Reoccupying the Temple? Divination, Forecast and Accounting

The celebrated military text traditionally attributed to Sunzi 孫子 begins with three sentences that explicitly declare the crucial importance of war for the survival of the state.Footnote ¹ The work emphasizes the risks and threats to which anyone who decides to resort to arms is irrevocably exposed, while also postulating warfare as something that must perforce be pondered. In fact, it was most probably compiled in a period in which inter-state wars already involved vast numbers of people, with consequences spreading across the whole social body and outcomes that might bring about the utter ruin of the whole state, and this would account for the resort to “rational” procedures that might guarantee success in such hazardous undertakings. These procedures extended both to the motivations that led to the decision to open hostilities as well as to the actual waging of war. The ultimate criterion for deciding on military action took the form of an impassive reckoning of the benefits (li 利):

Absolute rigor is therefore the condition for deployment of troops and the slightest sign of lack of seriousness or negligence is punishable. Such caution demands, first of all, a meticulous assessment of all the circumstances relevant to the battle (from the strength or weakness of the economy, through to topographical or weather conditions, the degree of social and political cohesion, the robustness of the administrative institutions, the authority and trustworthiness of the commanders, the discipline and psychological state of the troops, and so on),Footnote ³ in order to be sure about whether to order a military attack or, on the contrary, to pronounce it inadvisable and thus to decide not to proceed. Hence, methods based on calculating (suan 算) these factors are prominent in the text credited to Sunzi. The work is vehement in insisting that the outcome of an armed conflict can (and must) be known before the clash takes place on the battlefield, and such foresight is possible by means of a series of questions concerning the circumstances of each of the combatants. The appropriateness or otherwise of each military undertaking is therefore decided in accordance with a state of balance or imbalance that is ascertained beforehand by weighing up the results of these series of questions which are put forth in the ancestral temple.

This passage plays with different meanings of the term suan 算. When it is a verb, it denotes the action of calculating or reckoning but, as a noun, it refers inter alia to the device (bamboo counting rods arranged to represent a decimal place system) used to carry out this exercise of arithmetic calculation.Footnote ⁵ More than a few commentators and interpreters have seen in this passage a radical change of direction in the conception of warfare. When, in his essay on the military chapters of the Yizhou shu 逸周書, Robin McNeal discusses the expression miao suan 廟算 in the Sunzi, he concludes that the use of these counting rods for purposes of calculation suggests a long history of evolution from divination and consulting ancestral spirits to the adoption of more rational procedures.Footnote ⁶ It is striking that the Sunzi should situate this accounting exercise in a section originally concerned with ritual and sacrificial practices related to the above-mentioned series of questions about the real situation of the combatants. After all, such arithmetical calculations could be done in other more appropriate administrative spaces equipped with more useful and relevant resources such as maps and reports. Indeed, according to a passage in the Zuo zhuan 左傳, the army commander received his orders in the ancestral temple (miao 廟)Footnote ⁷ while other, later, textual sources also note that, before launching the military offensive, the monarch came to this sacred place in order to hand the commander the battle axe or some other type of weapon as the symbol of his command.Footnote ⁸ In the light of these passages, it would seem evident, then, that in the earlier model of warfare, which was dominated by the aristocratic elites and their values, the ancestral temple was used as the setting for certain ritual practices that were deemed important for guaranteeing the successful outcome of the bellicose undertaking. From this perspective, the Sunzi would be controversial in presenting a new use for this space since, rather than being the hallowed location for performing ritual practices long enshrined in aristocratic customs, it would be the setting for a mere numerical exercise seeking objective knowledge about the outcome of the battle before it took place.Footnote ⁹ With this, the text would simply be extending its attacks against the aristocratic conception of warfare already suggested in its opening lines when it paraphrases a passage from the Zuo zhuan stating that the most important affairs of state are sacrifices and warfare (si yu rong 祀與戎),Footnote ¹⁰ which are precisely the exclusive activities of the aristocratic classes. In the Sunzi, however, these are supplanted by concerns about managing the new armies composed of large numbers of foot soldiers (bing 兵).Footnote ¹¹

Accordingly, in line with this “rationalistic” interpretation, the Sunzi would then be testifying to the transformation of the temple—which had formerly been used for making sacrificial offerings or even for engaging in divinatory practices—into a space that now only welcomed methods based on rational deliberation and calculation. Some passages of the work in which the use of certain mantic techniques by soldiers would seem to be proscribed or at least subjected to harsh critical scrutiny, have contributed towards the emphasis given to the importance of this rationalist development.Footnote ¹² However, it is in a passage from chapter XIII, which is devoted to the information services, where one finds confirmation of the shift in the Sunzi from ritual practices, sacrificial offerings, and divinatory techniques to more rational methods.

With these words, the Sunzi accepts that the success of any military venture resides in being able to anticipate what lies in the future, or that efficacy in the domain of action depends on the ability to predict (xian zhi 先知) events and proceed accordingly. Nevertheless, where one might expect to find resort to divinatory arts and the beneficial intervention of numinous powers, one sees instead their substitution in the form of information supplied by agents who have secretly infiltrated the enemy side. Does this shift in the Sunzi imply definitive abandonment of the prognostication techniques that permeate all military literature of the pre-imperial era? The answer is, of course, no. Despite an explicit opting in the Sunzi for procedures of rational calculation on the basis of information offered by special agents, it is also true that even a cursory glance at the military literature of ancient China is sufficient to confirm the extent to which divinatory methods, far from fading out, keep emerging as a legitimate tool which, in some cases, can play an important role. In many passages of these ancient military writings, divinatory consultations, whether they take the form of pyromancy performed with turtle shells, or observation of celestial bodies and other natural phenomena, are accepted as valid instruments when dilemmas need to be resolved or decisions endorsed.Footnote ¹⁴ Moreover, and although almost all of these works have been lost, the “Yiwen zhi” 藝文志 treatise of the Han shu 漢書 lists a considerable number of military-style writings following yin-yang (yinyang jia 陰陽家) doctrines which, in all likelihood, included several divinatory techniques as an essential part of their approach.Footnote ¹⁵ Hence, to return to words attributed to Sunzi in The Art of War, one can affirm that the ancestral temple underwent a kind of reoccupation by this new rationalist mentality. However, it did not completely cast out all the concerns and tendencies associated with this space in earlier centuries. A strange cohabitation occurs in the heart of ancient military literature between, on the one hand, the influence of rational practices by means of which troops are organized, soldiers disciplined, plans of attack determined, and armed combat made to run its course and, on the other, a range of prognostication techniques which are still being resorted to in the hope of gaining insight into battle tactics or knowledge of the enemy's circumstances.Footnote ¹⁶ What, then, would explain the persistence of these prognostication methods in the military writings? What would be the reason for this (at least apparently) contradictory concord between the newly introduced rational dispositions and the obstinate presence of forecasting procedures at the core of strategic thinking? In what sense did the ancients distinguish qualitatively between these systems of knowledge? What set foreknowledge systems apart from other systems that sought clarification of the hidden? Should this coexistence in the ancient literature be attributed, then, to common conceptual, methodological, or ideological foundations? And if this is the case, how is this shared structure presented and organized? These are some of the questions that have inspired and informed this article.

