Sun Tzu (meaning Master Sun) was a 6th century BC Chinese general and military strategist

• Sun Tzu was the author of the Art of War, an influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and East Asian philosophy and military thinking.
• His birth name was Sun Wu (simplified Chinese: 孙武) and he was known outside of his family by his courtesy name Changqing (Chinese: 長卿), an honorific which means “Master Sun”.
• He served as general and strategist to King Helü of Wu in the sixth century BC, beginning around 512 BC, and is revered in our planetary culture as a legendary historical and military figure.

In 1972, the Yinqueshan Han Tombs were accidentally unearthed by construction workers in Shandong. Scholars uncovered a collection of ancient texts written on unusually well-preserved bamboo slips. Among them were The Art of War and Sun Bin’s Military Methods.

• Although Han dynasty bibliographies noted the latter publication as extant and written by a descendant of Sun, it had previously been lost. The rediscovery significantly expanded the body of surviving Warring States military theory.

Taoist rhetoric is a component incorporated in the Art of War

• Warfare is used as a metaphor for rhetoric, and both are philosophically based arts
• Taoism is the central principle in the art of war
• Modern Chinese scholars rely on Sun Tzu’s teachings and other traditional Chinese writers, which are used regularly in developing strategies of the Chinese state

Mohammed Abbasi