Carefully compare the opposing army with your own, so that you may know where strength is superabundant and where it is deficient.

Concentrate your energy and hoard your strength.

To perceive victory when it is known to all is not really skilful. Everyone calls victory in battle good, but it is not really good.

Do not press an enemy at bay. Prince Fu Ch'ai said: "Wild beasts, when at bay, fight desperately. How much more is this true of men! If they know there is no alternative, they will fight to the death.

To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.

If I wish to engage, then the enemy, for all his high ramparts and deep moat, cannot avoid engagement; I attack that which he is obliged to rescue.

A wise general makes a point of foraging of the enemy.