Anticipatory Gazes: The Permanent Longing for a Transparent World

One clue that helps to respond, at least partially, to these questions lies in the crucial role of knowledge of the enemy in this new way of understanding war. The theories expounded in the Sunzi and other ancient military writings hold that the essence of success in vanquishing a rival is the knowledge obtained of him. Subjugating an enemy necessarily entails projecting a light that encounters no impediment, and depends on ensuring that he is permanently exposed to the vigilant gaze. This reiterated concern in military literature for converting the adversary into a being stripped of all dark areas and secrets so that he is rendered transparent and predictable, clearly conveys the extent to which scrutiny of others became a preoccupation for the elites, politicians, and intellectuals of the Warring States period.Footnote ¹⁷ This is, in effect, a society that is profoundly marked by the desire to monitor, inspect, and penetrate the intimate reality of the Other. In this context, the concurrences and analogies with the divinatory arts become clear. It is by no means a coincidence that in the section “Xici” 繫辭 of the Zhouyi 周易, when it traces the genealogy of the invention of the Eight Trigrams (ba gua 八卦)—the basis of the sixty-four hexagrams—the term “observe” (guan 觀) appears over and over again in a particularly conspicuous way.

In this passage, Fu Xi's creation of the eight trigrams is the result of his intense, scrupulous observation of natural processes, both those pertaining to the heavens and those happening on earth. The act of observing or of paying attention to the world by means of an inquiring gaze is, then, intimately associated with the production of techniques of augury and prediction which, in a certain sense, are pursuing nothing other than a prolongation in time of the scope of this visual scrutiny. The original meaning of the term guan 觀, which is frequently used to describe observation of the movements of stars in the firmament and to depict a variety of divinatory activities, is given in Xu Shen's dictionary as “contemplate at great length” (di shi ye 諦視也).Footnote ¹⁹ This, of course, is neither an isolated case nor a minor coincidence. A considerable part of the vocabulary used to designate the omens and foretokens managed by the experts in different techniques of prognostication is closely linked with the semantic field of vision (jian 見, shi 視, wang 望, hou 候, cha 察). Thus, for example, the graphic sign used to name specialists in physiognomy and their techniques, xiang 相, contains the radical of the eye and embraces the idea of descrying, contemplating, and looking closely at an object. One of the most oft-used expressions for describing divinatory procedures, zhan 占, offers a similar example. Often written with the homophonic variant zhan 覘, the term is used in the ancient literature to denote actions of “scrutinizing,” “observing closely at length,” “visually inspecting,” or “carefully examining”.Footnote ²⁰ This constant slipping back and forth between the different levels of semantic fields pertaining to visual observation and prognostication, as is clearly reflected in this rich shared vocabulary, confirms the fact that these are actions understood as complementary, as linked together, frequently to the point of being indistinguishable.

The affinity between these actions translates into a shared volition to reveal what is hidden, what escapes the normal use of eyes. This proclivity for close inspection of the inner state of people and objects is not only expressed in the resort to divinatory techniques. It is, in fact, a very widespread concern and also detectable in other spheres, for example ritual theories. Throughout the Liji, ritual is described as a means for fathoming the inner dispositions of people taking part in formal ceremonies, and even for diagnosing the strengths and weaknesses of a state's institutions. The reality of these traits, usually opaque and inaccessible to the eyes of the inexperienced, becomes apparent to people who know all the ins and outs of the rites and are able to observe correctly the external bodily signals of these participants.Footnote ²¹ Indeed, according to these ritual doctrines, the inner disposition and the very future of a person can be read in his bodily attitude, for instance, in the particular way he puts down and moves his feet. The following anecdote extracted from the Guo yu 國語 is illuminating in this regard: in the course of a convention of political ambassadors of various states that took place in Keling 柯陵, located in the western area of the state of Zheng 鄭, Lord Xiang Dan 襄單公, counsellor of the sovereign of Chu 楚, meets Lord Li 厲of Jin 晉; however, when the encounter occurs, the gaze of the Lord of Jin, who is clearly looking upwards, is faraway and he raises his feet too high when he moves. After noting all these subtle but significant elements, Lord Xiang Dan meets the Lord of Lu and warns him about the troubles that will soon beset the state of Jin. Surprised by this statement, the Lord of Lu asks how he has come to such a conclusion. Lord Xiang Dan is unambiguous: it is sufficient to scrutinize the movement of the prince's feet and the nature of his gaze to deduce the misfortune that will soon afflict the state of Jin.Footnote ²² The excessively raised stride of Lord Li of Jin reveals his profound ignorance of protocol, which brings about an inevitable disturbance in social relationships, and this is read by Lord Xiang Dan as a revealing foretaste of what is to come. In fact, this is not the only passage in early Chinese literature where a mistake in the somatic manifestation of the ritual protocols is interpreted as an unequivocal symptom of impending fatality.Footnote ²³ Similarly, attentive observation of facial color (guan se 觀色) is frequently cited in the ancient texts as a practice concerned with probing the personality or revealing the moral quality of an individual, and even foreseeing his future.Footnote ²⁴ Here, one might mention the anecdote about Dongguo Ya 東郭牙 who, having observed the facial color of Lord Huan of Qi 齊桓公, was able to discover the plans for launching a military offensive against Ju 莒 which Lord Huan had secretly confided to his adviser Guan Zhong 管仲.Footnote ²⁵

Naturally, the revealing of a person's intimate state or real condition (qing 情) as well as the forecast of his future can be achieved not only by means of visual observation and close scrutiny of movements, postures, attitudes, and bodily parts or expressions that can be seen with the eye, but also by analysis of the audible tones and nuances expressed by the voice. Highly pertinent at this point are two famous anecdotes describing the feats of sages who are capable of uncovering past occurrences or prognosticating future events by dint of interpreting the sounds made by individuals.Footnote ²⁶ In the first, described in the Liji, Confucius and Zi Lu are walking on Tai Mountain when, on hearing the heart-rending wails of a woman before a grave, Zi Lu is able to divine the exact cause of the emotions that have given rise to them.Footnote ²⁷ In the second, which is in the Han Feizi 韓非子, to the surprise of everyone, Zi Chan 子產 on hearing the sobbing of a newly widowed woman who is mourning the loss of her husband, orders that she be arrested and interrogated; the woman then confesses that she has murdered her husband.Footnote ²⁸ These vignettes essentially emphasize the validity of a single axiom, according to which it is possible to discern a direct, immediate equation between emotion and its expression and between inner feeling and its bodily manifestation. Nevertheless, in my view, it is a passage from the Guo yu where it is possible to find a particularly explicit acceptance of this direct connection between the observation of outer marks and the revelation of an inner intention. The anecdote, which includes also a meaningful analogy with divinatory practices, is as follows:

