The Attack by Fire — The Art of War

Fire is an attack that still depends on means kept ready in advance. Soldiers can be burnt in their camp, and so can stores, baggage-trains, and arsenals and magazines, or dropping fire can be hurled amongst the enemy. The material for raising that fire should always be at hand. The season is when the weather is very dry. The days are when the moon is in the Sieve, the Wall, the Wing, or the Cross-bar, because those are days of rising wind. What follows the flame is not automatic. If fire breaks out inside the enemy's camp, respond at once with an attack from without. If the fire breaks out and his soldiers remain quiet, bide your time and do not attack. When the flames reach their height, follow them up if that is practicable, and if it is not, stay where you are. If fire can be started from outside, do not wait for it to break out within. Deliver the attack at a favourable moment, be to windward of the fire, and do not attack from the leeward. A wind that rises in the daytime lasts long. A night breeze soon falls. In every army those developments have to be known, the movements of the stars calculated, and a watch kept for the proper days.

Those who use fire as an aid to the attack show intelligence. Those who use water as an aid to the attack gain an accession of strength. By means of water an enemy may be intercepted, but not robbed of all his belongings. Unhappy is the fate of one who tries to win his battles and succeed in his attacks without cultivating the spirit of enterprise, for the result is waste of time and general stagnation. The enlightened ruler lays his plans well ahead. The good general cultivates his resources. Move not unless you see an advantage. Use not your troops unless there is something to be gained. Fight not unless the position is critical. No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen. No general should fight a battle simply out of pique. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move. If not, stay where you are. Anger may in time change to gladness. Vexation may be succeeded by content. A kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being, nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. The enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution. That is the way Sun Tzu names for keeping a country at peace and an army intact.