Ho Shih says: 'Haste may be stupid, but at any rate it saves expenditure of energy and treasure protracted operations may be very clever, but they bring calamity in their train.' Wang Hsi evades the difficulty by remarking: 'Lengthy operations mean an army growing old, wealth being expended, an empty exchequer and distress among the people true cleverness insures against the occurrence of such calamities.' Chang Yu says: 'So long as victory can be attained, stupid haste is preferable to clever dilatoriness.' Now Sun Tzu says nothing whatever, except possibly by implication, about ill-considered haste being better than ingenious but lengthy operations. Ts`ao Kung, Li Ch`uan, Meng Shih, Tu Yu, Tu Mu and Mei Yao-ch`en have notes to the effect that a general, though naturally stupid, may nevertheless conquer through sheer force of rapidity.
This concise and difficult sentence is not well explained by any of the commentators. Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.
