Defense (1)

Introduction

This week begins ten weeks on the city-defense chapters, so first a word on why we read them. Mozi taught non-aggression and also spent half his book teaching how to hold a city, and there is no contradiction: non-aggression means defending and never attacking. These chapters are the earliest engineering manuals in China, and a record of how to organize people in a crisis. 墨门 / The Mohist Community reads them for preparedness, engineering, discipline and care for non-combatants, never for militarism.

Fortifying the City Gate opens with a dialogue. Qin Guli asks: large states attack small ones; I want to defend a small state, what do I do? Mozi answers with a question: defend against which attack? Qin Guli lists the twelve siege methods of the day: high platforms, hooks, battering rams, ladders, filling the moat, flooding, tunnels, sudden assault, hollow approaches, ant-swarm scaling, covered wagons, and siege towers. The later chapters answer them one by one.

Mozi's reply does not begin with equipment. "Our walls and moat in repair, our gear complete, our grain sufficient, superiors and inferiors close to one another, and help from neighboring states: this is how we hold." Two of those five are about people. He adds that however capable the defender, if the ruler does not trust him and give him real authority, the city cannot be held.

Then the fourteen conditions: walls thick and high, moat deep and wide, towers sound, gear sharp, food for more than three months, people numerous and selected, officials and populace at peace, ministers with merit, "the ruler trustworthy and just so that the people rejoice without end," family graves inside the city, forests and marshes to draw on, terrain easy to hold, deep grievance against the enemy, rewards credible and punishments feared. "Lacking all fourteen, even the skilled cannot hold." More than half the list is about trust.

The three tests

The fourteen conditions combine the first test and the third: Mozi drew them from cities in history that held and cities that fell (grounding), and he judges them by a single outcome, whether the city stands (use). But notice the condition "the ruler trustworthy and just so that the people rejoice." It is not equipment and cannot be measured, yet it sits level with the walls. This week's question: in treating trust as a testable condition, what evidence did Mozi have? Can you name a city that fell because its people were divided?

For families

• Make a household emergency list with the children: three days of water and food, a torch, common medicines, one phone number everyone memorizes.
• 科技堂: build a "city" from cardboard boxes and discuss which of the twelve attacks it would fear most.
• On "superiors and inferiors close": ask the children whether, if the family were in trouble, they think the adults would tell them the truth. Listen to the answer.

For chapters

• 20 min reading · 20 min 墨辩 · 10 min 三表 review · 10 min 职 reports.
• 墨辩 motion: "People committed to non-aggression should not study defense." One side argues from pacifism; the other cites Fortifying the City Gate and Gongshu.
• 三表 review: translate the fourteen conditions into chapter terms. What fourteen things does a chapter need to survive hard times? Write them down as material for the year-end self-review.