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Choose a Favorable Battleground |
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In respect to the employment of troops, ground may be classified as dispersive, frontier, key, open, focal, serious, difficult, encircled, and desperate. |
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When a chieftain is fighting in his own territory, he is in dispersive ground. When he has penetrated into hostile territory, but to no great distance, he is in frontier ground. Ground equally advantageous for us and the enemy to occupy is key ground. Ground equally accessible to both sides is open. Ground contiguous to three other states is focal. He who first gets control of it will gain the support of the majority of neighboring states. When an army has penetrated deep into hostile territory, leaving far behind many enemy cities and towns, it is in serious ground. Mountain forests, rugged steeps, marshes, fens and all that is hard to traverse fall into the category of difficult ground. Ground to which access is constricted and from which we can only retire by tortuous paths so that a small number of the enemy would suffice to crush a large body of our men is encircled ground. Ground on which the army can avoid annihilation only through a desperate fight without delay is called a desperate one. |
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And, therefore, do not fight in dispersive ground; do not stop in the frontier borderlands. |
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Do not attack an enemy who has occupied key ground; in open ground, do not allow your communication to be blocked. |
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In focal ground, form alliances with neighboring states; in serious ground, gather in plunder. |
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In difficult ground, press on; in encircled ground, resort to stratagems; and in desperate ground, fight courageously. |
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The principle of terrain application is to make the best use of both the high and the low-lying grounds.* |
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Samuel B. Griffith translates: |
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*The tactical variations appropriate to the nine types of ground, the advantages of close or extended deployment, and the principles of human nature are matters the general must examine with the greatest care. |
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