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35. It is the business of a general to be quiet and thus ensure

secrecy; upright and just, and thus maintain order.

36. He must be able to mystify his officers and men by false

reports and appearances,

[Literally, "to deceive their eyes and ears."]

and thus keep them in total ignorance.

[Ts'ao Kung gives us one of his excellent apophthegms: "The

troops must not be allowed to share your schemes in the

beginning; they may only rejoice with you over their happy

outcome." "To mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy," is one

of the first principles in war, as had been frequently pointed

out. But how about the other process-the mystification of one's

own men? Those who may think that Sun Tzŭ is over-emphatic on

this point would do well to read Col. Henderson's remarks on

Stonewall Jackson's Valley campaign: "The infinite pains," he

says, "with which Jackson sought to conceal, even from his most

trusted staff officers, his movements, his intentions, and his

thoughts, a commander less thorough would have pronounced

useless"-etc. etc. [3] In the year 88 A.D., as we read in ch. 47

of the _Hou Han Shu_, "Pan Ch'ao took the field with 25,000 men

from Khotan and other Central Asian states with the object of

crushing Yarkand.