One of the great classics of world literature is Sun Tzu's "The Art Of War". And we made a whole album about it. And this is the title track : "The Art Of War". (Music) (Music) [Music] Sun Tzu says : "The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected. The general that hearkens to my council and acts upon it, will conquer - let such a one be retained in command. The general that hearkens not to my council nor acts upon it, will suffer defeat - let such a one be dismissed!" Only a few written works have survived for so long and still remain relevant as the Chinese book "Art of War" has. It is one of the most influential military treatises ever devoted to strategy and tactics. Not much is known about its presumed author Sun Tzu, also known as Sun Wu, Sunzi or simply Master Sun, but we can say with a good amount of certainty that he did actually exist. Historians date the birth of the original art of war to the Chinese kingdom of Wu during the reign of Helu between 515 and 496 bc. Sun Tzu, a native of the kingdom, rose to prominence as a military advisor. The legend goes that King Helu one day wanted Sun Tzu to prove the value of his teachings by demonstrating them on a group of his concubines. Without hesitation Sun Tzu addressed the women like soldiers and after a short training session had the women march up and down the parade ground in perfect order. Impressed, the king made him commander of his armies. Under the guidance of Sun Tzu's leadership, the armies of Wu invaded their neighbours and won their greatest victories. Another legend tells that Sun Tzu once defeated an army of 200,000 with just 30,000 men. But despite this success, the kingdom of Wu would perish soon after its short rise to power, vanquished by another treacherous neighbour. We can't say what happened to Sun Tzu afterwards, but we know of Sun Pin, a supposed descendant of Sun Tzu who, a hundred years later, defeated a rival army by following his ancestors teachings. Sun Pin said that Sun Tzu was known to continue discussing military theory even after they cut off his feet. Whether this was meant to be taken literally or just metaphorically is unfortunately not known. Sun Tzu's treaties, later known as "The Art of War", survived the destruction of Wu and the subsequent ages of strife and war. Over the coming centuries, it would fascinate generals and philosophers alike. Many military commanders during the Qin and Han dynasties referenced Sun Tzu's works or incorporated his teachings into their own writings. However they were also extensively copied, transcribed and sometimes even freely edited. Several editions existed at the same time, often attributed to different generals. That of course rings the alarm bells of every historian, especially with the widespread habit of forgery during certain time periods in China. But we also know that such handling of the original texts was often quickly recognized and severely punished. Many governments outright forbade the use of anything but the original edition. In accordance with the ancient Chinese understanding of warfare, war should be used as a weapon in itself, to punish the cruelty and violence of others. War was to bring peace to troublesome times, to overcome difficulties and eradicate danger. This explains that, while even alongside the fundamental pacifistic teachings of confucianism, Sun Tzu's "Art of War" always had a solid place in Chinese culture. Peace and war are bound together, one unable to exist without knowledge of the other. Even in peace time, it was seen as important to learn about the art of war. Sun Tzu says : "In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it, is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." This passage might be the most essential principle of Sun Tzu's work, but is also the most challenging to our understanding of warfare today. How can one be victorious during war - which in Sun Tzu's time was waged with axes, spears and chariots - without actually fighting? [Music] For Sun Tzu, supreme generalship lies in winning battles before they were actually fought. The general who spoils his enemies plans before they are set in motion, who keeps the enemy from gathering enough strength to act in the first place, who captures cities without laying siege, will be triumphant. Sun Tzu knew firsthand the many horrors war would inflict and emphasized that ending wars as quickly as possible would only prevent further suffering of the people. A war of attrition, like the First World War or the excessive bombing campaigns of the second, would be quite the opposite of what he saw as supreme excellence. To achieve victory in war, the first principle any general has to follow, is to only offer battle when he is sure of victory. Sun Tzu says : "The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself." Every commander has to be guided by the actions of his enemies. He can safeguard himself from defeat by having a strong defense. But victory can only be achieved by countering the actions of the other side. Therefore it is of vital importance for the supreme general to know what he can expect of his own troops, as well as what the enemy is capable of doing. Like a botanist looking at a growing flower clearly envisions it blossoming one day, the general has to see the battle unfold in his mind before it begins. If he knows everything there is to know about himself and the enemy, he cannot fail. Sun Tzu says : "Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle... will arrive exhausted. Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him." The next step is to seize the moment and to strike like thunder before the enemy has a chance to shield his ears. By making haste, he forces his enemies to hurry in an attempt to counter his plans before they are ready. That makes them vulnerable to error. Then, like the firing of a crossbow, the general will be terrible and prompt in exploiting those mistakes. Sun Tzu says : "All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near,... we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected." As I said before, a wise general can make defeat impossible by his own preparedness. But victory relies on reacting to the enemy's moves. The wise general feigns weakness, when he is actually strong; appears afraid, when he's secretely confident. Then, when the enemy's lured into his trap, he falls upon him like the swoop of a falcon and delivers the fatal "coup de grāce". According to Sun Tzu, a successful commander is the bulwark of his nation. If he is strong, courageous and morally pure, so too will be the state he serves. Sun Tzu presses home the point that all men are basically motivated by two things: living long and growing rich. And like any other man, a soldier does not part from such things easily if he has the choice. Therefore a general has to keep a good eye on the well-being of his own men, not just those of the enemy. He should not overwork them, but conserve their strength for when it counts the most. A virtuous general keeps them provided with plenty of food and drink, but refrains from keeping them idle for too long because idleness breeds trouble. Once the men understand what they can expect for following the general in terms of rewards and punishment, they will willingly listen and obey without questioning his decisions. We can observe his teachings reappearing in the actions of many generals all throughout history. Charles XII and Napoleon were victorious when they acted according to his principles; and they were defeated when they did not. "The Art of War" as we know it today consists of 13 chapters. Each highlights a different aspect of warfare, but only rarely resorts to concrete time specific references. Instead, its teachings are supposed to be based on practicality. Sun Tzu, fully aware that his writings were to be studied by military men and not scholars, refrained from bookish theory, or abstract metaphors. Yet, despite their clarity, there is a certain underlying wisdom behind what is written. Even today, 2500 years after its emergence, "The Art of War" holds much useful wisdom. If you replace the word "general" with "boss" or "manager", you can still use and interpret many of his teachings in everyday life, far from the bloodshed of the battlefield. After all, ancient Chinese societies, like those in the era of Wu, did not have professional military commanders as we know them today. Usually those tasked to lead armies also served the kingdom as civilian statesmen, and in everyday life it helps to be prepared, to be quick-witted and to be well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the competition. Remember kids, business can be as cutthroat and treacherous as any battlefield of old! Enemies might not wear chain mail and carry axes anymore, but a business suit and a handshake might be just as dangerous to your health! Perhaps it would be a good idea to study "The Art of War". [Music] Okay, "The Art of War", the chapters, talking about the different things and of course this is basically about fighting as little as you can in order to achieve victory - which a lot of generals in a lot of wars don't sort of do, they want to have like this big final battle. Do they want to really? Yeah, but there's plenty of people that want to, they want to put their men in the field, they want to, you know,they want to go over. And put their name in the history books! Yeah, yeah. And Sun Tzu would be like: "How about the one where they march for a long time and then they run out of food and then we take them all prisoner?" That's, that's pretty cool, right? Yeah, I like it! I, yeah, it's not so fun for the guys, have to march all the time and run out of food, but they don't die unless starvation! Yeah, I mean, it's one of my favourite lines to sing on a concert as well, when we play that song: "I will win but never fight" and then comes the choir and "That's the art of war". And it's funny because that is, that is the ultimate pacifist line, and when you think of great pacifists through history, you don't think of Sun Tzu. No, it's not the first name at least! But how did you end up deciding to do this particular concept? Actually it grew, evolved