Six Secret Teachings

Six Secret Teachings
Traditional Chinese六韜
Simplified Chinese六韬
Literal meaningSix Secrets
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinLiù Tāo
IPA[ljôʊ.tʰáʊ]
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese/lɨuk̚ tʰɑu/
Old Chinese
Zhengzhang/*k.ruk l̥ʰuː/
Portrait of Jiang Ziya in the Sancai Tuhui

The Six Secret Teachings (Chinese: 六韜), is a treatise on civil and military strategy traditionally attributed to Lü Shang (aka Jiang Ziya), a top general of King Wen of Zhou, founder of the Zhou dynasty, at around the eleventh century BC. Modern historians nominally date its final composition to the Warring States period (c. 475–221 BC), but some scholars believe that it preserves at least vestiges of ancient Qi political and military thought. Because it is written from the perspective of a statesman attempting to overthrow the ruling Shang dynasty, it is the only one of the Seven Military Classics explicitly written from a revolutionary perspective.[1]

  1. ^ Sawyer, Ralph D. The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China. New York: Basic Books. 2007. p. 23.