existence in 505, before which date Yueh does not appear to have
scored any notable success against Wu. Ho Lu died in 496, so
that if the book was written for him, it must have been during
the period 505-496, when there was a lull in the hostilities, Wu
having presumably exhausted by its supreme effort against Ch`u.
On the other hand, if we choose to disregard the tradition
connecting Sun Wu's name with Ho Lu, it might equally well have
seen the light between 496 and 494, or possibly in the period
482-473, when Yueh was once again becoming a very serious menace.
[33] We may feel fairly certain that the author, whoever he may
have been, was not a man of any great eminence in his own day.
On this point the negative testimony of the TSO CHUAN far
outweighs any shred of authority still attaching to the SHIH CHI,
if once its other facts are discredited. Sun Hsing-yen, however,
makes a feeble attempt to explain the omission of his name from
the great commentary. It was Wu Tzu-hsu, he says, who got all
the credit of Sun Wu's exploits, because the latter (being an
alien) was not rewarded with an office in the State.
How then did the Sun Tzu legend originate? It may be that
the growing celebrity of the book imparted by degrees a kind of
factitious renown to its author. It was felt to be only right
and proper that one so well versed in the science of war should
have solid achievements to his credit as well. Now the capture
of Ying was undoubtedly the greatest feat of arms in Ho Lu's
reign; it made a deep and lasting impression on all the
surrounding states, and raised Wu to the short-lived zenith of
her power. Hence, what more natural, as time went on, than that
the acknowledged master of strategy, Sun Wu, should be popularly
identified with that campaign, at first perhaps only in the sense
that his brain conceived and planned it; afterwards, that it was