Sun Bin

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Sun Bin ( Chinese  孫 臏  /  孙 膑 , Pinyin Sūn Bìn ) was a Chinese military strategist living at the time of the Warring States (475–221 BC) and author of the work Sun Bin Bingfa ( 孫 臏 兵法  /  孙 膑 兵法 ), which also under known by the name Qi Sunzi ( 齊 孫子  /  齐 孙子 ). The work was published in German in 1994 as " Sun Bin on the art of war " as a double work with the first mentioned and more well-known basic work " Sunzi on the art of war".

Life

Early years, Pang Juan mutilation and first war

Sun Bin was born in an area west of today's Juancheng County (formerly Juan) and northeast of today's Yanggu County (formerly A), both of which are in what is now Shandong Province .

He is a descendant of Sun Tsu (also Sunzi ) and taught and thought out of this family tradition. At the instigation of his rival, Pang Juan, with whom he had learned the art of war , Sun Bin was mutilated in the Wei Empire by removing his kneecaps and tattooing his face.

Sun Bin advised the general of the Qi Empire , Tian Ji, initially successfully in 354 BC. Chr. – 353 BC When the state of Qi supported the empire Zhao , which was attacked by the state of Wei . On Sun Bin's advice, the Qi army directly attacked Wei Empire, which had largely been stripped of its own troops because of the attack. The troops of the aggressor Wei, who rushed back from Zhao to their homeland, suffered a heavy defeat at Guiling (today west of Changyuan County in Shandong Province). This strategy was saved in the memory of Chinese culture as the second of the so-called thirty - six stratagems, abbreviated to “attacking Wei to save Zhao” .

When Tian Ji was challenged to a three-heat horse race by the Emperor , Sun Bin gave the following advice. Tian Ji should use his weakest animal against the emperor's best horse and his strongest against the middle-class imperial horse. Tian Ji put his mediocre animal against the weakest horse of the emperor. Tian Ji won two of the three runs. He told the impressed emperor that victory was thanks to Sun Bin's advice.

Second war period, revenge on Pang Juan

When in 340 BC When the kingdoms of Wei and Zhao attacked the kingdom of Han , the latter successfully asked the king of Qi for help. On the advice of Sun Bin, the Qi forces invaded Wei again. On the advice of Sun Bins, Qi General Tian Ji resorted to the following ruse:

On the first day, the general had stoves dug for 100,000 soldiers. The next day he had stoves dug for 50,000 soldiers. After marching on on the third day, he had stoves dug for 30,000 soldiers. Sun Bin’s analysis had read, “The armies of Wei, Zhao and Han have always been foolhardy and look down on the kingdom of Qi. They claim the people of qi are cowards. Those who know how to wage war must take advantage of this and make the best of the situation to lure the enemy into a trap. "

Wei-General Pang Juan actually believed themselves that the Qi army by desertion dissolved. He marched after her, leaving the main forces behind with an elite troop regardless of fatigue, in order to plunge into this supposed process of dissolution and to end it.

Sun Bin had estimated that Pang-Juan and his troops would reach a convenient location for an ambush in Maling (now southwest of Fanxian County in Henan Province ) that evening . There were many trees on both sides of the advance path (which was determined by the supposed escape of the Qi army). Sun Bi posted large numbers of archers in these woods. These received the order to take fire on the path after nightfall. Sun Bin had the bark peeled off a tree and inscribed the conspicuously prepared tree with the sentence “Pang Juan will die under this tree”.

As planned, Pang Juan reached the tree in the evening and had a fire lighted so that he could read the text better. It is reported that even before he had finished reading the sentence, ten thousand arrows fell devastatingly on the small elite troop. Pang Juan realized in the ensuing chaos that there was no more escape from the trap and threw himself into his sword. In doing so, Sun Bin had not only made victory possible for his state, but also personally taken revenge on the man who had mutilated him.

victory

After the elite troops were annihilated, Weis' main army that remained was completely wiped out and the general of Wei's army, Crown Prince Shen, was captured. This act made Sun Bin famous and his work on the arts of war highly regarded for generations. However, there were few copies of this work and it was lost in the chaos of war a few hundred years later after the Han dynasty (late 220 AD). After the Song Dynasty (ended 1279), some writers even believed that Wu Sunzi and Qi Sunzi were the same book. The two authors were also believed by some to be one and the same person.

Fonts

However, in April 1972, tomb No. 1 of the early Western Han Dynasty (206 - 24 BC) on Mount Yinque in Linyi County, Shandong Province, was turned into both "Wu Sunzi" and "Qi Sunzi" bamboo tablets “Found so that it was proven that there were two books. The book was first published in Chinese in 1975 . A corrected Chinese reprint appeared in 1985.

The German translation was done by Zhong Yingjie , Volkschina Verlag, Beijing 1994, ISBN 7-80065-508-3 . With the German edition, there was also an English and French edition.

source

The German edition also served as the source for the biographical information given here.

literature

  • Ralph D. Sawyer (Ed.): The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China = Wujing-qishu . Westview Press, Boulder et al. 1993, ISBN 0-8133-1228-0 .
  • Sun Pin: The Art of Warfare . Ballantine Books, New York NY 1996, ISBN 0-345-37991-8 , ( Classics of ancient China ), (English and Chinese).
  • Patricia Hannig (Hrsg.): Sunzi on the art of war . Translated from the Chinese by Zhong Yingjie. Volkschina Verlag, Beijing 1994, ISBN 7-80065-508-3 , (German and Chinese).
  • Sun, Wu / Zhong, Yingjie (translator): Sunzi on the art of war - Sun Bin on the art of war. Waiwen Chubanshe 外文 出版社 (Foreign Language Publishing House), Beijing 1994.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On Generalized Tian Ji's Horse Racing Strategy , Jian-Jun SHU, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 187-193, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Sun, bin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 孫 臏 / 孙 膑 (Chinese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese military strategist and author of the work "Qi Sunzi"
DATE OF BIRTH before 354 BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH Province of Shandong
DATE OF DEATH after 340 BC Chr.