This strict consonance between innermost and outermost being, the invisible and the visible, the latent and the manifest, which makes it possible to decode in outward features a person's hidden reality is, as I have just shown, deemed efficient in ritual doctrines (and even in important moral approaches)Footnote ³⁰ and also represents the theoretical foundation of some widespread ancient divinatory practices, in particular physiognomy (xiang 相) and morphoscopy (xingfa 形法).Footnote ³¹ Although, unfortunately, no complete treatise on these methods has been conserved, and the recently discovered manuscripts are fragmentary and present many material difficulties for reading and interpretation, it would seem that there can be no doubt as to the popularity of these procedures in early China. Their extensive use and influence are testified to not only in the numerous episodes recorded in the ancient literature of interventions and cases attributed to specialists in these techniques, but they also appear in the criticisms and reproaches that some thinkers feel obliged to register in taking a stand against them with the aim of neutralizing the enormous power and authority wielded by these experts.Footnote ³² It is understandable that, when they were obliged to choose the advisors and office-holders of their administration, the rulers of the time would have felt the need to turn to practices which, by means of observing physical manifestations, bodily features, gestures, bearing, voice, or other external traits, promised to reveal the inner state of candidates, both concerning their aptitude for the tasks required of them and their loyalty and moral calibre. While it is true that these inquiries were frequently concerned with human beings (from a ruler's newborn son to a candidate for some or other civilian or military position), such application of methods seeking to establish a direct correlation between the physical bearing of the body and the inner qualities of an individual was not limited to humans. Experts in physiognomic techniques were also apt to cast an inquisitive eye on other objects deemed valuable by the political and social elites: horses,Footnote ³³ precious stones,Footnote ³⁴ dogs,Footnote ³⁵ swordsFootnote ³⁶ and even the wood of treesFootnote ³⁷ are some of the objects that were prone to being examined using these techniques of observation. The physiognomic gaze, and almost any form of prognostication technique in ancient China, basically assume a world that, like the surface of the turtle shell in the meaningful analogy from the anecdote of the Guo yu above, is replete with symptoms, full of signs.Footnote ³⁸ Within this decipherable universe, a certain empirically accessible state of affairs refers to and takes the specialist to another situation that escapes ordinary perception.Footnote ³⁹ The trained eye of the connoisseur, and the people who require his services, are seeking a clear, transparent world, one that is ultimately stripped of all secrets and dark corners.

The Foundation of Perspicacity: Perceiving What Is Not Yet

Rather than judging men on the basis of their works and deeds, the essential principle of physiognomy is that of deducing the inner dispositions of beings using a semiological system constructed over the external, visible appearances. The physiognomist's attention is focused on the body of the Other, perceiving in it only a surface or a configuration, an object that, once delivered to his keenness of perception, must be deciphered. The technique is founded on the idea that men disguise their feelings and true intentions, but the adept in these procedures of observation can bring out the inner dimension that has thus far been concealed. This, then, is an art of suspicion that is, accordingly, conceived as an instrument for mastery and domination over others. However, the scrutiny of this physiognomic gaze also, and in particular, seeks to disclose the intentions and designs that are veiled in external appearances in order to gain prior knowledge because the guarantee of success lies precisely in an early appraisal of the situation. If, for the prevailing mentality in early China, the whole world is an object to be submitted to continuous scrutiny, this is due not only to the desire—expressed as these omnipresent acts of observation—to penetrate the intimate reality of people and objects so as to discover their inner qualities, but it is also the result of the ambition of the powers-that-be to be forewarned when planning their actions which, otherwise, would not succeed. Indeed, in both the political literature and the military treatises, the sage is able to distinguish himself from the mediocre individual or the fool thanks to his capacity of foresight (xian zhi 先知, xian jian 先見) and his ability to anticipate, to predict events before they happen, and thus to offer a timely response to them. In other respects, physiognomy, which is nothing other than the art of offering a judgment about people and objects on the basis of their somatic constitution and thereby attributing to them some or other quality, wholly belongs to the framework of the evidential paradigm as defined by the Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg.Footnote ⁴⁰ According to this paradigm, the internal realities of individuals and things cannot be deciphered unless it is by means of detection and interpretation of traces, symptoms, and clues.

In fact, both ideas, the forecasting of events and the correct interpretation of tenuous signs, are necessarily linked. Predicting events depends on an accurate reading of the surrounding evidence. Hence, sagacity lies in skills of foresight and the clairvoyant man is, above all, hypersensitive to subtle symptoms which are unperceived by people who lack his superior powers of discernment. A passage from the Shangjunshu 商君書 expresses this principle when citing a maxim that goes, “The fool glimpses no more than accomplished facts while the one who knows sees what is not yet even budded” (愚者闇於成事，知者見於未萌).Footnote ⁴¹ Far-sighted intelligence, with its scrutiny of the tiniest elements of reality,Footnote ⁴² anticipates what has not yet taken shape, announces what, still in an embryonic state, has not yet achieved its final form. This visualizing of the incipient (wei meng 未萌), of the abstruse (ming ming 冥冥), of what is still lacking a completed form (wei xing 未形), is the feature that defines and singles out the wise man in many political and philosophical writings of ancient China.Footnote ⁴³ Foreknowledge of events is based on close attention to, and meticulous observation of, the smallest details because, for the person with superior skills of perception, these miniscule, discrete, almost indiscernible elements contain and give prior notice of the unfolding of a series of circumstances which, once they eventually reach their critical point and crystallize into a definitive form, no longer permit any kind of intervention. The sage is often portrayed as someone who shows himself circumspect about the most trivial elements of reality and prudently scrutinizes tenuous signs.Footnote ⁴⁴ At this point, one could cite, among other examples, a passage from Sima Qian's biographical notice about Zou Yan 騶衍, who is thought to be responsible for promoting some of the most influential cosmological theories of the epoch.Footnote ⁴⁵ This passage explicitly states that only on the basis of foresight gleaned from minute signs is it possible to divine what will later turn out to be great events (必先驗小物，推而大之).Footnote ⁴⁶ Active and diligent participation in the never-ending flow of events can only be managed as a result of this anticipatory perception that affords the sage valuable room for manoeuvre, which is unattainable to those who settle for looking at congealed structures. The Han Feizi offers a precious anecdote in this regard in the chapter devoted to explaining the Laozi (“Yu Lao” 喻老) where it sets out to illustrate one of its sentences—“Set about the difficult while it is still easy, the large while it is still small” (圖難於其易也，為大於其細也)Footnote ⁴⁷ —by means of telling the story of a diagnosis offered by the famous physician Bian Que 扁鵲.

