The Art of War is the earliest and most valuable Chinese book on military science, dating from the late Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 B.C.). The book is a condensation of the experience of warfare in that historical time, with the emphasis on strategy. By revealing the nature and important rules of warfare, The Art of War has had a tremendous influence on Eastern military thinking, business tactics, and beyond. Sun Zi suggested that position is affected both by objective conditions in the physical environment and the subjective opinions of competitive actors. He thought that strategy was not planning through an established list, but rather that it requires quick responses to changing conditions.
The content of The Art of War is extensive and profound, touching upon a wide range of subjects like war rules, philosophy, strategies, politics, economy, diplomacy, astronomy and geology and so on. The book is composed of 13 chapters, with the first one "laying plans" being the principal line, which illustrates the comparison between all conditions of the two parties in the war before dispatching troops, the evaluation of the chances of success or defeat. The rest chapters mainly deal with war mobilization, how to lay siege to a city with tactics, and how to achieve the success through strategies like separation, aggregation, and outflanking etc. The use of words in the book is brief and concise.
The Art of War holds an important position in China's military history, having a far-reaching impact on the strategists, statesmen and thinkers of all dynasties. The noted strategist Cao Cao of the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the founder of the Kingdom of Wei provided critical and explanatory notes for the book. Before the bamboo scroll version was discovered by archaeologists in April 1972, a commonly cited version of The Art of War was the annotation of book by Cao Cao.In the preface, he wrote that previous annotations were not focused on the essential ideas. There are over 10 people, including Cao Cao ,Du Mu ,Li Quan who annotated The Art of War.
After the movable type printer was invented, The Art of War was published as a military text book, known as Seven Military Classics with six other strategy books.
Quotations
兵不厌诈--All warfare is based on deception.
知彼知己，百战不殆--If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
