Comparing: Dust
The Art of War 9:4.15-23 Notice the dust.
This post continues our project explaining each stanza of Sun Tzu’s work. The English translation and Chinese transliterations are from my award-winning book, The Art of War and The Ancient Chinese Revealed.
The ideas explained in this article are from the last stanza of Section Four of Chapter 9 of The Art of War. This chapter is entitled Armed March. Its general topic is making competitive moves that advance our positions. It is one of the longest and most detailed chapters in the work.
This part of the book tells us how to translate what we see happening in our surroundings. We can see disturbances in the environment as information about movements that others are trying to hide. The earlier parts of this section dealt with vegetation and animals reactions to movement. This stanza deals with interpreting dust.
In the lines below, we summarize each Chinese character with a single English word shown in < > brackets in their original order. This transliteration of the Chinese is followed by an English sentence translation.
Dust
Nothing moves without kicking up some type of “dust.” We should take dust as an analogy for small pieces of information. These are bits of information that are so small that they seem to have no value. This information is do small it seems random and disconnected, something most people disregard. We can call it “evidence, but it only testifies that someone was moving. However, even though each item of evidence is small, together they form a cloud. Where this cloud is and its shape tells us things that are important about how others are moving, even if each bit of information in it doesn’t tell us anything.
People Coming
Without knowing directly what others are doing, we can get a general idea of their actions by:
1) the amount of dust, the size of the evidence cloud of activity we see,
2) the pattern of that evidence, the shape of the evidence cloud, and
3) by its increase or decrease.
<Dust>
Notice the dust.
This single word on a line indicates the topic of the section. His raising the topic without saying anything about, but this say something about “dust.” Each bit of dust carries little information. We do not collect dust for analysis. This dust is one of the reasons why Sun Tzu generally advises against collecting every bit of information and trying to put it together. This effort takes too much time and cannot give us much actionable knowledge.
One of the definitions of “dirt” is negative news about someone or something. This type of news is only negative in the sense that it is only valuable in the aggregate. A single piece of dirt is useless. Only in a large group, a patch of eargg, is the dirt fertile. The same is true of dust, clouds of news with very little content.
Sun Tzu was specifically referring to the type of dust raise by anyone traveling on dry roads. The dry season was when most wars were fought in ancient China. Dust is a feature of level plains and mountains. It is not a feature on marshes or when crossing water.
The general advice implied is that we must to pay attention to the dust, rather than follow our natural inclination to ignore it because we are constantly surrounded by dust.
<It> <sometimes> <rises> <high> <in> <a> <straight> <line>
It sometimes rises high in a straight line.
Sun Tzu now lists different types of evidence clouds and what they mean. The first type of cloud is described as:
The amount of dust is great, rising high into the air.
The pattern of that evidence is a straight line, indicating the direction of the movements goal.
It is neither growing or shrinking but continuing.
This type of cloud means:
<Cart> <come> <also>
Vehicles are coming.
In Sun Tzu’s era, this powerful, direct cloud would have indicated the movement of vehicles. Vehicles represent the movement not only of people but resources. The movement of resources always show a bigger “cloud” of “dirt.” The movement of resources also indicates the desire of to build up a position in a different place.
People can also come in another way.
<Low> <and> <yet> <wide> <is>
The dust appears low in a wide band.
Here is a new pattern:
The amount of dust is less, only rising low into the air.
The pattern of that dust is a broad band, indicating slower movement in the direction of the goal.
It is neither growing or shrinking, but continuing forward.
<Foot> <come> <also>
Foot soldiers are coming.
Resources are moved by carts. Men move themselves. This<also> seems to indicate that both the vehicles and men are coming at the same time. They are both supporting each other.
<Scattered> <and> <yet> <linear> <attain> <is>
Another new pattern:
The amount of dust is less, much less.
The pattern of those dust clouds is scattered, but it is moving toward form a line. a defensive perimeter.
The amount is neither growing or shrinking and not moving forward.
Since news of the competitors are scattered in different areas, and their new positions form a line. To me, this indicates that they are researching a new territory, collecting information about it.
<Wood> <gathered> <also>
The dust seems scattered in different areas.
The first question about any new territory is whether of not it will pay. “Wood” is the most basic resource in Sun Tzu’s era, need to feed the fires needed for cooking and warmth at night. This indicates that they are either creating a temporary camp or beginning a new, more permanent position expanding their territory.
<Little> <and> <yet> <toward> <coming> <is>
Any dust is light and settling down.
This is the final situation.
The amount of dust next to nothing. Movement, other than movement in the camp has ceased.
The pattern of those dust clouds is scattered, but it is moving to form a line, a defensive perimeter.
The dust amount is settling down.
Since news of the competitors is dying out. They are no longer advancing or moving at all.
<Encampment> <army> <also>
The enemy is setting up camp.
They are using their resources to establish a new position, working on making it pay.