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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: Tu Yu says: "Burn your baggage and impedimenta, throw away
your stores and provisions, choke up the wells, destroy your
cooking-stoves, and make it plain to your men that they cannot
survive, but must fight to the death." Mei Yao-ch`en says: "The
only chance of life lies in giving up all hope of it." This
concludes what Sun Tzu has to say about "grounds" and the
"variations" corresponding to them. Reviewing the passages which
bear on this important subject, we cannot fail to be struck by
the desultory and unmethodical fashion in which it is treated.
Sun Tzu begins abruptly in VIII. ss. 2 to enumerate "variations"
before touching on "grounds" at all, but only mentions five,
 The Art of War |