <block>
There are dangerous obstructions.<Prevention> <pond>
There are reservoirs.<All> <disaster> <march> <’s> <way> <is>
Everyone confronts these obstacles on a campaign.<Become> <ruined> <ground>
They make bad terrain.
The first lines of this stanza list a number of problems that make these situations bad—forests, obstructions, and reservoirs. These land conditions are analogies for conditions that cause us to lose the support of others. These are the most common challenges that we encounter as competitive situations continue. These dangerous conditions are obstacles that we must overcome or manage to avoid.
In terms of trying to win the minds of supporters, forests represent a number of small obstacles that we must overcome to win a positive reaction. These forests slow our progress. They can also hide opposition forces. Each tree is a hiding place for a new competitive challenge.
Water is Sun Tzu’s symbol for change. A reservoir are changes that accumulate over time. One thing that happens when a competitive move goes on for too long is that we must deal with unforeseen changes in the environment.
We must prepare ourselves for encountering these difficult areas and their small but frequent barriers. Bad areas do not mean that our new moves are not worth it, but that we must always be prepared for our moves to slow down because of these small challenges. We must move through this bad terrain as quickly as possible.
<Place> <from> <enter> <is> <narrow>
In some areas, the entry passage is narrow.<Place> <follow> <return> <home> <is> <close> <in>
You are closed in as you try to get out of them.<Other> <few> <can> <by> <means> <of> <strike> <we> <of crowd> <is>
In this type of area, a few people can effectively attack your much larger force.<Become> <surround> <ground>
This is confined terrain.
These situations are also called “tight” conditions. Tight conditions arise when we have few options in how we can move forward. But we also have no way to back out of them. We must go forward once we find ourself within them to get out of them.
In these situations, the opposition can hinder us using very few resources. In narrow positions, many decisions along our path are susceptible to attack. We must remember that our position is not a place but a path. Others judge us not just by where we want them to see us now. They judge us by our past decisions that led us to where we are now. We must have made bad decisions if we are now in a tight situation.
Confined terrain doesn’t trap us, but it creates too many places where we must use our limited resources to defend ourselves. We cannot stay in them.
<Swift> <battle> <then> <exist>
You can sometimes survive only if you fight quickly.<No> <swift> <battle> <then> <die> <is>
You will die if you delay.<Become> <death> <ground>
This is deadly terrain.
Desperate conditions arise when we face failure when making a move or, worse, just in holding our existing positions. Sun Tzu says we must “fight” but he doesn’t mean using resources to damage opposing positions. He means using up all our resources to make our positions more appealing.
In these situations, we are immediately compared to others. If we lose this comparison, our move to win new supporters will fail or, worse, we will lose our existing supporters, too many of them for our positions to survive.
These late stages can arise in any competitive contests that go on for a long time without developing defensible positions that attract and win supporters. However, each of them has a response we can use that minimizes their dangers. These responses will be discussed in future stanzas and the articles explaining them. Before we can use these responses, we must recognize when we are in these situations.
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