[This does not mean that the enemy is to be allowed to escape. The
object, as Tu Mu puts it, is "to make him believe that there is a road
to safety, and thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair."
Tu Mu adds pleasantly: "After that, you may crush him."]
Do not press a desperate foe too hard.
[Ch’en Hao quotes the saying: "Birds and beasts when brought to bay
will use their claws and teeth." Chang Yu says: "If your adversary has
burned his boats and destroyed his cooking-pots, and is ready to stake
all on the issue of a battle, he must not be pushed to extremities." Ho
Shih illustrates the meaning by a story taken from the life of
Yen-ch’ing. That general, together with his colleague Tu Chung-wei was
surrounded by a vastly superior army of Khitans in the year 945 A.D.
The country was bare and desert-like, and the little Chinese force was
soon in dire straits for want of water. The wells they bored ran dry,
and the men were reduced to squeezing lumps of mud and sucking out the
moisture. Their ranks thinned rapidly, until at last Fu Yen-ch’ing
exclaimed: "We are desperate men. Far better to die for our country
than to go with fettered hands into captivity!" A strong gale happened
to be blowing from the northeast and darkening the air with dense
clouds of sandy dust. To Chung-wei was for waiting until this had
abated before deciding on a final attack; but luckily another officer,
Li Shou-cheng by name, was quicker to see an opportunity, and said:
"They are many and we are few, but in the midst of this sandstorm our
numbers will not be discernible; victory will go to the strenuous
fighter, and the wind will be our best ally." Accordingly, Fu
Yen-ch’ing made a sudden and wholly unexpected onslaught with his
cavalry, routed the barbarians and succeeded in breaking through to
safety.]