The main concern of the author or authors of the chapter that relates this incident is to warn of the many dangers besetting the person who occupies the position of authority and to offer some guidelines that might help to counteract, or at least neutralize, these threats.Footnote ⁵⁰ The fact that the story from the Han Feizi, which is of clear political vocation, as I have just noted, is set in the context of a clinical situation is not a trivial detail in this line of argument. Another anecdote in the He Guanzi 鶴冠子 featuring Bian Que, and once again set in the framework of political concerns, highlights the crucial importance of foresight by means of observation of symptoms when the illness has barely begun to appear and still lacks any clear form. After praising the ability of his older brother who is able to diagnose a disease before its particular form is revealed (wei you xing 未有形), and defining the procedure of the best doctors, the text attributes the following words to Bian Que, “[Good physicians] are able to detect an ailment in healthy patients. They treat the malady before it is given a name and even before it has taken shape. The treatment is perfect when patients are persuaded that the result has come about by itself” (凡此，者不病病。治之無名，使之無形。至功之成其下，謂之自然。).Footnote ⁵¹ Medical practice, as conceived in ancient China, required extreme awareness and vigilance in the early detection of symptoms that foreshadowed an illness because, once they were recognized in their embryonic state, the physician could embark on early treatment, and the chances of its being successful were therefore greater.Footnote ⁵² The intervention that guaranteed the greatest chance of success when dealing with any health setback entailed tackling it when it had scarcely begun to appear or when the problems it was going to cause were virtually imperceptible, and there was still room to manoeuvre. Hence, the illustration in the anecdote of the Han Feizi concerning the physician Bian Que emphasizes that the ailment must be dealt with when it has only just begun to show on the outer layer of the skin (cou li 腠理), which is to say on the most superficial part of the organism.

The Wide Horizon of Premonitory Signs

The story of Bian Que's diagnosis of Lord Huan's ailment is a clear allegory of the concern to predict later unfolding of events by early detection through attentive visual observation (jian 見, wang 望) of symptoms that emerge as external manifestations in the form of tenuous signs (xi 細, wei 微) on the visible outer layer of a body or object. Related to these ideas and closely linked with the epidermal dimension of things, the term biao 表, denoting the covering, surface, or external appearance of a body or garment, plays a significant part in this shared scheme pertaining to pre-emptive action. It is not surprising, then, that one of the sections of the Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 is titled “Observation of Outer Signs” (“Guan biao” 觀表) and that it is exclusively concerned with the matter of long-term forecasting of events through painstaking observation of faint signs on the surface of beings. This ability distinguishes wise men from ordinary mortals.

Once again, the concern is to penetrate and shed light on the obscure inner worlds of men. According to this passage, however zealous men may be in trying to conceal their plans and desires in the most recondite corners of their hearts, the sage has the capacity to unveil them and know what they are in advance (xian zhi 先知), thanks to methods entailing careful study of the revealing signs (zheng 徵) which are only just discernible on the outside of things. Indeed, one of the most interesting elements of this passage is that it suggests—contrary to what many people might have thought—in a formula, which is not unlike the warnings in the chapter on spies in the Sunzi, that the ability of these wise individuals to forecast events and actions is not the result of having invoked the intervention of divine powers or of mere fortuity but, rather, of the skilled use of techniques of observation that might once again be linked with the evidential paradigm. As frequently happens in the Lüshi chunqiu, the structure of the argument in this chapter is also organized by means of general theoretical approaches that are announced at the start of the section and completed with references to a series of historical examples used to endorse the original postulations. The first illustrative episode concerns the case of Viscount Cheng of Hou 后成子 who, on a journey to Jin, stays in Wey where he is invited to a banquet. On his return from Jin, the Viscount decides not to stop in Wey and, when questioned about this by one of his companions, he describes some moments in the feast that led him to foresee the dangers faced by this territory and its impending ruin. The second story refers to the famous strategist Wu Qi 吳起, who is travelling to visit the court of the state of Wei 魏. Once reaching Anmen 岸門, Wu Qi stops to gaze on the Xihe 西河 region and weeps bitterly as he does so. When asked why by one of his attendants, he confesses that, while he was still serving the ruler of Wei, he could have used his abilities to bring about the defeat of Wei's most feared rival, Qin, by means of Xihe. He predicts that since the ruler has ignored his advice, these lands and the entire state of Wei will be conquered by the troops of Qin.Footnote ⁵⁵ After referring to these two cases of sages with prodigious skills in anticipating future events thanks to their close attention to what appear to their companions as insignificant or insubstantial elements of present time, the section closes with the following passage, which deals with the procedures entailed in the physiognomy of horses.

According to this chapter of the Lüshi chunqiu there is a clear, natural continuity between the expertise of Viscount Cheng of Hou or of Wu Qi, who could see into the future of an individual or a state by means of reading subtle signs and that of the ten specialists in physiognomy, who were able to discern the quality of a horse by means of meticulous observation of some or other revealing feature. In both cases, the procedure is the same: success in prognostication depends on interpretation of revealing signs (zheng 徵).The term zheng covers several interlinked meanings which, in the last instance, go back to something akin to an ingredient that makes it possible to infer the real state of an entity. This is therefore a concept that is frequently used in the political literature to refer to precursory factors or symptoms that offering premonitory glimpses of a coming emergency or the ruin of a state. Although the number and nature of these factors can vary from one text to another, there are many theoretical writings that pose the existence of a series of signs that can be observed in order to diagnose the real state of the civilian and military institutions of a state and, by extension, what the future holds for it.Footnote ⁵⁷ Aware of the imperative need to have prior knowledge of the enemy's real situation and plans, the military literature uses the same concept when elaborating part of its theoretical framework.

As I have indicated above, the denouement of a battle must be accomplished in advance through exhaustive knowledge of the enemy's circumstances, which make it possible to know whether the military undertaking is viable and, if so, furnishing the keys for planning the perfect strategy in keeping with its particular characteristics. It is a matter of shedding light on the situation, of perceiving the initial moments of a process in such a way that its result becomes foreknowledge.Footnote ⁵⁸ If the quotation from the Han Feizi that demonstrates Bian Que's talent in his early diagnosis of illness concludes with the statement that the sage is able to anticipate the flow of events (聖人蚤從事), in the terrain of military operations it is the commander who carries out this function. In some military writings, he is responsible for keen observation and prediction of the enemy's movements, to such an extent that if he is not present there is no way to fathom the adversary in advance (兵無主，則不蚤知敵).Footnote ⁵⁹ It is not strange then to find that, within this shared cognitive scheme, the Tai Gong Liu Tao 太公六韜 contains a chapter with a title that might be translated as “Military Factors” or “Premonitory Signs of Military Affairs” (“Bing zheng” 兵徵). Like the other chapters of the work, this section, too, opens with a discussion about military science between King Wu and the Grand Duke Wang. It begins as follows:

