chapter 1: China, Art of War.

From a shroud of darkness in the far eastern hills, a wanderer appeared and made his way to the war camps. On foot, he walked across the rocks and trees at a surprisingly fast pace and seconds separated him from the tent of one of the greatest generals that ever walked the earth. The night was surprisingly silent, the soldiers sat like statues across the campfires, the horses did not neigh and even the fires did not hiss to not disturb the work of general Sun Tzu.

The guards caught his presence late as he seemed to materialise from the subtle breeze of air like a letter from Time. Even as he appeared, they reacted slower than their training for they were confused by his very strange attire. He did not look like any person in all of the seven empires. He was not wary and continued to walk to the tent and was met with a cross of spears.

The guards kept asking quietly, not to disturb their general, about the identity of the stranger. The wanderer did not answer but kept asking for a word with Sun Tzu. In between the flurry of words, steady footsteps were heard coming out of the tent and the soldiers fell silent. The tent opened and a small man with a mighty shadow appeared. The crow’s feet in his eyes and the lines on his cheeks indicated ninety years of wisdom, but all knew it was the effect of war, and the fifty years of his age burned like flames in his eyes. 

The general contemplated the figure of the wanderer and, despite its eccentricity, he did not look the least bit flustered. He stroked his long beard as he gestured for the guards to stand down and gave permission to this stranger to enter his quarters. The wanderer followed Sun Tzu inside and was surprised by the simplicity of his tent. He watched the general sit down on his cushions with a small wooden table in front of him. Over the table, he had a couple of lit candles and a stack of written paper, a bottle of ink and a white quill. Perfect timing, thought the wanderer. He then sat down opposite to the general and waited for him to speak.

Minutes that seemed like hours went by and the general continued to write like he was completely alone in his tent. He gave no regard to the man in front of him and so the wanderer grew impatient and chose to break the heavy silence.

“What is it that you are writing, general?” asked the wanderer.

“A gift for the king.” answered Sun Tzu without looking up.

A gift for the ages, the former thought. “And how much are those words worth, to be fit as a royal gift?”

“The cheapest of wisdoms are worth more than gold and jewels. These words are worth the silence of a thousand soldiers, the ruins of a thousand cities and the drumbeats of a thousand battles. And what interest do you have in these words? You don’t look like a soldier.” questioned the general, showing the first interest in his visitor.

“I come from a realm where you are worshipped in every battlefield, where every general’s mouth utters your words and speaks with your voice. It only seemed fair that I see with my own eyes the might of Sun Tzu and the calamities he inflicted on his foes.”

“I hold no might nor do I inflict any calamities. I am only as strong as my officers and army, and the destruction written in my name is naught but the fault of my enemies. War is not a matter of dominance, it’s a matter of wit. I hate to see my name attributed with such monstrous terms.” said the warrior in a calm tone.

“If wit is what kills peasant boys forced into wielding swords by the men in power, then wit is evil. You cannot proclaim that killing hundreds in the name of one man is an act of wisdom.” exclaimed the traveller, but with respect.

“Lords play their game and I play mine. Do not take me for a politician, I am a man of war. Just like the peasant boy who was forced into battle, I am only a man who was chosen to lead them. They give me instruments and I try my best to break as little of them as I can. Give the same armies to a worse officer, and more will die. In a way, I am saving lives.” boasted Sun Tzu with a sly smile on his face.

“For every man that dies in your ranks, a dozen die in your foe’s. What I see is a man that punishes people for being born in the wrong empire.” 

“I am only a man who defends his own. If that blood wasn’t on my hands, it’ll be on the hands of another general, leading another army. If peace was an option, do not doubt that I would choose it.” said Sun Tzu as the smile turned into a stern look that put a chill through the wanderer’s bones.

“Peace would be an option only if you chose it. You, and the general after you and the one after him. Do you not want to take the first step into a future with no death and no destruction?”

The warrior chuckled and said “only in heaven would your words be true. If I tried to pave the road to your supposed peace, others will not see the way. They would only see weakness in my kingdom, and there goes a grand dynasty right into ruins.”

“Destruction is certain, either yours or others’, so do you choose it?”

“Then let it be theirs. It is not destruction that I seek, it’s duty.”

The wanderer sighed and stood up. “It appears that words will not sway you, General. Would you grant me permission to show you something that might?”

Sun Tzu contemplated the eyes of the stranger as he stroked his beard in thought, and then his curiosity defeated his suspicion. He nodded and then stood up and both men made their way out of the tent to the sight of a hundred soldiers standing vigil to their general’s tent. Without a word, the two kept on walking to the far hills at an abnormally fast pace, despite the steady footsteps. It looked as if time accelerated and minutes shortened into seconds, as Sun Tzu and his visitor disappeared into a shroud of darkness.

It all happened suddenly for the general. In the blink of an eye, he found himself on a giant mountain, with the sun blinding him from the east. Sun Tzu never believed in magic until this very second, he looked at the sight with an open mouth, in absolute disbelief. The wanderer did not wait for him to ask, but quietly said as he looked at his watch, “we are in what you call the Land of the Rising Sun two thousand years after your time. I suppose now they call it Japan. And that small city you see in the far distance goes by the name of Hiroshima. And we are just on time.”

Sun Tzu fixed his eyes on the city for a while waiting for more magic, and that is exactly what he received. A flock of giant birds flew over the city and what looked like a boulder dropped down from the bird who led. The boulder fell down on the city with frightening might and when it landed, a gigantic cloud of smoke exploded and engulfed so much of the land that the general thought it would swallow the earth, and then he heard a powerful bang louder than all war drums beating at the same time from the far east of the world into the far west. The blinding sight and the deafening noise made tears rain down Sun Tzu’s cheeks for the first time since he was a child.

“You see that giant bird? A man leads it. The man who leads it and the man who gave the command both studied your words in the military. What do you take from that?” asked the traveller with a grim look on his face.

“This…this monstrosity is not what I teach! This is the devil’s work, this is not war. What kind of animal read my words and concluded this?” yelled Sun Tzu, baffled.

“It may not have been exactly what you preach. But when it comes to chaos, mankind has a strong tendency to read between the lines. I hope this taught you something.”

After staring down the calamity before him, he wiped his tears and asked to go back to his camp and without answer they both turned their backs to the explosion and started walking down the mountain and the sunlight started to dim and the peaks started to flatten and once again they were walking down the chinese hills beneath the night sky. The wanderer stopped and watched Sun Tzu run into his tent in a hurry. He smiled and walked away, knowing he changed the greatest strategist of all time to the better.

Sun Tzu pushed through his soldiers who saw their leader flustered for the first time in their lives. He quickly sat down on his pillows and dipped his quill in ink and grasped his papers like he was holding to dear life. He knew war would never be absent from this world, so he chose to at least make it gentler, smarter. He believed in the art of war. And so his ink started flowing. 

“The supreme Art of War is to subdue the enemy without fighting. In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to capture an entire army than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entirely rather than to destroy them.”

Written By : Saihi Hachem.