If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.

Hence the saying: One may know how to conquer without being able to do it.

Bestow rewards without respect to customary practice; publish orders without respect to precedent. Thus you may employ the entire army as you would one man.

Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear; then he will be amenable to your will.

Act after having made assessments. The one who first knows the measure of far and near wins - this is the rule of armed struggle.

So a military force has no constant formation, water has no constant shape: the ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to the opponent is called genius.

There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefitted.