Sun Wu, a famous military scientist and military theorist in the Spring and Autumn Period, was revered by later generations as "bing sheng" and "the originator of the bing family", and was a historical figure who had a far-reaching impact on the military history of China and even the world. With its forward-looking perspective and unparalleled breadth and depth, Sun Tzu's Art of War is also known as a landmark work in the history of human civilization, and has been regarded as a guifu by the armies of various countries for thousands of years.
Sun Wu's hometown was Qi Guole'an, about the area around present-day northeastern Shandong. Sun Wu's grandparents and fathers all served as generals in the State of Qi and made great contributions. When Sun Wu's generation fell into the middle of the family road, Sun Wu retreated from the world and immersed himself in the study of the art of war. Wu Zixu, the chancellor of the State of Wu, saw people and believed that Sun Wu was a unique talent, so he strongly recommended Sun Wu to the King of Wu. King Wu was ambitious and wanted to be the overlord of the Spring and Autumn Period, and he was thirsty for talents, so he immediately summoned Sun Wu.
The "Records of History" records that Sun Wu presented thirteen martial arts he had done to King Wu, And after reading them, he frequently admired them, but he still had doubts about Sun Wu's actual combat ability, afraid that he was a paper soldier, so he said: "I have done my best to see it, can I try to restrain the soldiers?" "I want Sun Wulu to test him with both hands."
King Wu deliberately gave Sun Wu a problem, and he called out 180 concubines and beauties in the harem and put Sun Wu in charge of training. Those concubines leaned on the favor of King Wu with a staff, and they did not listen to the orders at all, and Sun Wu said: "The restraint is not clear, the shen order is not familiar, and the crime is also committed; those who are already clear but not as good as the law, the crime of the officials is also", and immediately ordered the beheading of the two of King Wu's favorite concubines, and for a time "the women knelt up left and right, and they all had the rules and ropes, and did not dare to make a sound", and soon became a small army with a decent appearance.
From then on, King Lu of Wu decided that Sun Wu was indeed a good talent for governing the army, and let him go and reuse him, Sun Wu did not live up to the heavy trust, "breaking through the strong Chu in the west, entering the Yin, northern Wei Qi Jin, prominent princes", wu army successively defeated the powerful Chu, Qi, and Jin states, and shocked the world. The "Art of War of Sun Tzu" was passed down to future generations by successive generations of military experts, and all of them painstakingly studied and pondered day and night, and from the Song Dynasty onwards, it was compiled into the "Seven Books of the Martial Arts", a textbook for training martial arts, and became a compulsory course for military generals of all generations.
However, sun Wu is a man and not a god after all, and although most of his views are true insights, they cannot be 100% perfect and impossible to be 100% correct. Yu Dayu, a famous general and famous military figure of the Ming Dynasty, once discovered a fatal mistake in Sun Tzu's Art of War.
The "Sequel to Zhengqitang" records that the fallacy of "Sun Tzu's Art of War" discovered by Yu Dayu is such a sentence: "Soldiers hear clumsily, but they have not seen the coincidence for a long time", Sun Wu believes that the way to use soldiers should be based on the purpose of quick battle and quick decision, and dragging mud and water for a long time without decision is a taboo for soldiers.
Sun Wu's viewpoint of using troops to win quickly is an important theme in Sun Tzu's Art of War. Because Sun Wu believes that every time an army is sent to fight a war, it will consume a lot of grain and grass, the so-called "100,000 yuan to revitalize the division, the daily cost of thousands of dollars", if the war is delayed for a long time, it will often let the participating countries fall into the quagmire of the people's exhaustion of wealth, so it is said that "those who have been in the army for a long time and the country have benefited, but they have not yet."
However, Yu Dayu held that Sun Wu's words were very wrong, "Sun Wuzi's soldiers heard a clumsy and quick word, misled the people in the world who read his books, killed the lives of thousands of people in the world and the future generations, and hated them", "Foolishly seeing that the people of the world want to achieve quick success, they regard the fate of the three armies as grass and mustard, and often they are all wrong in their words", "Sun Wuzi's words to kill the people of the world and the future generations are invincible", and he believes that Sun Wuzi's words do not know how many soldiers will die in vain.
Although Yu Dayu's views have a certain extreme color, objectively speaking, there is still a certain degree of truth. This is because protracted warfare, like quick war and quick decision-making, is an important component part of the way of employing soldiers, and it is imperative not to abandon it; whether we want to fight a protracted war or make a quick decision must take the actual situation as the criterion for taking the actual situation, and we must not blindly follow the script and make a rigid set.
Sun Wu's mistake was to overemphasize quick battles and quick decisions, and to a certain extent ignored protracted wars. In fact, in some specific situations, such as the enemy is strong and we are weak, and local operations, protracted warfare is still a very effective tactic. For example, during the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty, Zhuge Liang repeatedly sent troops to the Northern Expedition, and Sima Yi adopted a protracted war policy of avoiding his sharp edges, deep ditches and high fortresses, and not engaging in battles, so that Zhuge Liang's side was repeatedly forced to retreat due to the exhaustion of military food, and was forced to retreat without success, and the six Qishan Mountains were not gained.
At the same time, if we blindly and rigidly implement a quick battle and a quick decision, it will often lead to our own army rushing to send troops when the enemy situation is unclear and the preparation is insufficient, which can easily lead to the consequences of defeat.
References: "History", "Zhengqitang Sequel", "Sun Tzu's Art of War"