TAOSIM AND WARFARE
In ancient China, a religious movement called Taoism began to rise up in 570 B.C. This religious movement was focused on the individual person’s ability to act or lack thereof. Around 600 B.C. a man referred to as Lao Tzu spear headed Taoism into China’s main stream religious ideology. As Taoism started to influence people in China, writers such as Sun Tzu who was a general in the Wu dynasty began to use Lao Tzu ideas on spontaneously and abjuring high ambitions to come up with a book called the Art of War. Sun Tzu’s book the Art of War was a step by step way to win a war without even fighting or using minimal troops to accomplish the same task. These ideas helped small unit tactics and was adopted by a man Mao Tse-Tung. …show more content…
The man that is contributed to the rise of Taoism was Lao Tzu. Even though Lao Tzu in contributed to the foundation of Taoism he is most famous for the Book called Daodejing (Tao Te Ching). In this book Lao explain idea such as Ineffability of genesis, Mysterious female, Returning, Emptiness, Knowledge and humility and Interpretations. The first section starts off with Ineffability of genesis this the creation myth and a period before time and space. This is where you get the name Tao or the “Way”. The Next section called the Mysterious Female is about the balance of your masculinity and your femininity as one like Yin and Yang. The next section called Returning is about the golden age and returning to the past before human culture and civilization. The next is called Emptiness which is about the power of nothingness. This is about form of emptiness and not wants or desires anything, but accept what you have now. The last section is called Knowledge and humility which is about the way a person should pursue knowledge. A follower of Tao should not learn from desire and one should learning more about themselves. The teaching of Lao Tzu spread quickly because the population was under an empire that did not allow room for individual growth. Out of this teach a man named Sun Tzu would take tents from Taoism and write a book that would appeal to the population of China. This book would be called the Art of …show more content…
This book is based on a man named Liu An and shows how the Han dynasty conducted warfare. This book is broken down in six sections. The first section is called the terrain of life and death. This section links the perspective of the perspective of the aristocracy of china which was “the view of the battlefield as a sacred space where is it was as much religious as it was tactical in nature” (Meyer 2012). The next section of the Huainanzi is called Root and Branches. In this section is about how to keep a large army coherent. This section goes on to explain the principle of the root-branches which was “the one gave birth to the two, the two gave birth to the three, the three gave birth to the myriad things” (Meyer 2012). This is the beginning of the polarities of yin and yang and explains that the “The way is the root; All contingent phenomena are branches” (Meyer 2012). This idea is so important the next section called Sustain the Perishing, Revive the Extinct if a war is fought without the Way the aggressor will fail in its conquest. Also in this section of Huainanzi is the idea “the sacrosanct sovereignty of the regional states is the root on which all military power is founded, and thus any strategy that exceeds those organic constraints will become self-subverting” (Meyer 2012). This is means that the military is the root but strategy is like the branches which must grow and change and not stay the
In ancient China, a religious movement called Taoism began to rise up in 570 B.C. This religious movement was focused on the individual person’s ability to act or lack thereof. Around 600 B.C. a man referred to as Lao Tzu spear headed Taoism into China’s main stream religious ideology. As Taoism started to influence people in China, writers such as Sun Tzu who was a general in the Wu dynasty began to use Lao Tzu ideas on spontaneously and abjuring high ambitions to come up with a book called the Art of War. Sun Tzu’s book the Art of War was a step by step way to win a war without even fighting or using minimal troops to accomplish the same task. These ideas helped small unit tactics and was adopted by a man Mao Tse-Tung. …show more content…
The man that is contributed to the rise of Taoism was Lao Tzu. Even though Lao Tzu in contributed to the foundation of Taoism he is most famous for the Book called Daodejing (Tao Te Ching). In this book Lao explain idea such as Ineffability of genesis, Mysterious female, Returning, Emptiness, Knowledge and humility and Interpretations. The first section starts off with Ineffability of genesis this the creation myth and a period before time and space. This is where you get the name Tao or the “Way”. The Next section called the Mysterious Female is about the balance of your masculinity and your femininity as one like Yin and Yang. The next section called Returning is about the golden age and returning to the past before human culture and civilization. The next is called Emptiness which is about the power of nothingness. This is about form of emptiness and not wants or desires anything, but accept what you have now. The last section is called Knowledge and humility which is about the way a person should pursue knowledge. A follower of Tao should not learn from desire and one should learning more about themselves. The teaching of Lao Tzu spread quickly because the population was under an empire that did not allow room for individual growth. Out of this teach a man named Sun Tzu would take tents from Taoism and write a book that would appeal to the population of China. This book would be called the Art of …show more content…
This book is based on a man named Liu An and shows how the Han dynasty conducted warfare. This book is broken down in six sections. The first section is called the terrain of life and death. This section links the perspective of the perspective of the aristocracy of china which was “the view of the battlefield as a sacred space where is it was as much religious as it was tactical in nature” (Meyer 2012). The next section of the Huainanzi is called Root and Branches. In this section is about how to keep a large army coherent. This section goes on to explain the principle of the root-branches which was “the one gave birth to the two, the two gave birth to the three, the three gave birth to the myriad things” (Meyer 2012). This is the beginning of the polarities of yin and yang and explains that the “The way is the root; All contingent phenomena are branches” (Meyer 2012). This idea is so important the next section called Sustain the Perishing, Revive the Extinct if a war is fought without the Way the aggressor will fail in its conquest. Also in this section of Huainanzi is the idea “the sacrosanct sovereignty of the regional states is the root on which all military power is founded, and thus any strategy that exceeds those organic constraints will become self-subverting” (Meyer 2012). This is means that the military is the root but strategy is like the branches which must grow and change and not stay the