Key Arguments

• Maintaining distant armies forces contributions that impoverish the people
• The presence of armies raises prices, draining the people’s substance
• Depletion of private substance leads to heavy exactions on the peasantry
• Sun Tzu quantifies the drain: significant fractions of private income and state revenue are dissipated by war-related costs

Source Quotes

Poverty of the State exchequer causes an army to be maintained by contributions from a distance. Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes the people to be impoverished. 11.

11. On the other hand, the proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause the people’s substance to be drained away. 12.

12. When their substance is drained away, the peasantry will be afflicted by heavy exactions. 13, 14.

13, 14. With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the homes of the people will be stripped bare, and three-tenths of their income will be dissipated; while government expenses for broken chariots, worn-out horses, breast-plates and helmets, bows and arrows, spears and shields, protective mantles, draught-oxen and heavy wagons, will amount to four-tenths of its total revenue. 15.

Key Concepts

• Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes the people to be impoverished.
• the proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause the people’s substance to be drained away.
• the peasantry will be afflicted by heavy exactions.
• three-tenths of their income will be dissipated; while government expenses for broken chariots, worn-out horses, breast-plates and helmets, bows and arrows, spears and shields, protective mantles, draught-oxen and heavy wagons, will amount to four-tenths of its total revenue.

Context

ii. Waging War (lines 125–175); economic and social consequences of campaigning