Sun Bin was a military strategist who lived during the Warring States Period of Chinese history. An alleged descendant of Sun Tzu, Sun Bin was tutored in military strategy by the hermit Guiguzi. He was accused of treason while serving in the Wei state and was sentenced to face-tattooing (criminal branding) and had his kneecaps removed, rendering him a handicap for the rest of his life.
Education
An alleged descendant of Sun Tzu, Sun Bin was recognized for his brilliance at an early age, while he was still studying military strategy under the tutelage of the hermit Guiguzi. He could recite The Art of War, which made Guiguzi remark that all his other students should look up to Sun Bin as a role model. Pang Juan, a fellow student of Sun Bin, became sworn brothers with Sun. Pang left early and went to serve the Wei state as a military general, making his name after scoring victories in a few battles. Sun Bin, who was still studying with their teacher then, was invited to enter the service of Wei and he became Pang's colleague. However, Pang was secretly jealous of Sun, because he perceived that Sun Bin was more talented, and had learnt more about military strategy from their teacher than him.
Career
The first battle began when his old rival, General Pang, led a large army to lay siege to the state of Zhao. To help the Zhao state with Qi’s small army, Sun Bin advised General Tian Ji to besiege Wei’s capital, while all the elite Wei troops were away. Sun also further refined this plan by first sending small, weak troops to attack important Wei military bases. These battles ended in the “defeat” of the Qi troops, which inflated the arrogance of General Pang. Qi then used elite forces to attack Wei’s capital. Once he realized the true situation, Pang hastened his army’s retreat to defend his capital. His army was ambushed by Sun half-way, and Pang suffered huge losses due to exhaustion and unpreparedness. “Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao,” or the strategy of relieving the besieged by besieging the base of the besiegers, is the 2nd of 36 stratagems listed in Chinese military classics.
The second battle, the final one between Sun and Pang, happened 13 years later. When the King of Wei commanded Pang to lay siege to the Han state with his large army, Sun attacked his base with a small army again. Having learned from his last lesson, Pang raced back to the capital, only this time he was more prepared. Yet, Sun’s army retreated back to the Qi state. Seeking revenge for his last defeat, Pang had his army pursue Sun. This time, Sun devised the new trick of “reducing stoves.” Every day, Sun’s army was ordered to significantly decrease the number of the campfires and cooking stoves. When General Pang noticed this, he believed that the morale of Sun’s army was low, and a large number of soldiers were defecting.
In his eagerness to capture Sun, whom Pang knew to be disabled and moving slowly, Pang took only a small, elite force to chase him. Sun Bin predicted that, by nightfall, Pang’s personal troops would arrive at a narrow valley, a perfect place for an ambush. Sun ordered his soldiers to remove the bark from a big tree trunk near the road and inscribe the words “Pang Juan dies here,” and then to chop down all other trees and lay them all over the road. Next, he ordered his camouflaged archers to wait nearby; ready to shoot every arrow they had at the first sight of fire near the tree trunk. When General Pang reached the spot and lit a torch to read the message on the tree, hundreds of arrows flew at him. Knowing his fate was sealed with such heavy injury, Pang took his own life, with his sword, next to the tree.
