Book Cards
Thirteen short chapters on conflict, written for generals and read ever since by anyone who has to win without wasting resources. Its central claim is simple: the best victory is the one that never has to be fought.
1 / 24
Chapter I · Question
What five factors govern war?
WakeCards · wakecards.com · Big ideas. Quick review.
Chapter I · Answer
The moral law, which makes people follow their ruler; heaven, meaning seasons and weather; earth, meaning distances and terrain; the commander, meaning wisdom, sincerity, benevolence, courage, and strictness; and method, meaning organisation, ranks, supply routes, and expenditure. A general who knows these wins.
WakeCards · wakecards.com · Big ideas. Quick review.
Arrow keys move between cards. Space or Enter flips.
Every card in the deck, in reading order. Click a chapter to expand. The reviewer above uses the same content.
The moral law, which makes people follow their ruler; heaven, meaning seasons and weather; earth, meaning distances and terrain; the commander, meaning wisdom, sincerity, benevolence, courage, and strictness; and method, meaning organisation, ranks, supply routes, and expenditure. A general who knows these wins.
Chapter I
Which ruler has the people's support; which general is more able; who has weather and terrain; whose discipline is stricter; which army is stronger; whose officers and men are better trained; and whose rewards and punishments are more consistent. Answer these before committing.
Chapter I
A hundred thousand soldiers cost a thousand ounces of silver a day. If victory is slow, weapons dull, ardour cools, strength is exhausted, and the treasury empties; neighbouring rulers then attack your weakness. No country has ever benefited from prolonged war.
Chapter II
Forage in hostile territory. One cartload taken from the enemy is worth twenty hauled from home. Sun Tzu also advises rewarding the soldiers who capture enemy chariots, replacing enemy flags with your own, and treating captured soldiers well so they can strengthen your force.
Chapter II
To break the enemy's resistance without fighting. Taking a country whole is better than destroying it. The ranking is: thwart the enemy's plans, then break his alliances, then fight his army, and worst of all, besiege a walled city.
Chapter III
Ten to one, surround him; five to one, attack him; twice as numerous, divide your army. If equally matched, you can offer battle; if slightly inferior, avoid him; if quite unequal, flee. A small force that fights obstinately will be captured by the larger one.
Chapter III
He puts himself beyond the possibility of defeat, then waits for the enemy to expose an opening. Defence is in your own hands; the chance to win is given by the opponent. So you may know how to conquer without yet being able to do it.
Chapter IV
The clever fighter wins with ease, so his victories bring him no reputation for wisdom or courage. He wins by making no mistakes, which means defeating an enemy who was already defeated before the battle began. The victorious strategist seeks battle after the victory; the doomed one fights first.
Chapter IV
The direct method is used to join battle and fix the enemy's attention; the indirect method wins. The two are mutually interchangeable, like the two sides of a circle. A commander who knows only one of them has only half a method.
Chapter V
By dividing it into numbers and by signs and signals. Controlling many men uses the same principle as controlling a few; the difference is organisation, not a different art. Large forces fail when command and signalling break down.
Chapter V
It waits fresh while the second arrives exhausted. The skilled fighter imposes his will on the enemy rather than accepting the enemy's terms. He lures the enemy with an apparent advantage, or damages him so he cannot approach.
Chapter VI
Attack only places that are undefended; hold only positions that cannot be attacked. The skilled attacker makes the opponent unsure what to defend; the skilled defender makes him unsure what to attack. Secrecy and subtlety put the enemy's fate in your hands.
Chapter VI
Turning the devious into the direct and misfortune into gain. Take a long circuitous route, lure the enemy out of the way, start later, and still arrive first. That is what Sun Tzu calls the artifice of deviation.
Chapter VII
Marching a hundred li to seize an advantage loses the leaders of all three divisions and delivers only a tenth of the army. Fifty li loses the first division and half the men. An army without baggage, food, or a supply base is lost. Speed has a limit set by logistics.
Chapter VII
There are roads not to be followed, armies not to be attacked, towns not to be besieged, positions not to be contested, and commands of the sovereign not to be obeyed. A general who understands these variations knows how to use troops; one who does not cannot turn knowledge into advantage.
Chapter VIII
Recklessness leads to destruction; cowardice to capture; a hot temper to provocation; a delicate sense of honour to shame; and excessive concern for his men to being worn down protecting them. Each is a strength pushed past its useful limit.
Chapter VIII
Cross mountains quickly and stay near valleys; camp on high, sunny ground and do not climb heights to fight. After crossing a river, get away from it. Cross salt marshes quickly. In flat country, take an accessible position with rising ground to your right and rear.
Chapter IX
If he is near and silent, he trusts his position. If he is far and challenges you, he wants you to advance. If his troops are restless, his orders are weak. Dust, birds, and animal behaviour all reveal movement; Sun Tzu treats these signs as intelligence, not superstition.
Chapter IX
Accessible ground, entangling ground, temporising ground, narrow passes, precipitous heights, and positions far from the enemy. Each calls for a different response: occupy the high, sunny side on accessible ground; do not linger on entangling ground; do not move first on temporising ground.
Chapter X
Dispersive, facile, contentious, open, intersecting highways, serious, difficult, hemmed-in, and desperate ground. Naming the situation tells the commander what to do: on dispersive ground do not fight, on serious ground keep supplies flowing, on desperate ground fight without delay.
Chapter XI
On desperate ground soldiers fight without being ordered and do their best without being asked. Sun Tzu says to place them where there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. The technique is not cruelty but the deliberate removal of the option to retreat.
Chapter XI
Soldiers in their camp, stores, baggage trains, arsenals and magazines, and dropping fire on the enemy. Fire must be prepared in advance, launched at the right season and day, and followed up from the right direction; otherwise the attack wastes itself.
Chapter XII
Armies face each other for years to decide a battle in one day. To remain ignorant of the enemy's condition in order to save a hundred ounces of silver is, Sun Tzu says, the height of inhumanity. Foreknowledge cannot come from spirits or deduction; it comes from people.
Chapter XIII
Local spies, inward spies, converted spies, doomed spies, and surviving spies. When all five work together, no one can discover the system; he calls this the divine manipulation of the threads and the sovereign's most precious faculty.
Chapter XIII
Text used: Project Gutenberg eBook #132 (Public domain in the United States). The 1910 Lionel Giles translation is in the public domain. Giles's bracketed commentary was removed for reading; cards are original paraphrases and do not reproduce the text.
Version: 5th century BCE (this translation 1910), translated by Lionel Giles. Retrieved 2026-10-18. Cards reviewed 2026-10-18.
These cards paraphrase the text for study. They are not a substitute for reading the book, and they do not reproduce long passages.
Upload a PDF, Word, or text file and get question-and-answer cards for closed-notes practice. Five cards are free, no signup.
Try 5 free cards