Sunzi · Art of War · 虛實篇

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虛實篇 · 952 characters
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READING NOTE · r130Structure / Connection

水因地而制流,兵因敵而制勝

Water shapes its flow according to the terrain; military action shapes victory according to the enemy.

zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes · Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed · CC BY-SA 4.0

A route through this passage

52 Han characters · 34 distinct forms · 9 units separated by the witness’s punctuation

  1. Establish the frame. Read the surrounding chapter. Who speaks, what is being discussed, and which earlier words supply the context?
  2. Test one unit. 水因地而制流, Mark a possible predicate and its participants. Record what you have supplied rather than found explicitly in the text.
  3. Reconstruct the argument. Connect the units in your own words. Where does a description, question, contrast, or consequence depend on your interpretation?
Investigate 5 written forms in this passage

Matched by spelling. These are candidate reading procedures, not assigned grammatical analyses.

Watch recurrence: 無 × 4 常 × 4 因 × 3 而 × 3 勝 × 3 水 × 2. Repetition of a graph need not mean repetition of a sense.

Computed from this exact witness · 1 contextual editorial excerpt also available. The guide is a set of reading prompts, not a translation. Sources & methods

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Use the reading guide above, build your interpretation, then test what you can recover. Your notes and schedule stay on this device.

1 · Explain it in your own words
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2 · Recover the wording

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3 · Explain, then revisit

Which elements occupy corresponding positions in the analogy?

Compare the editorial answer

Terrain conditions water's flow; the enemy conditions military success.

zimai editorial draft · not independently reviewed. Applies to 水因地而制流,兵因敵而制勝.

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Read this beside…

Each connection states its purpose. Comparisons are editorial learning aids; shared wording alone does not prove influence.

Different contextual sensesAdaptable water and effective softness

Sunzi compares water’s response to terrain with action adapted to an enemy. Laozi stresses the apparent weakness of water alongside its effect on the hard and strong. The image is shared, but the properties selected for the argument differ.

Follow a connection

Shared teaching construction · an editorial learning connection, not evidence of common authorship or origin.

論語 · Read the relationship between clauses學而時習之論語 · Read the relationship between clauses本立而道生論語 · Let parallel clauses constrain a reading巧言令色,鮮矣仁論語 · Let parallel clauses constrain a reading父在,觀其志;父沒,觀其行
Edition, source, and reuse
Work
孫子 · Sunzi · Art of War
Attribution
Traditionally attributed to Sun Wu; the date and formation of the received text are debated.
Digital witness
Kanseki Repository · KR3b0003 · base edition tls
Contributors
Kanseki Repository (Kanripo) contributors; upstream base-edition labels retained in each original file.
Source position
KR3b0003_006.txt, lines 135–144. SUN 6.8 tr. Giles 1910: 53-54. See Guo Huaruo 1962: 102-104; Wu Jiulong 1991: 103-104; Li Ling 1997: 70, tr. Ames 1993: 127; tr. Sawyer 1993: 168
Version
96402eede8bde255fef03e02377448bbcf20a248
Reuse
CC BY-SA 4.0. Text extraction and teaching additions share this licence.
Text policy
Source spelling and punctuation retained. Encoding headers, page markers, paragraph markers, whitespace, and leading section numbers are removed from the reading view. No silent script conversion or textual correction.
Teaching
zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes. English renderings are excerpt-level reading aids, not a full published translation. Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed.
Exact source lines ↗ · Original UTF-8 file · Passage + annotation data

Source-file SHA-256: 068f01848fc6da6d303e855f14640304ac7bcac3d0ab587afe8a8c84bb274667. A source comment that cites a translator is an upstream reference, not the attribution of a translation imported here.