Sun Tzu's Art of War has been handed down as a work of Sun Wu since the Han Dynasty, and its completion time is considered to be at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period. However, since the Song Dynasty, many people have raised objections that the ideological content of the book has a strong Warring States color, and it is doubtful whether the author is Sun Wu. Mei, a famous annotator of Sun Zi in the Northern Song Dynasty, first put forward this theory. Ye Shi in the Southern Song Dynasty was inspired by the theory of Mei, and speculated that Sun Zi was written in the mountains at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period and the beginning of the Warring States Period. His words were used by Wu, but they were exaggerated. Influenced by the viewpoints of Mei and Ye, there are many questions in later generations, among which "Sun Bin's Theory" has the greatest influence. This theory was mainly put forward by some Chinese and Japanese scholars in modern times. They think that Sun Wu, as mentioned by the Han people, can't be found in the ancient books of the pre-Qin period, and there are many doubts, which may have evolved from the legend of Sun Bin. It is suspected that Sun Tzu's Art of War is a masterpiece in the Spring and Autumn Period, and Qi Sihe's textual research on the writing time of Sun Tzu's Art of War was in the late 1930s. In this paper, the time of writing Sun Zi is determined as the Warring States period from the aspects of terms and writing styles such as combat mode, scale and time of war, military system, etc. But at the same time, it refutes "Sun Bin's theory" and points out that there are two original art of war in Han Dynasty, Sun Wu and Sun Bin, which cannot be confused. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the academic circles in China had some discussions about the writing time and author of Sun Tzu. The popular view is that the Art of War was written by Sun Wu and Sun Bin. There is a compromise between the old and the new, but there are still different opinions in academic circles. A more reasonable view is that The Art of War is a summary of the military thought and war experience of the Sun Tzu School, and its basic writing time should be in the Warring States Period. This can be confirmed by the content of the Art of War itself.
There are thirteen complete books of Sun Tzu. Among them, Ji talked about temple calculation, that is, before sending troops, we compared the situation of the enemy and ourselves in the temple, predicted the outcome of the war and made a battle plan. This is the procedure of the whole book. "War" is about the mobilization of war after the calculation of the temple. "Conspiracy for attack" is about attacking the city with ingenuity, that is, not relying solely on force to storm, but using various means to force the defensive enemy to surrender. "Shape" and "potential" are two basic factors that determine the outcome of a war: "Shape" refers to objective, stable and easy-to-see factors, such as the strength of combat effectiveness and the material preparation for a war; "Potential" refers to subjective, changeable and accidental factors, such as the distribution of troops, morale and courage. "Reality" is about how to disperse and assemble, surround and detour, and cause us to strengthen the enemy and weaken the enemy at the scheduled battle site, "outnumber the enemy" and "avoid reality and attack the weak". The battle of the army is about how to "take detour as a straight line" and "take suffering as an advantage" to seize the combat advantage. The "Nine Changes" is about the general adopting different strategies and tactics according to different situations. Marching is about how to camp and observe the enemy during marching. Terrain is about six different operational terrains and their corresponding tactical requirements. "Nine Places" is about formulating nine operational environments and corresponding tactical requirements according to the situation of "subject and object" and the degree of penetration into the enemy. Fire attack is auxiliary fire. Housing is about the cooperative use of five kinds of spies. The book is concise and philosophical, which has had a far-reaching impact on the use of troops and the teaching of military equipment in the past dynasties. Many well-known sayings still make sense today.
According to Sima Qian, the first edition of Sunzi in the early Han Dynasty was the same as today's edition, but there were other lost Sunzi that were popular at that time. These lost articles, Sun Zi, were originally independent books, but they were revised by Hong Ren at the end of the Western Han Dynasty and merged with the above thirteen articles into one book, resulting in a sudden increase in the number of articles, reaching 82 articles and 9 volumes. This kind of book was popular in the Three Kingdoms period. Cao Cao, Emperor Wu of Wei, specially compiled a simplified annotated edition with only thirteen articles, and deleted all the lost articles added in the late Western Han Dynasty. These lost articles "Sun Zi" were still circulated in the form of a single book in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and all of them died later. Therefore, Du Mu, a native of the Tang Dynasty, said: "Wu's books have hundreds of thousands of words. Cao Wei and Wu Di cut them out and wrote them carefully. Thirteen articles were all compiled into one." In the past, many people doubted this statement, and some people assumed that the grandson was Cao Cao's crocodile tears, which lacked evidence.
After the appearance of Cao Zhuben, many people commented on Sun Zi, but there are only three most important versions that have been handed down so far: ① Wei Wudi Zhuzi, a copy of the Song Dynasty, was included in the series of Ping Jin Ting, which was originally collected by the chief of Qing Valley. This book is Cao Zhuben, and it still keeps the appearance of a separate book. (2) Sun Tzu, the Song version of Five Classics and Seven Books, is included in the series of Continuation of Ancient Changes and is now in Japan. This book was revised by Zhu Fu and He Feifei in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and a large number of martial arts textbooks in later generations were copied from this book. (3) The Song Edition of Notes to the Sun by Eleven Scholars has been collected in Beijing Library and Shanghai Library, and now it is photocopied by Zhonghua Book Company. The book was originally published in Song Jitianbao's Notes of Ten Suns' Meeting. Ten authors, such as Wei, Liang Mengshi, Tang Lizhou, Du Mu,,,, He, and Zhang Yu, as well as Du You of Tang Dynasty, cited eleven small notes, which are attached at the end of the book.
There are many works on Sun Tzu compiled and studied by predecessors. Among the people who study Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Sun Tzu's Examination and Sun Tzu's Bibliography written by Sister Lu are the most abundant. Ten Rules of the Art of War edited by Sun Xingyan in Qing Dynasty is famous for its connection with ancient sentences. In terms of annotation, Close People has made some achievements in quoting Chinese and foreign military history, sorting out old annotations, dredging the meaning of words and evaluating ideas.
Performance; In terms of lost collections, the late Qing Dynasty collected lost copies of Sun Zi, including Sun Zi LULU, Three Generations of Yan Kejun, Records of the Three Kingdoms in the Six Dynasties of Qin and Han Dynasties, Lost Books of Ma Guohan and Han Yushan, and Lost Classics of Wang Renjun. In addition, the China Philosophy Research Office of Northeastern University also compiled the Sun Tzu Index.
1972 in April, bamboo slips "The Art of War by Sun Zi" and "The Art of War by Sun Bin" were unearthed in the No.1 Han Tomb of Ephemera Mountain in Linyi, Shandong Province, which confirmed the records of Wu Sunzi and Qi Sunzi in Historical Records in the early Han Dynasty and clarified some people's misunderstandings on this issue. There are many different languages in the bamboo slips of Sunzi, but they are close to the quotations scattered in the old books of Han and Tang Dynasties, and are valuable materials for understanding the spread and collation of Sunzi. In addition, wooden slips and five items lost by grandchildren were unearthed in the tomb. Mu Xie divided Thirteen Chapters of Sun Tzu into the first six chapters and the last seven chapters, which were called "Seven Potentials", and the arrangement of each chapter was different from that of today's edition. The five lost articles in Sunzi provide new clues for studying the lost articles in Sunzi in the early Han Dynasty. Many researchers have used this new material to write new annotated books and research articles.