Hello everyone this is my first publication in this community, I have never done a review of a book but today I would like to take the space to share with you one of my favorite books, one that even impresses how current it is still today considering that it has about 2000 years since its first publication, I would like to share with you some of my favorite chapters and I hope you can apply them to your daily life.
The Art of War or the military manual of General Sun-Tzu is a manuscript composed of 13 articles or principles related to warfare, each one exposes some fundamental principle or skill used by armies to succeed in conflict, the book contains a lot of information about how Chinese armies operated in those years as well as how to act in every situation they were presented with.
It is exciting to see the relatively modern concepts that this book brings, from espionage and how to carry it out to troop morale problems or the consequences of having a leader who hesitates in battle, it really feels like a military manual written not so long ago, certainly not a millennium ago!
It's a pretty short read, as I said only 13 chapters that tend to lay out the fundamental principle and then tell stories or anecdotes of how this principle works in battle, let's look at some of my favourites.
Use Of Energy
A good general knows the strengths and weaknesses of his army and knows how to manage his energies to attack quickly and effectively, Sun-Tzu describes this chapter as the importance of not wasting your army's forces in vain. Choose your battles wisely and start with the advantage, always.
It also drives another phrase that I like very much, namely that every order we make or do not make is a decision that affects our army voluntarily or involuntarily, situations such as crossing a river before a battle or climbing a mountain to camp while expending your army's strength have their place in this principle.
If we are talking about modern concepts that are very well explained in this book I would definitely have to put principle 13.
Use of Spies
Reliable and accurate sources of information are a fundamental asset when entering any kind of conflict and this principle elaborates on that, extending the importance that all decisions by generals must be backed up by information about the enemy, his weaknesses, his next move, and there is no more effective way to obtain that information than by planting spies in enemy lines.
This has become possibly my favourite chapter.
It not only exposes some of the advantages of having privileged information in the battlefield but also classifies the types of spies that we can use in a conflict, there are some that give false information, others that are in enemy lines or even double agents that can be useful if we want to direct our adversary to do something that benefits us, one of the best chapters in my opinion.
Weak Points and Strong
In every army there are high points and low points, this principle is very direct in saying that a general should not concentrate on matching and overcoming the enemy's strong points, but on breaking down his most vulnerable sides, it urges us to think that the best attack is not always the one that goes to the front in battle,
There are also other points that I liked in this chapter, arriving on the battlefield first assures you of the ground recognition of your troops as well as a rest that they would not have if they arrived second and had to fight after being marched and tired, it explains how circumstances must favour us and our army.
The Nine Situations
In this chapter we have already entered the battle and we are narrated some scenarios that can occur while we are in it, how to act in decisive moments and how to lead your troops in the conflict, the chapter highlights some situations in which we should never put our troops, such as narrow roads that leave us without exit options at the time of an attack or unstable terrain that can affect how our soldiers operate. {
Of all of these situations I am left with what the book calls desperate terrain where it looks like we have been defeated and are one attack away from being wiped out and when it looks like the enemy is bigger and is attacking with all his might it means that there must still be a weak point that we should focus on and thus have the opportunity to turn the tide of the battle.
Waging War
Explains about the economics of war and how a good financial muscle and planning is crucial to meet the objectives of the campaign, it is the second chapter where we are still preparing to face the conflict but it is presented as one of the most important, don't even think about entering into an armed conflict if you don't have the means to justify it or at least a good strategy to face the costs of the war.
Those are some of my favourite principles, in total there are 13 and I highly recommend reading the book, there are several translations but I read in E-Book format the first translation made by a curator in the west in the year 1900, I hope this post will open the door to this wonderful book.