Page:The book of war, the military classic of the Far East (IA bookofwarmilitar00caltiala).pdf/18

14 exclaims Sun; but he also reminds us that their management is the most difficult and delicate duty of the general.

Sun and Wu are perhaps held in even greater reverence in Japan than in China, where war is looked upon as a troublesome phase in national life, and victory in battle is not considered the greatest achievement of a state. Far otherwise is it in Japan; and successive generations of her soldiers have been brought up on Sun and Wu. Like other arts, mystery was formerly supposed to surround the art of war, a belief that was encouraged by the strategist; and for a considerable time, the few copies of this book, that were brought over from China to Japan, were jealously guarded by their possessors. Later, as they became known, an army of Japanese commentators arose for Chinese literature is thought compressed, to be unfolded in the mind of the reader.