over time. This one was a lot on me actually because I just thought it would be a cool idea. And I didn't know, I had read the book, and I didn't know how to do it. But then we started coming up with the idea how about we make one, every track corresponds to a chapter in the, you know, in the book? Oh wait, and for those people at home this is the Chinese word for chapter. But it's true, you know, the way he organizes his book is brilliant and it's nice that the album really follows the chapters, that's cool! And I actually want to send a message here. You should read this book, I mean, it sounds intimidating, it sounds, you know, like oh it's an old Chinese text, it's going to be huge. No, it's not! It's a quick read. You can read it in like an hour. Yeah! Yeah, and it's really interesting. And there are very good translations, so you don't have to know ancient Chinese. In fact, I know that the text of "The Art of War" is in the public domain, so in the description there is a link to the text of "The Art of War" so you can actually read it straight from here. Go to Project Gutenberg and get it! Or go to Project Gutenberg and get it for free! Great library for royalty free or public domain! Oh that's cool! It's good to know! I mean, guess Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain as well! Yeah, yeah! Do you know what is in the public domain but what people thought was not in the public domain? The films that we used in the, uh not the "White Death" or.."Talvisota"! Was it "Talvisota" or was it "White Death"? It was "Talvisota", it was the Winter War! In the "Talvisota" episode, I don't know if you guys remember that, from January. Let's turn ugly! We started that! Okay, if you don't know what we're talking about, check out the Talvisota episode later. It did turn ugly but it wasn't our fault it turned ugly! Yep! Yep and actually you guys helped a lot for solving that! The enormous outpouring of support for us was pretty cool. Yep, thanks for that! Yeah. It helps! Yeah seriously. Okay, but not thanks for the death threats to the guy! No, no, not nice! Thanks for pointing out that this is bullshit! Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, back to Sun Tzu and "The Art of War". Yes! Okay, so you were sitting around one wednesday night at like 10 o'clock, alone in your bed, strumming an acoustic guitar. How did you know? I know everything. I'm a historian. Okay! I know everything. I'm a historian. In Chinese. I know, but you're sitting around strumming, you were kind of sad because you were feeling a bit lonely and your parents didn't understand you and you started - you had just read "The Art of War" and you thought "Wouldn't this be a concept album?". Yes! That's pretty much? It's pretty much how it is actually! And here's where you heard it first, on Sabaton History, ladies and gentlemen! No, but okay, you came up with the idea, you pitched it to the guys, the guys said that this sounds pretty good and stuff. Yeah, I mean, we were already doing songs about military history and we had done uh, in that topic we had already done "Primo Victoria" and "Attero Dominatus". Yeah! This is then the third military history related album. I mean, you had found your mojo basically! Yeah, but we didn't want to do it "just find more battles". And somehow that felt like such an appealing idea to, like you have these 13 chapters in the book, let's have 13 tracks on the album where every song has a corresponding chapter, you know. You can follow along the text and we would use in some cases real battles, where what Sun Tzu was writing about, where that would be relevant to that battle. Yeah and talking about the modernization of stuff like, you know, like what flaming arrows were then, that's dropping bombs now. Yeah. So yeah. So that was really cool! But, on some uh, in some places we chose not to do real battles. I mean, obviously "40:1" is from that album, I mean a real battle, the battle of Wizna. But for this one, we chose to do sort of a song about the chapter, and the tactics used or whatever you might want to call it, or actually lack of battles, to win but never fight. But it's, but that was Sun Tzu's thing. Your goal is victory but your other goal is to preserve as much of your strength as you can because if all your guys are dead, then the victory is meaningless. Pretty much, yes. I mean, it's a moral victory I guess or something, whatever you want to call it. But yeah, now he was a pretty sharp cookie! Yes and um, as I said: read it! "The Art of War"! "I love cookies!" and in Hebrew. You gotta love earth, man. Well like: "What direction do you guys write in?" "You know, we haven't decided yet!" No! Because you know on Mars, on Mars they write in a different direction. They do? Top down? Yeah, they write like this, like it's like an angle so they don't use paper. Is it a straight one or is it a logarithmic thing you know? It's a logarithmic thing! #itsalogarithmicthing See you next time guys! Bye! [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] All right everyone! 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