The question that King Wu puts to his adviser refers, once again, to the necessity of having advance knowledge of and, by this means, prognosticating (xian zhi 先知, yu jian 豫見) the adversary's military potential. In these opening lines, the premonitory signs constitute the nucleus of this tenacious desire to have foreknowledge of the real situation of the enemy and anticipate the outcome of the battle. The adviser's response extends and develops this recurring idea, namely that rigorous observation of some visible features and aspects of one's rival discloses patterns of behavior which, in turn, allow one to draw general conclusions regarding the enemy's strength. The reasoning in chapter II of the Wuzi, significantly titled “Evaluating the Enemy” (“Liao di” 料敵), is almost identical. Here, the Marquis Wu 武侯 says to the military strategist, “I should like to learn the inner reality of the enemy by observing his outer manifestations, to discover his rules of action by watching him while he is at rest and thus to obtain certain knowledge of the outcome of the conflict. Would you give me your opinion on the matter?”Footnote ⁶¹ The response of Wu Qi and the guidelines offered by the Grand Duke in order to satisfy the curiosity of their rulers coincide in the essential fact that one must examine certain external attributes and characteristics of the enemy with the utmost attention in order to gain access to his inner reality. Both texts offer numerous examples to illustrate the method: watching how, in certain circumstances, soldiers fall into formation or align themselves in rows; gestures, looks, and words exchanged by the troops before going into battle; the movements of flags and coats of arms in the theatre of operations, and so on, permit one to infer the disciplinary rigor on the enemy side. Then, in the last instance, through observation and interpretation of these subtle signs, one can anticipate the outcome of the battle. Nonetheless, in the Liu Tao, following the list of these foretokening factors which offer clues as to the real condition of the enemy one finds a description of a method of observation clearly linked with divinatory procedures. If the line of argument in the chapter from the Lüshi chunqiu devoted to observation of external signs consists of a description of the ability to foresee future events on the basis of subtle elements of the present time, after which it describes the extraordinary skills of several experts in the physiognomy of horses, something similar occurs in the chapter of the Liu Tao devoted to premonitory signs. In both texts, there is a natural, seamless shift, from explanation of a deductive method based on visual observation of certain signs, to description of what is, strictly speaking, a divinatory technique. Hence, in the latter work, immediately after specification of some of the external features that intimate the circumstances and potential of the rival army, one finds the following paragraph:

The closing words of the Grand Duke's comments in this chapter of the Liu Tao certainly hark back to the divinatory technique known as “observation of the vapours” (wang qi 望氣), which is mentioned in other military writings as well.Footnote ⁶³ If, as I have previously noted, there is a smooth transition in the line of argument of this chapter from inference based on observation of tenuous indicators or premonitory signs to an explicit account of a divinatory method, it has happened because the affinity of these procedures is undoubtedly expressed as fruit of one and the same mentality that situates foresight acquired by means of meticulous probing of the Other at the heart of all mental operations. This repeated convergence of deductive procedures starting from an examination of external signs and prognostication techniques has what I believe is a highly significant precedent in two anecdotes from the Zuo zhuan wherein they appear almost consecutively and, moreover, within a military context. In two different situations, three observers, who are minutely examining tenuous signs and symptomatic details, issue a series of statements which, although they concur, are in fact the result of deductive operations based both on observation of perceptible manifestations and on divinatory practices. The first of these scenes refers to the battle of Pingyin 平陰 in 554 b.c.e., in which the troops of Qi 齊 faced the armies of Jin 晉.

The marshal of Jin was able to exploit the faint-heartedness of the ruler of Qi who, according to the text, lacks courage and noble bearing (wu yong 無勇).Footnote ⁶⁵ The strategist of Jin was able to intimidate the adversary thanks to a ruse which gave the false impression of a very large army. Believing that the enemy forces were greatly superior in number, the troops of Qi therefore decided to retreat. It is at this point in the story that the unanimous judgment of the three observers concerning the definitive withdrawal of the troops of Qi is introduced. The first pronouncement comes from Music Master Kuang, also known as Ziye 子野, a famous blind musician who was an adviser in the court of King Ping of Jin 晉平公 (r. 557–531 b.c.e). He was known for his prodigious musical sensibility and a great talent for politics,Footnote ⁶⁶ as attested to in several ancient texts describing his feats and skills, which include predicting events by means of sounds and even his use of music to subjugate spirits.Footnote ⁶⁷ Here, Music Master Kuang concludes that the enemy has fled after appraising the joyful sounds of birds. As noted above, the inner nature of an individual or the denouement of a future situation can be divined by means of highly skilled and attentive analysis of sounds.Footnote ⁶⁸ Hence, the first prognostication is based on a procedure linked with certain predictive or divinatory qualities. The second observer, an official of Jin, comes to the same conclusion, once again thanks to his sharp, fine-tuned hearing, this time by discerning the distant sounds of horses and, although this may seem to be an inference based on a sensory perception, it is also true that the allusion to sounds of horses moving away from the battlefield takes one to a passage of the Zhou Yi where, in glosses on the hexagram Zhun 屯 (“Initial Difficulties”), it is repeatedly reported: “Chariots and horses are moving away” (乘馬班如).Footnote ⁶⁹ Finally, the third observer, Shu Xian, who is also given the name of Yangshe Xi 羊舌肸, a senior official of great political influence in Jin, confirms the flight of the enemy, which he deduces by means of attentive observation of a revealing sign: the crows perched on the walls of Pingyin, a clear indication that the city has been deserted. This final mental operation might well be an example of inference through scrutiny of a perceptible sign or manifestation since, in another passage from the Zuo zhuan, which refers to a military campaign, the observers of Zheng 鄭 assert that the troops of Chu 楚 have retreated after seeing crows in the site of the enemy campFootnote ⁷⁰ and, similarly, a passage from the Sunzi, which lists a series of revelatory signs that can be used in order to ascertain the real state of the battle, also indicates that “where birds are perched it is empty [i.e. there are no enemies]” (鳥集者，虛也).Footnote ⁷¹

Further on in the same section, one finds the second scene where many of the elements stressed above are reiterated. After giving a detailed account of the military incursion of the troops of Chu into the territory of the state of Zheng, an unsuccessful siege of the capital for several days and the failed assault in which a good number of soldiers are lost because of cold and rain during the retreat, the text recounts the responses of three observers from Jin who, on hearing the news of the invasion plans of Chu, are in agreement when they announce that Chu represents no threat to their interests. As in the previous anecdote, the consensus of their threefold prediction is, in fact, the result of different mental operations.

The weakness and military ineffectiveness of Chu are predicted three times by these three observers who, in two cases, coincide with the characters who appear in the previous scene but now using different techniques. The first prognostication, once again uttered by Music Master Kuang, is made on the basis of melodies and songs characteristic of the north in comparison with those from the south, which is precisely where Chu is located. It is therefore based on application of a divinatory technique recorded in many ancient texts, this consisting of careful examination of modulations and sounds.Footnote ⁷³ The second prediction would seem to be related—although not very explicitly—to observation of the firmament, a divinatory procedure examining the correspondence of heavenly bodies and the calendar, which was often used in military contexts.Footnote ⁷⁴ Finally, the third forecast results from an inference drawn from close observation of a revelatory sign, namely the virtue of the ruler of Chu.Footnote ⁷⁵ Consequently, as in the case of the battle of Pingyin, the three prognostications offered by the three observers are based on different but converging procedures entailing both observation of symptoms or divinatory factors such as the use of predictive techniques. At least for the personalities cited in these scenes and their authors, there is no rupture. As shown above in the analysis of passages from the Lüshi chunqiu and the Liu tao, the coming together of these mental operations, which are of a different nature for the modern interpreter although they start out from observation of signs and signals, reflects once again the extent to which there is a seamless, contradiction-free transition between these two consecutive and matching scenes from the Zuo zhuan.

