孙膑 / Sun Bin
孙膑 / Sun Bin enters the wiki through 《资治通鉴·周纪》16丨孙膑庞涓恩怨纠葛 桂陵之战, where he is the strategist behind 田忌赛马 and 围魏救赵. The episode first presents him as 庞涓’s fellow student under 鬼谷子, then as the victim of Pang Juan’s trap in 魏国.
The source stresses Sun Bin’s recovery of agency after punishment. A 齐国 envoy secretly brings him out of Wei, 田忌 treats him as a guest, and his reading of the horse races reveals his method: classify available resources, accept a local loss, and arrange matchups so the total contest can be won.
In the military branch, 齐威王 first wants him to command the rescue of 赵国, but Sun Bin says his mutilation and disability make immediate army authority difficult. He therefore becomes Tian Ji’s military adviser and redirects Qi away from a direct rescue march toward an attack on 大梁, leading to 桂陵之战.
《资治通鉴·周纪》19丨马陵之战 extends Sun Bin from the Guiling pattern into the 马陵之战 setup. He advises 齐威王 not to rescue 韩国 too early, turning intervention timing into delayed rescue statecraft. After Qi enters the war, he again targets 大梁 and then designs the next move around forced-march risk, using Wei’s contempt for Qi to lure 庞涓 into costly pursuit.
《资治通鉴·周纪》20丨庞涓死此树下 narrates the execution of that plan. Sun Bin uses 减灶诱敌 to make Pang Juan believe Qi troops are deserting, then chooses Maling as the ambush site, writes the fatal message on a stripped tree, and orders crossbowmen to fire when they see torchlight. The episode also says 《孙膑兵法》 gives the ambush a field-engineering layer, with chariots serving as walls and caltrops as a moat.
《资治通鉴·周纪》21丨邹忌下阴招 田忌国外避难 moves Sun Bin from battlefield adviser to political-crisis adviser. When 成侯邹忌’s treason accusation trap reaches 田忌, Sun Bin proposes rushing Yongmen before it closes and turning the accusation into a sudden counterattack. Tian Ji refuses and flees to 楚国, so Sun Bin’s final role in this arc is as a strategist whose high-risk political counterstroke is not adopted.
《资治通鉴·周纪》23丨魏惠王 悔不用公叔之言 uses Sun Bin as a comparison point for 公孙鞅 / 商鞅. The episode argues that Sun Bin’s tricks, especially 减灶诱敌, have greater military-method value because they are structurally reusable and do not destroy personal credibility in the same way as Shang Yang’s parley trap.
Connections
- 庞涓 and 鬼谷子 - fellow student and teacher branch in the source.
- 田忌, 齐威王, and 齐国 - Qi patronage and command setting.
- Tian Ji Horse Racing / 田忌赛马, Lure Enemy Out of Position / 诱敌离位, Encircling Wei to Rescue Zhao / 围魏救赵, Delayed Rescue Statecraft / 晚救权谋, Forced-March Operational Risk / 急行军作战风险, Decreasing Stoves Deception / 减灶诱敌, and 战术信用成本 - strategic patterns and later comparison attributed to him in the episodes.
- 桂陵之战, 马陵之战, 魏国, 赵国, 韩国, 大梁, and 邯郸 - campaign setting.
- 《孙膑兵法》, 《孙子兵法》, and Historical Detective Reasoning - military-text and textual-evidence branch.
- 成侯邹忌, Treason Accusation Trap / 谋反指控陷阱, and 楚国 - post-Maling court crisis and exile branch.