In War, the Grieving Side Wins
A rare piece of Taoist military ethics, arguing that an army which approaches war with sorrow rather than eagerness is the one likelier to prevail.
Chapter 69 quotes what appears to be an older strategic saying: better to be the guest than the host, better to retreat a foot than advance an inch — a preference for reaction over initiation that runs through the text's account of war. Laozi's central warning is that no disaster is greater than underestimating an opponent, because doing so risks losing "my treasures," the same compassion and restraint named in chapter 67. The chapter's famous closing claim, that when two armies meet in a matched contest the side that grieves wins, connects back to chapter 31, which states that weapons are instruments of ill omen to be used only when unavoidable and mourned with funeral rites even in victory. Together the two chapters make an unusual argument for a military text: an army that approaches battle with sorrow rather than eagerness is not weaker for it — its refusal to treat killing as glorious is precisely what the text credits with success.
Of two armies matched in strength, the one that grieves will win.
Chapters like this and ch. 31 sit uneasily next to the text's broader anti-militarism, and some scholars read the Tao Te Ching's military chapters as concessions to Warring States political realities rather than pure philosophy.
Tao Te Ching
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- What Taoism says about anger
Between armies matched in strength, the chapter says the side that grieves prevails. Eagerness for the fight is treated as the weakness in the pair.