Status Updates From The Seven Military Classics...

Brilliant! I have bought over the years as a gift and read myself. My favorite part is the six secret teachings of the Tai Kung.

I learned about the brilliance of Crow and Cloud formation, the ways to tell if someone is dishonest with you, the nature of man and war. So many things.

A lot of mentions of fortifications, especially field fortifications. The earlier works (e.g. The Art of War) often referred to "feudal lords" as if they were a part of the terrain.

2 page end note about the historicity of Wu Tzu

Realizing that agent Cooper's outlines his methods (in the second episode of Twin Peaks) in a similar way to Sun Tzu.

I like how the word "Shih" (勢) has a 4-page long endnote explaining its usage and meaning in Sun Tzu's Art of War. Also, I think I like Pinyin better than Wade-Giles.

The ancients loved their lists: the five grains, the five weapons, the six animals, etc...

King Wu's constant response of "Excellent" to T'ai Kung's suggestions/lectures makes me wonder if he is actually Bill and/or Ted transported from the Future and improbably set up as a king in Early Chou era ancient China. Meanwhile, T'ai Kung's list of army equipment that the army needs reads like some sort of ancient Dept of Defense wish-list.

The instructions for how to subvert a state in T'ai Kung's Six Secret Teachings (under Martial Secret Teachings) could be a general description of the current politics of the United States.

Great historical background corroborated by modern archeological discoveries. I’m working my way through the long introductions of the Six Secret Teachings of T’ai Kung.

"Anger can revert to happiness, annoyance can revert to joy, but a vanquished state cannot be revived, and the dead cannot be brought back to life." - Art of Way

"When one is victorious without exposing his armor, it is the ruler's victory; when victory comes from deploying [the army], it is the general's victory." - Wei-Liao Zi