d,

[The simile is doubly appropriate, because the wind is not
only swift but, as Mei Yao-ch`en points out, "invisible and
leaves no tracks."]

your compactness that of the forest.

[Meng Shih comes nearer to the mark in his note: "When
slowly marching, order and ranks must be preserved"--so as to
guard against surprise attacks. But natural forest do not grow
in rows, whereas they do generally possess the quality of density
or compactness.]

18. In raiding and plundering be like fire,

[Cf. SHIH CHING, IV. 3. iv. 6: "Fierce as a blazing fire
which no man can check."]

in immovability like a mountain.

[That is, when holding a position from which the enemy is
trying to dislodge you, or perhaps, as Tu Yu says, when he is
trying to entice you into a trap.]

19. Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and
when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

[Tu Yu quotes a saying of T`ai Kung which has passed into a
proverb: "You cannot shut your ears to the thunder or your eyes
to the lighting--so rapid are they." Likewise, an attack should
be made so quickly that it cannot be parried.]

20. When you plunder a countryside, let the spoil be
divided amongst your men;

[Sun Tzu wishes to lessen the abuses of indiscriminate
plundering by insisting that all booty shall be thrown into a
common stock, which may afterwards be fairly divided amongst
all.]

when you capture new territory, cut it up into allotments for the
benefit of the soldiery.

[Ch`en Hao says "quarter your soldiers on the land, and let
them sow and plant it." It is by acting on this principle, and
harvesting the lands they invaded, that the Chinese have
succeeded in carrying out some of their most memorable and
triumphant expeditions, such as that of Pan Ch`ao who penetrated
to the Caspian, and in more recent years, those of Fu-k`ang-an
and Tso Tsung-t`ang.]

21. Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.

[Chang Yu quotes Wei Liao Tzu as saying that we must not
break camp until we have gained the resisting power of the enemy
and the cleverness of the opposing general. Cf. the "seven
comparisons" in I. ss. 13.]

22. He will conquer who has learnt the artifice of
deviation.

[See supra, SS. 3, 4.]

Such is the art of maneuvering.

[With these words, the chapter would naturally come to an
end. But there now follows a long appendix in