Thread by @ThyConsigliori

John Minford, #SunTzu 9: 7 "On level ground, occupy easy terrain. Keep high land to the right and rear: keep death in front and life to the rear. These are the positions on level ground."

We've discussed it before, but it's a good time to review. When fighting with swords or spears, your basic strike is from high right to low left. If the high ground is on your right, you have the advantage of striking downward. This is very easy to feel, for yourself.

Go find a slope, anywhere. If you don't have a sword or a spear, any stick will do, or just stop at a hardware and buy a 1-inch dowel, say 3 or 4 feet long at your pleasure. Climb to the top of the hill and then step down a few steps. Face straight down.

You'll immediately feel off balance. So, just naturally, put your left foot forward and your right foot back and raise your stick high to the right. Don't step too far when you strike, watch your balance. Your greatest power is stepping down the slope at a right leaning angle.

Work hard to take short, easy steps, keeping yourself very, very balances, and do NOT strike too hard, you'll topple. Once comfortable with this, begin to imagine your entire formation doing the same thing with you. The drummers drum the beats. You step and strike, all together.

Okay, truth is, a sweeping strike from high left to low right, while being the best strike for an individual, is not the best strike for a formation. In formation, we essentially just thrust. The mechanics are not that different though, really, believe it or not. I'll explain.

A sweeping strike is almost just like a baseball swing, straight on through. If you start out that way, but pull up in the middle, allowing the tip to continue on forward, you have the most powerful thrust of all. Sure, you can just thrust straight. That's like a boxer's punch.

So, in formation let's use that boxer's punch style thrust, heading downhill to the left. Now that's how you win. Drumbeat, drumbeat, step and thrust, step and thrust. Death in front, life behind. High right attacking downward. We've maneuvered our enemy to lower left. Victory.

Lingering, let's add one more detail. You carry your sword or spear in your right hand, your shield in your left hand, as does the entire formation. Your thrust can come high over the shield, middle to the right, or low under and up, depending on where you enemy is.

This is more powerful than just your own frontal attack. You protect your brother to your left with your shield, and your brother to your right protects you with his shield. Cover and move, step by step, the unit fights forward, death in front, life behind. Be clear on this.

But wait, weren't we supposed to be discussing level ground? Indeed! Thing is, level ground is always bounded by hills, somewhere. And even the most level of fields usually rises and falls, at least a little. Even the slightest incline matters.

Why does @realDonaldTrump keep winning in his negotiations with China? Check yourself here. Can you see the leap? Our trade imbalance, the amount we buy from them, is VASTLY greater than the trade they buy from us. Who will win the tariff war?

@realDonaldTrump Trump will win the tariff war because he has the high ground to the right and rear. The tariffs he imposes put billions of dollars into our coffers and obliterates the mirage of capital power Communist China purports to enjoy. These decades, we've given them the easy terrain.

@realDonaldTrump This is precisely what EXPLODES the heads of the globalists and the smug left about Trump. They've sold their souls to globalism and know precisely how to enjoy the corrupt rewards of the sale. They can't imagine a president who cares more about American than anything else.

@realDonaldTrump Look at Multilateral vs Bilateral deals again. Place America in a soup of nations, and you weaken us. Place America in a one-on-one negotiation, and who can defeat us? In bilateral negotiations we always have the high ground on the right. Death in front, life behind.

@realDonaldTrump As to how this applies to you, I have this logic to offer. Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, and Property, these four rights. If you walk through the logic, you'll discover the high ground flows to the greatest proponent of each, in order. We have the high ground.

@realDonaldTrump Every foolish liberal proposal falls upon the shoals of illogic and failure to gain the high ground of those four ultimate principles. Try it out for yourself. Find any liberal policy you disagree with and test it against the four principles above. You'll see, it fails.

@realDonaldTrump Isn't it interesting that Master Sun, 2,500 years ago, places life on the high ground of the right? How did we get to be the right? Perhaps that's something natural there. Perhaps our founding principles arose from that natural force.

@realDonaldTrump Hunker down, friends. Master Sun is far from done with this analysis. He's going to lead us into every little tiny nook and cranny of it, verse by verse in this chapter. Be patient, please, and more, be diligent. It is these studies that offer America her greatest hope.

@realDonaldTrump 235 verses completed, 203 to go.

To return to previous sections in our #WarForAmerica2020 and #SunTzuForMAGA series, don't forget to head over to @WarForAmerica21. You'll find the digital table of contents for this series, there. Please retweet each entry you enjoy.