[Chang Yu says: "The general has confidence in the men under his command, and the men are docile, having confidence in him. Thus the gain is mutual." He quotes a pregnant sentence from Wei Liao Tzŭ, ch. 4: "The art of giving orders is not to try to rectify minor blunders and not to be swayed by petty doubts." Vacillation and fussiness are the surest means of sapping the confidence of an army.] [1] "Aids to Scouting," p. 26. Chapter X. TERRAIN [Only about a third of the chapter, comprising §§ 1-13, deals with "terrain," the subject being more fully treated in ch. XI. The "six calamities" are discussed in §§ 14-20, and the rest of the chapter is again a mere string of desultory remarks, though not less interesting, perhaps, on that account.] 1. Sun Tzŭ said: We may distinguish six kinds of terrain, to wit: (1) Accessible ground; [Mei Yao-ch’en says: "plentifully provided with roads and means of communications."] (2) entangling ground; [The same commentator says: "Net-like country, venturing into which you become entangled."] (3) temporising ground; [Ground which allows you to "stave off" or "delay."] (4) narrow passes; (5) precipitous heights; (6) positions at a great distance from the enemy. [It is hardly necessary to point out the faultiness of this classification. A strange lack of logical perception is shown in the Chinaman’s unquestioning acceptance of glaring cross-divisions such as the above.] 2. Ground which can be freely traversed by both sides is called _accessible_. 3. With regard to ground of this nature, be before the enemy in occupying the raised and sunny spots, and carefully guard your line of supplies. [The general meaning of the last phrase is doubtlessly, as Tu Yu says, "not to allow the enemy to cut your communications." In view of Napoleon’s dictum, "the secret of war lies in the communications," [1] we could wish that Sun Tzŭ had done more than skirt the edge of this important subject here and in I. § 10, VII. § 11. Col. Henderson says: "The line of supply may be said to be as vital to the existence of an army as the heart to the life of a human being. Just as the duelist who finds his adversary’s point menacing him with certain death, and his own guard astray, is compelled to conform to his adversary’s movements, and to content himself with warding off his thrusts, so the commander whose communications are suddenly threatened finds himself in a false position, and he will be fortunate if he has not to change all his plans, to split up his force into more or less isolated detachments, and to fight with inferior numbers on ground which he has not had time to prepare, and where defeat will not be an ordinary failure, but will entail the ruin or surrender of his whole army." [2] Then you will be able to fight with advantage. 4. Ground which can be abandoned but is hard to re-occupy is called _entangling_.