The Clues Game: Traces and Stratagems

The scene concerning the battle of Pingyin is particularly valuable and illustrative not only because, as just shown, it offers a paradigmatic case concerning this natural integration of different procedures in a military context but, also and more generally, it exemplifies the crucial role of examination and evaluation of signs in the outcome of a battle. The unanimous conclusions of the three observers concerning the retreat of Qi is preceded by the trick of creating a false impression devised by the Marshal of Jin who uses deceptive visual elements which, optimally exploiting the psychological condition of the enemy, are interpreted as genuine. From this standpoint, the lesson of the battle is evident: victory on the battlefield depends to a great extent on the ability to understand correctly the external signs that are presented to the senses, thus anticipating the plans and manoeuvres of the adversary. The good commander is the one who can distinguish true clues from false ones, as well as being able, by means of deceit and illusory devices, to impose on the enemy an impression that belies the reality.

Indeed, one of the main problems affecting the efficacy of the penetrating, foreseeing gaze I have just described arises from the fact that—unlike what occurs with the examination of inert objects such as stones, swords, vapors or even living but passive beings like dogs or horses—humans are able to deceive and dissemble. As I have shown, in both ritualistic and divinatory contexts, there is a tendency to establish a direct correlation between internality and externality, thus attempting to accede to a transparent world in which the inner quality and even the future of individuals is revealed by the appropriate interpretation of somatic or external signs. It is also true, however, that it cannot completely rule out the suspicion that some of these activities and results might not be wholly genuine. Since demeanor and bodily gestures can be imitated and faked, there are no guarantees or certainties as to the sincerity of these external expressions and, accordingly, misgivings about false appearances cannot be dismissed. Sincerity (cheng 誠), frequently the necessary condition for this strict equating of the outer packaging and the inner hidden essence, is always and inevitably impossible to demonstrate.Footnote ⁷⁶

Bodily attitudes can always be feigned but in a situation of war, where resorting to wiles and ruses is the norm, doubts about the veracity of observable revelatory signs in the adversary are much more numerous and serious. Indeed, detached from commitment to any moral order, the lie is one of the pillars of military activity. This idea is very plainly expressed in the famous formula from the Sunzi: “War is the art of deception” (兵者，詭道也).Footnote ⁷⁷ Bluffing and dissembling play crucial roles, not only in blocking the enemy's access to one's reality but also in making sure that his plans and manoeuvres will not succeed. The strategist must therefore be a master of deceit, always presenting himself as different from what he really is, adopting the guise of misleading appearances, seeking to dupe the enemy and inveigling him with the seductive power of his semblances to fall into the trap he has set. Deception, referred to in the above-cited passage from the Sunzi, is related with a consistent, recurrent set of notions like trickery (zha 詐) or artifice (wei 偽), elements that are part and parcel of the irregular side of the art of war, one of its exceptional and unpredictable dimensions (qi 奇) which the commander is skilled in deploying in order to ensure a decisive victory. Driven by this logic of duplicity and falsification, the military operation depends in good measure for its success on the cunning of the strategist in wielding his lures and trickery to befuddle the enemy.

This desire to decipher the reality of other beings through careful scrutiny of their external appearance, the need to be able to subvert the normal course of time so as to foresee events, and the dialectical relationship between the will to know and the obligation to hide oneself behind dissemblance and subterfuge in the terrain of military science converge in a particularly eloquent fashion in the biographical section concerning Sun Bin 孫臏 recorded in the Shi ji.Footnote ⁷⁸ As happens with other illustrious figures sketched by Sima Qian, this account is not so much concerned to relate the whole life story and military career of Sun Bin (and, in fact, the episode offers very few strictly biographical details, barely mentions his training, omits martial exploits and says nothing about the end of his life) as to condense a few of the masterly lines from the strategic ideas that are attributed to him into a single significant anecdote that would then function as a kind of leitmotif.Footnote ⁷⁹ As shown below, besides contributing other valuable elements from the historical standpoint, the episode about Sun Bin could be taken as a summing-up of all my foregoing arguments: the interweaving of associations between the latent and manifest or between the visible and the invisible; the affinity between observation and prediction; the ability of anticipating events through correct interpretation of signs which, in the military domain, might just as easily be real or simulated. The biographical sketch of Sun Bin in the Shi ji opens with the following lines:

While succinct, the first part of the biographical note concerning Sun Bin clearly reveals the plot hatched against him by his former peer Pang Juan. Aware that the presence of Sun Bin in Qi represents, at least potentially, a threat to his interests because his employment by the ruler of the enemy state gives that state a major military advantage, Pang Juan decides to arrange a meeting with Sun Bin, perhaps to offer his support or promising an interview with the ruler of Wei that would lead to his promotion. Furthermore, Pang Juan insists on secrecy so as not to arouse the suspicions of Qi which, alerted by such an occurrence, might retain him in its territory so as to make sure that his talents could not be used by the enemy. Nevertheless, once Sun Bin is in Wei, Pang Juan, conscious of the superiority of his skills (自以為能不及孫臏) in military science, and fearing that he will be eclipsed or even supplanted as commander of the armies if his old rival has an audience with the monarch of Wei, seeks to eliminate the danger by scheming to submit him to corporal punishment that will make him unfit for any public office or being received in the court. Pang Juan's plot aims to put an end to Sun Bin's services to the enemy state while also ensuring that his presence in Wei would not pose a threat to his own career in that state. Otherwise, the story of Sun Bin and Pang Juan is similar to other biographies in the Shi ji of illustrious figures in the political life of the Warring States period. Some of the components and motifs are the same although there are a few variations and differences in construction and narrative function. One example is the biography of Zhang Yi 張儀. In this account, too, although it is briefer, one finds the same sequence of humiliation. While in the service of the court of Chu 楚, Zhang Yi is accused of stealing a precious jade from the ruler and, as a result, is condemned to corporal punishment in the form of a beating. Then, his old fellow student Su Qin 蘇秦, who occupies an important position in Zhao 趙 and who also knows that Zhang Yi is superior (自以不及張儀), manages to get him appointed as an official so that, once he is assured of Zhang Yi's gratitude and trust, he will be able to use him in a complicated diplomatic manoeuvre against Qin.Footnote ⁸¹

