Attack the Mind, Guard the Spirit: Knowing Enemy and Self in Li Jing

A fresh translation

Original text

Words and concepts

• Formation (陳)
  The arrangement of troops; the graph is used here in the sense of 陣.
• Attack his mind (攻其心)
  To work upon the enemy’s judgment or will. The excerpt does not give a catalogue of particular psychological techniques.
• Guard our energy (守吾氣)
  To preserve the condition and cohesion of one’s own force. “Our” refers to one’s side, not to the private mood of a single speaker.
• Have something for which to wait (有待)
  To remain prepared for a developing opportunity. The phrase does not describe empty inactivity.
• Know the other and know oneself (知彼・知己)
  The famous pairing from the Sunzi, here assigned two different military actions.

A symmetrical passage with unequal tasks

The four lines are carefully balanced. The attacker faces a city and a formation; the defender repairs a wall and firms a formation. Both begin with visible military objects. Then each line turns away from material arrangements. The attacker must address the enemy’s mind. The defender must preserve the energy of his own side.

The symmetry makes the difference more precise. Li Jing does not say that each side should do the same thing. The attacker reaches outward toward an adversary’s will. The defender works inward, maintaining a force through uncertainty while awaiting a favorable development. Attack and defense therefore demand different kinds of knowledge.

The final line supplies the names. To attack the mind is to know the other. To guard one’s energy is to know oneself. A maxim that can sound like a general instruction to collect information becomes a pair of practices.

Walls are necessary, but they are not the whole siege

The passage does not belittle engineering or deployment. A city cannot be besieged without confronting its defenses. A defender who neglects damaged walls or a disordered formation will not be rescued by morale alone. The repeated “and that is all” marks insufficiency, not uselessness.

This distinction matters because the most measurable work can dominate attention. Walls can be counted, inspected, repaired, and battered. Formations can be drawn and observed. Human intention is less stable. An army may retain its position while its confidence is failing, or appear exhausted while remaining determined to resist.

By placing mind and energy after wall and formation, the passage refuses a choice between material and human conditions. Both belong to the same event. A complete reading must hold them together.

“Attack the mind” is a principle, not a recipe

The phrase “attack his mind” easily attracts later ideas: deception, threats, persuasion, division, or the circulation of frightening reports. Some of those actions may fit the phrase in other contexts. None is specified in these four lines.

The safer conclusion is narrower and more useful. An attacker who sees only a wall has not yet understood the defender. The continued resistance of a city depends on people who decide whether to obey, endure, negotiate, flee, or surrender. Knowledge of the enemy must reach those decisions rather than stop at external defenses.

That does not turn the text into a manual of manipulation. It identifies a field of judgment. The method itself must depend on what has been learned about this enemy in this situation.

Guarding energy is an active form of defense

The defensive half is sometimes easier to overlook because its verbs sound quiet. Guard. Wait. Yet a prolonged defense makes both difficult. Fatigue, hunger, loss, rumor, and uncertain relief can damage cohesion before a breach is opened.

The verb “guard” is exact. The line does not command the defender to manufacture permanent enthusiasm. It asks that the army’s energy be kept from disintegration. That may require discipline, credible orders, rest, confidence in leaders, or hope of relief, although the excerpt itself does not enumerate measures.

Waiting is equally active. The defender maintains walls and formation while preserving the capacity to respond when circumstances alter. Waiting without preserved energy would be mere delay. Preserved energy without a reason to wait could become aimless endurance. The phrase 有待 holds condition and timing together.

Knowing oneself is not self-confidence

Modern readers may hear “know yourself” as a command to list strengths and weaknesses. Here the object is moving. The state of an army changes through the day and across a campaign. Knowledge of oneself must therefore be renewed.

This point continues an interest visible nearby in the lower scroll. Li Jing discusses the Sunzi saying that morning energy is keen, midday energy slack, and evening energy intent on returning. He rejects a rigid clock and asks whether the enemy has in fact weakened after repeated drum signals. In both exchanges, received language must be tested against living troops.

Knowing oneself is thus the opposite of confident assertion. The defender must notice when cohesion is being lost and act before material defenses become irrelevant. A force that merely declares itself resolute has not necessarily guarded its energy.

The ruler and the general share a scale, not an office

The third line expands the argument. On the large scale it belongs to the ruler’s way; on the small scale it belongs to the general’s method. “Large” and “small” distinguish scope. They do not make generalship trivial.

A ruler confronts the disposition and endurance of a political community. A general confronts those of an army. In both cases, external arrangements can look sound while the people within them are becoming doubtful or divided. Authority cannot be maintained by structures alone.

The statement also prevents “attack the mind” from becoming a clever trick reserved for one siege. The same relation between outward order and inward condition extends from command in the field to rule on a wider scale.

How the passage rereads the Sunzi

“Know the other and know oneself” is memorable partly because it is compact. Its compactness also invites vagueness. What counts as knowing? Which observations matter? What should knowledge change?

Questions and Replies answers by distributing the pair across opposing actions. Knowledge of the other belongs to an effort directed at the enemy’s mind. Knowledge of oneself belongs to preserving one’s own energy. Information is not the end of either task. It must alter conduct.

This is not a replacement for the Sunzi. It is an interpretation performed through verbs. Li Jing makes the familiar nouns operational without pretending that one formula supplies every method.

What four lines can and cannot establish

The excerpt establishes a double insufficiency. Attacking walls and formations is not enough for the attacker. Repairing walls and firming formations is not enough for the defender. Human judgment and collective energy remain part of war even when fortifications dominate the scene.

It does not establish a universal list of psychological tactics. It does not tell us that material strength is secondary in every circumstance. Nor does it provide an administrative program for rulers. Those conclusions would require other passages and other evidence.

Within its limits, the text makes a strong claim. Knowing the enemy and knowing oneself are not mirror images. One knowledge reaches toward an opposing will; the other protects the condition from which one’s own side can continue to act. The balance of the sentence contains an asymmetry of responsibility.

Source

Questions and Replies between Tang Taizong and Li Weigong (唐太宗李衛公問對), lower scroll, exchange connecting knowledge of the enemy and self with attacking the mind and guarding one’s energy. The Chinese was checked in Waseda University Library’s Tang Taizong Li Weigong Wendui, three scrolls, call number 文庫19 F0103, an edition based on Genkitsu’s 1606 movable-type text. The passage appears on PDF image 34. Punctuation and the four editorial line breaks have been supplied for readability.