By chapter four, 少打无谓之仗 asks a colder question: if pressed today, do you fail first? Tactical Dispositions (军形) names the job Hard to defeat — 不可胜. Make yourself hard to defeat first. That work is yours.
Sun Tzu is blunt. The skillful fighter first makes himself invincible, then waits for the enemy to be vincible. Invincibility depends on oneself; the enemy’s vulnerability on him. You can secure yourself against defeat; you cannot make the other side offer you a win. Victory can be known; it cannot be forced.
This page is not a sales post about building a fortress to crush a rival. It is a stay-standing checklist. The live chapter says: make yourself hard to defeat first — not to crush someone, but so you need not rely on a hard fight. Read that chapter after this note.
What 军形 actually asks
Security against defeat implies defensive tactics; ability to defeat the enemy means taking the offensive. Standing on the defensive indicates insufficient strength; attacking, a superabundance. The good defender conceals himself under the ninefold earth; the good attacker moves from the ninefold heavens. Thus you may protect yourself and make your victory complete. Self-protection comes first. Completeness comes second. Attack without a shape that holds spends the next cycle early.
The skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy. Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory. “First victory” means the conditions are already in place. “First fight” means gambling conditions on a mood. On this teaching site that line does not license starting a fight “to see.” It means: when conditions are short, the default is hold; when you move, move because it reduces harm, not because it looks busy.
sun-tzu.ai folds this before the later moves of momentum and emptiness. 始计 asks whether to enter. 作战 asks for the stop date. 谋攻 asks whether force is needed. 军形 asks: if you must stand on the ground, is your shape already standing. Skip it, and 奇正 and 虚实 become idle: you hunt openings before you can hold.
Four checks
Open a blank page. Title it with the object, not with “I will win.”
- Object: the pressure that may arrive.
- The thin place: people, money, trust, or system — which fails first.
- One invincibility move: one condition you can finish this week that makes a hard fight unnecessary.
- Real opening or imagined: did they show it, or did you invent it.
- Judgment: hold or move. Hold when short. Move only if moving reduces harm.
If you cannot fill the five lines, you are not shaping. You are waiting for them to err. Waiting for them to err is not 军形.
Hard to defeat is not fear. It is a shape you can defend in the next review: when pressed, the house, the class, and the well are still there. The method page asks for three sentences: enter or stay out, what you verified, what would make the next cycle better. With invincibility work done, those three stay short.
What “tactical dispositions” wants in search
People searching tactical dispositions, Tactical Dispositions Sun Tzu, or 先为不可胜 are not asking for a table of contents. They want a usable judgment: make yourself hard to defeat first. The English chapter H1 is Hard to defeat. The Chinese H1 is 不可胜. This note is the long searchable edition of that same job, and it links back to the chapter as evidence.
Do not rewrite it as “how to stand unbeaten so you can press price.” Pressing price is force. 军形 wants the opposite: you need not press, because the shape already holds.
Teaching and in-house training write the same shape together. Contact is for a real conflict, a real class, or real content — not for help crushing a counterpart.
军形 is fourth because after enter, burn, and plan, the first job on the ground is not to fold. Kindness to people nearby and under heaven is the same move: become hard to defeat before you ask whether to move.
Invincibility is not a poster
Some teams turn “stand unbeaten” into a wall slogan. Tactical Dispositions is not a slogan. It asks for one finished move this week: who may void the work in the contract, who may change the class date, who may stop the job when the number nears the limit. Invincibility you cannot write down is a mood.
Victory can be known and yet not made. Known means you see your thin place and whether they actually show an opening. Not made means you cannot command them to show one. Treat the unmakeable as makeable and you mobilise a lie: invented numbers, false windows, and a shape that is still empty.
“Victory first, then battle,” on this teaching site, means: finish the shape, then decide whether to move. “Battle first, then look for victory” means: rush out, then hunt for a reason. Those two orders leave different next cycles.
If an older short note on tactical language already ranks a few impressions, keep its ranking sentences and add modules — the leizi rule for old pages still holds. The new long note carries the judgment clearly and links back to the chapter and the training pages.
How this feeds the rest of the site
Internal links matter more than another synonym for Sun Tzu. From this note, go to Tactical Dispositions for the judgment block and the classical evidence. Go to Laying Plans if the five factors are still fog. Go to Waging War if the burn has already started and you need a stop date. Go to Attack by Stratagem if the clash has not started and the plan or relationship can still change. Go to the method page for the three review sentences. Go to contact only for teaching, training, or content — not for a brief on crushing someone.
Search will keep sending encyclopedia queries at the homepage. That is fine. This note is for the smaller, takeable query: tactical dispositions as a job. Rank for the job. Let Wikipedia keep the biography.
A classroom version
Write the object on the board. Ask four questions out loud. Where do we fail first if pressed. What one condition makes a hard fight unnecessary. Is any opening real. Are we holding because we are short, or moving because moving reduces harm. Collect only the next verification. Do not collect a campaign plan. The chapter is satisfied when the room leaves with one shape-work item and a review time.