A faithful reflection of the competitive context of political life in the Warring States period and brimming with plots, intrigues, and betrayal, the story of Sun Bin establishes a continuous interplay between visible and invisible signs, between the underhand and the evident. Hence, Pang Juan not only conspires to prevent the encounter between the ruler of Wei and Sun Bin but also to disqualify his rival permanently by condemning him to total invisibility (wu jian 勿見) by means of a plot that, paradoxically, only makes him more prominent and visible. The corporal punishment which the scheming Pang Juan manages to inflict on Sun Bin automatically entails radical exclusion. As if they were not punishment enough, mutilations such as facial tattoos or, still worse, amputation of the feet, also had dreadful social consequences in ancient China. People bearing the marks of this bodily disfigurement were shunned and not allowed to take part in ritual activities, which meant that they were debarred from public life and, of course, this social exclusion was much worse when the mutilation was the stigma of punishment.Footnote ⁸² From this standpoint, Pang Juan's scheming against Sun Bin is based on an accepted principle of the indissoluble relationship between the internal and external dimensions of the individual whereby total transparency is achieved through a tortured body. Mutilation of the body may be regarded as a kind of radical semiotic act, since the mutilated person is exposed and condemned to general prejudice without anyone requiring special physiognomic skills because his stigmatized body yields a clear reading. It speaks for him and says everything. Sun Bin's probable yearning to shine, to achieve recognition by showing off his talents before the monarch, is thwarted by Pang Juan's machinations, which condemn him not only to ostracism but the need to take refuge in anonymity and to stay hidden. The corporal punishment marks his destiny, as can be seen in his very name,Footnote ⁸³ and ensures that he is transformed into a being that must always be hidden away and invisible (which, in a certain sense, ends up being a major factor in his subsequent success and also in making revenge possible). He is therefore obliged to speak with the envoy from Qi from behind a screen, taking refuge from other people's gazes and, eventually, even when he impresses the king's representative, he is furtively borne off to Qi hidden in a carriage. Furthermore, later in the story, once he has re-established his reputation and ascended the social scale to occupy the position of the king's adviser, his physical condition prevents him not only from accepting the rank of commander of the army when it is offered because it is unseemly for a mutilated person (刑餘之人不可) to take up such an appointment, but he must also hide away inside a carriage so that, seated therein and discretely out of sight, he can decide the plans and strategies of the armies (居輜車中，坐為計謀).Footnote ⁸⁴ Nevertheless, if Sun Bin manages to redress the fatality of his destiny, it is precisely due to an act of unveiling and his privileged knowledge of the inner condition of a being by way of interpreting its bodily form. Taking a leap in time, the account of Sun Bin's feats continues:

The interpretation I suggest for this passage differs in some points from the more conventional exegesis. The traditional type of commentary understands that in the words that I have opted to translate as “observed the hoofs of the horses” (見其馬足), the term zu 足, which means foot or hoof, refers to the capacity (neng 能) of horses;Footnote ⁸⁶ while the expression that I have translated as “having inspected the quality [of the horses]” (及臨質) would in fact refer to the moment immediately preceding the start of the race.Footnote ⁸⁷ However, in my view, these interpretations are not convincing. The reading of the first phrase in keeping with these commentaries is forced when, taken literally, the meaning of the expression presents no difficulty and requires no explanation. It is evident that, in order to determine the capacity and strength of the horses, one must examine their hoofs, an essential part of their anatomy.Footnote ⁸⁸ As for the second phrase, I am also inclined to the more literal sense or that which refers to the visual inspection of the substance or inner nature of the horses and, in fact, in a passage from the Fengsu tongyi 風俗通義 this selfsame verbal expression (及臨) is used with regard to the action of examining and evaluating an object without this seeming to designate the moment prior to an action.Footnote ⁸⁹ Likewise, it should also be pointed out that the notion of substance (zhi 質) in this passage appears in other ancient written sources linked with techniques and procedures, probably physiognomic, for classifying horses.Footnote ⁹⁰

Naturally, Sun Bin draws on an astute combination of skills when the horses are about to race and, from this standpoint, what makes him victorious is, more than anything else, the art of classifying the animals and reorganizing the race in accordance with logical calculation. One should recall, however, that the success of such calculation resides, first and foremost, in the ability to decipher correctly the physical features of the horses, and to divine through reading external somatic signs, their different inner qualities of strength and endurance.Footnote ⁹¹ It is thus significant that Sun Bin's ascent is due, at least initially, not to military exploits or to a display of knowledge linked with strategic skills but rather to simple prediction. His reinstatement, recovery of his honor, and recognition of his extraordinary aptitudes in the art of war are due, in fact, to a feat that is not unlike those of other famous experts in the physiognomy of horses, for example the above-mentioned Bo Le or Chen Pei. By referring to the skills attributed to Sun Bin in applying physiognomic procedures in order to perceive the qualities of beings, this part of the story endorses the relevance of observation in the unveiling of inner qualities and in anticipating future events. It also implicitly confirms the connection between foreseeing what is to come and strategic prowess. This latter relationship is further elucidated at another point in the chronicle.

The years have gone by and Sun Bin's military career has been remarkably successful, for example with the victory over the armies of Wei in the famous battle of Guiling 桂陵.Footnote ⁹² In the year 353 b.c.e. and with Sun Bin directing the military operations from inside a chariot, General Tian Ji routed the troops of Wei in the locality of Guiling. A year before that, the rulers of Wei had launched a military operation against Zhao by attacking its capital Handan 邯鄲. When, after a year of gruelling combat and under siege by the best troops of Wei, the city was about to fall, the rulers of Qi decided that this was a good time to provide the support that Zhao had often pleaded for.Footnote ⁹³ According to the account in the Shi ji, the initial idea of Tian Ji, Qi's general, was to go to Handan to save the city from being conquered by Wei. However, Sun Bi came up with a better alternative: taking advantage of the fact that most of Wei's troops were in Handan, he suggested that they should attack Daliang 大梁, the capital of Wei. The armies of Wei, under the command of Pang Juan, would then be obliged to leave the siege and hasten to rescue their capital. At one fell swoop, Zhao would be liberated and Qi would also have a decisive advantage in the battle against the troops of Wei, now exhausted after a long year's combat and the enormous effort of the headlong return to save their capital. Tian Ji decided to follow Sun Bi's strategy and inflicted a crushing defeat on the troops of Wei in the battle of Guiling.

However, among the manuscripts found in 1972 in the archaeological site at Yinqueshan 銀雀山, and deemed to be part of the lost work attributed to Sun Bin, were a series of bamboo slips titled “The Capture of Pang Juan” (“Qin Pang Juan” 擒龐涓). These provide further information about Sun Bin's strategic manoeuvres which won the battle.Footnote ⁹⁴ Judging by what emerges from this material, Sun Bin's strategy would have been rather more complex and sophisticated that the version offered in the Shi ji.Footnote ⁹⁵ Given Wei's siege of Handan, Sun Bin, in this account, decides to sacrifice some units of his side's army by ordering that they should be sent into battle against the city of Pingling 平陵, which is located in the southeast of the territory of Wei and very well defended. As envisaged, the units of Qi are easily defeated by the regiments defending the city, after which Sun Bin feigns a speedy and predictable counter-attack in which he once again orders that several lightly-armed units should be sent to attack Daliang, the capital of Wei, in order to enrage Pang Juan and, by dividing up his forces, get him to believe that his army is not very numerous (以怒其氣，分卒而從之，示之寡).Footnote ⁹⁶ Convinced that this is a desperate, inept manoeuvre, trusting in the superiority of his forces, encouraged by Qi's recent defeat in Pingling, and no doubt keen to appear before his ruler as the outright victor, Pang Juan immediately sends a good part of his armies back to his own city to crush the enemy. Sun Bin anticipates the route Pang Juan chooses and sends the greater part of his troops to lie in wait for his army at some point on the frontier between Qi and Wei. Well situated and rested, they wait for Pang Juan's troops in Guiling, favorable ground for them, which they also have time to reconnoitre. This gives them sufficient advantage to defeat the enemy. More than a decade after this first military victory over Wei, in 341 b.c.e., Sun Bin finally has the opportunity to wreak definitive vengeance on Pang Juan who, in the account provided by the Yinqueshan material, manages to survive the battle of Guiling and make his escape. The closing section of the anecdote in the Shi ji, describing the battle of Maling 馬陵, has the following to say:

