Guest Warfare

AnonymousBashu Publishing House · ChinaJun 2024

2.4

Word count: 376 words
Chapters: 2

Summary

Guest Warfare is a military treatise recorded in the ancient Chinese military book Hundred Battles and Strange Strategies. It aims to explain the issues that a “guest army” conducting offensive operations deep into enemy territory should pay attention to and master. It holds that when attacking an enemy defending its own territory, only by fighting deep in the enemy’s heartland can one defeat the enemy without being defeated by the enemy.

Editor's review

Guest Warfare comes from Hundred Battles and Strange Strategies and is devoted to the way of the “guest army” fighting deep in enemy territory. Its core is “depth brings concentration”: once troops enter the enemy’s heartland, their minds are focused and they have no way back, so they can instead unleash stronger fighting power and thus defeat the enemy defending its territory without being defeated by the enemy. The text unfolds around how a guest army can steady morale, choose the direction of advance, and seize the opportune moment for battle. It is concise yet clearly structured, reflecting the ancient strategists’ profound insight into offensive and defensive postures and psychological factors. For today’s readers, this chapter is both a window into traditional military thought and a perspective for thinking about how to concentrate will and take the initiative under resource disadvantage, and it can be read by analogy in scenarios such as management decision-making and competitive strategy. This Bashu Publishing House edition is easy to carry and suitable as an entry chapter for thematic reading of Hundred Battles and Strange Strategies; it is also suitable for reading alongside Harmful Warfare to understand the logic of troop use at both the offensive and defensive ends.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers interested in ancient Chinese military books and military thought
Managers who want to draw competitive and decision-making insights from traditional military texts
Thematic learners who are systematically reading the chapters of Hundred Battles and Strange Strategies

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting modern warfare cases and a practical operations manual
Beginners with no foundation in classical Chinese reading who are unwilling to use annotations

Reading tips

First read the original text, then compare the different handling of guest and host armies in other chapters of Hundred Battles and Strange Strategies
While reading, pay attention to the psychological logic of “depth brings concentration” and try to connect it with your own work situation in notes
Read this chapter alongside Harmful Warfare to grasp the logic of troop use at both the offensive and defensive ends

About the publisher

Bashu Publishing House China · Founded in 1983

Bashu Publishing House is a publisher centered on collating and publishing classical Chinese cultural texts, with its main publishing areas covering classical literature, Eastern philosophy, ancient poetry, and educational classics. Its library currently holds 1,075 titles, including representative works such as Dream of the Red Chamber, the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering, Renjian Cihua, and Out to the Frontier, involving authors such as Cao Xueqin, Wang Xizhi, Wang Guowei, Wang Changling, Liu Xie, and Yan Yu. These reflect the publisher's focus on literary classics, poetry criticism, and philosophical readings. Its publishing character lies in working around ancient texts and canonical works, with attention to textual collation and presentation. Public information on its more detailed publishing background and series plans is limited; this introduction is based only on the library's book information.

版权信息
客战

FAQ

What exactly does the “guest army” in “guest warfare” refer to?

The “guest army” refers to an army that leaves its own territory and fights within enemy territory, as opposed to the “host army” defending its own territory. This chapter discusses precisely the principles a guest army should grasp when fighting deep in enemy territory, the core being to use the situation of having advanced deep with no retreat to concentrate morale and seize the initiative.

Is this military treatise suitable for modern general readers?

Yes. It is short and focused in discussion. Although set against ancient warfare, its thinking about morale, lines of retreat, and weighing decisions is transferable. As long as they use basic annotations to understand the original text, general readers can also draw inspiration from it without professional military knowledge.

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About the author

Anonymous Author

Anonymous is not a real personal name but a general Chinese designation for authors whose names are unknown, lost, or unsigned. Neither nationality nor dates of birth and death can be verified, and available public information is limited, so the works attributed to this name are the only basis for description. The collection holds 2,078 works under Anonymous, spanning medicine, classics, historical readings, ancient poetry, classical literature, and philosophy. Representative works include The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon: Lingshu, Mencius, The Book of Documents, Nineteen Old Poems, Complete Song Ci, and The Peacock Flies Southeast. Most of these works took shape through long transmission and editing, emerging either from collective folk creation or from authors whose names were lost over time. In ancient China, the Book of Songs, the Great Learning, and many popular storybooks and plays were signed Anonymous because their authors could not be traced. Anonymous works cross the classics, histories, philosophical writings, medical texts, and poetry; their subjects are broad, and their styles vary from archaic simplicity to clear naturalness, making them important and influential sources for understanding ancient Chinese thought, medicine, and literature.