4. Tactical Dispositions

9

Neither is it the acme of excellence if you fight and conquer and the whole Empire says, "Well done!"

True excellence being, as Tu Mu says: "To plan secretly, to move surreptitiously, to foil the enemy's intentions and balk his schemes, so that at last the day may be won without shedding a drop of blood." Sun Tzu reserves his approbation for things that "the world's coarse thumb and finger fail to plumb."