Allied with their former victim Zhao, the leaders of Wei continue with their aggressive policy of expansion and this time decide to attack the state of Han. In response to Han's request for help and, once again, after some discussion in the court, which is described in the Zhanguo ce, the ruler of Qi resolves to intervene and foil Wei's offensive.Footnote ¹⁰¹ In appearance at least, Qi's deterrent strategy depends once again on the typical resort of attacking the capital of Wei so that its troops would then be obliged to stop their siege against the capital of Han. Yet, behind this apparently straightforward manoeuvre, Sun Bin is hatching a more subtle plot in order to deceive his enemy. Instead of going ahead with the attack on Daliang, the armies commanded by Tian Ji and under the tactical guidance of Sun Bin pretend to be fleeing to the northwest. The aim of this movement is to pander to the pride of the enemy and turn to their own advantage his wish to benefit from this unexpected situation. Knowing that the troops of Wei believe that the armies of Qi are faint-hearted, Sun Bin beguiles them into assuming that his troops are fleeing after hearing news of the imminent arrival of the army commanded by Pang Juan. In all likelihood, rather than keeping his garrisons in the capital, the temptation of an easy victory over an enemy in flight persuades the ruler of Wei to send his soldiers, under the command of his inexperienced heir, Prince Shen 太子申, to capture Qi. With the aim of coaxing him into rash decisions and, by extension, making sure that Pang Juan will be blamed, Sun Bin lays a trail of false clues that only confirm the preconceived views of his adversary. Pang Juan falls into the trap set for him by Sun Bin because is fooled by an interpretation of Sun Bin's trail of false external signs that seems to confirm his opinion as to the morale of the troops of Qi. As I have noted above, if the punishment inflicted on Sun Bin due to Pang Juan's plotting in the court of Wei sought to bring about his social exclusion thanks to prevailing prejudices about aberrant bodily forms, Sun Bin's later revenge was also planned around principles following the same logic: clues in the form of a diminishing number of fires are interpreted as an outer sign that immediately and clearly translates into the inner state of the enemy. In contrast to the expertise shown by Sun Bin's observation of horses, Pang Juan's deductive operation on the basis of these visible signs, no doubt encouraged by his wish to punish his rival even more, leads him to draw the wrong conclusions about the real situation of the troops of Qi. Hence, thanks to his knowledge of the ongoing validity of these conventions and his skill in using such prejudices to get the upper hand, Sun Bin predicts Pang Juan's response and therefore outwits and defeats him. This permanent interplay of signs and symbols, of false and genuine clues, this network dense with anticipations within anticipation, culminates with Sun Bin's message for Pang Juan, carved into the tree. In some sense, the gesture is a synthesis of the lesson that can be learned from this anecdote regarding the risks and dangers of anticipation. Pang Juan believes he can anticipate the movements of his rival in his reading of the clues set out in Sun Bin's moves but, in fact, he is merely doing exactly what Sun Bin wants him to do. His ineptness and incorrect readings in interpreting the revelatory signs, and his failure to distinguish true pointers from false ones, are demonstrated in this final scene. Previously blind to the dupery in the trail of false indicators, when he finally manages to decipher the written signs left on the tree it is too late. His enemy has once again pre-empted him. Only then does he understand that he has fallen into a trap and, in a dramatic and ironic twist to the strategy of anticipation devised by his enemy, he foresees Sun Bin's brilliant destiny, which he himself has contributed towards shaping.

The anecdote about the feats and vicissitudes of Sun Bin as described in the Shi ji, functions as a kind of emblematic tale setting out the benefits and dangers of anticipating events through reading traces, clues, and signs. The lesson one should draw from this story is that, in order to adjust his patterns of action to fit the changing spatial and temporal circumstances of the events, the good strategist must necessarily have the ability to predict situations, discern the plans of the rival, and act accordingly. These prognostication skills make it possible to move ahead of the succession of events and overtake time in order to come up with a more effective response to the emergency of the moment. They distinguish the clairvoyant individual from the obtuse one, and it is at this moment when the figures of the sage and the strategist converge to the point of fusing. The typical features of the sage, as depicted in a large part of the political, philosophical, and even medical literature of ancient China tend to overlap with those cited in descriptions of the good commander. As it has been demonstrated, this is especially evident in relation to anticipation of events and revealing the inner reality of men, animals, and things, thanks to attentive observation of the most tenuous signs and accurate decoding of these discreet clues. In the light of all this, it is possible to consider in these spheres the convergence of several processes which, based on observation and minute scrutiny of “natural” elements, and without supernatural agents being called upon as oracles or intervening at any point, show a common vocabulary and appear to be organized around a recurrent constellation of notions sharing similar intellectual foundations.

These concurrent practices suggest preference for the forms of deductive prediction which, rather than aspiring to know the will of divinities or to receive their blessing or criticism in the management of human affairs, are more concerned to examine the components of a particular set of circumstances in search of revealing signs. Technically speaking, predictions based on altered states or divine inspiration are relegated to a marginal position in favor of procedures that prioritize observation of signs, their interpretation, and deductive reasoning.Footnote ¹⁰² Nonetheless, besides divesting the ancestors and divine powers of their authority over human decisions, the overlapping of these anticipatory processes might also be understood, at least partially, as supplanting the authority attributed to experts in divination techniques, or an attempt to counter their power. Perhaps with the aim of invalidating the prestige and privileges they enjoyed in the society at the time (and the potential dangers these authorities might also have represented in the management of military affairs) and, encouraged by an agonistic context in which specialists in different techniques and areas of knowledge competed to offer their services to powerful men, the figures of both sage and skilled commander fuse together in a shared framework whereby, usurping the prerogatives and attributes of the diviners, they appear as individuals gifted with great foresight methods, possessors of exceptional acuity and able to reveal what is hidden. From this standpoint, the commander as described in the ancient literature might be seen as a master of signs and, by extension, the art of warfare can also be represented as a form of knowledge that requires, among other virtues, semiotic aptitudes and techniques that can provide accurate prediction of events to come through correct interpretation of the signs and even, in some cases, their adroit manipulation on the battlefield.