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60 free Sun Tzu trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Sun Tzu trivia quiz covers the man, the book and the long argument over whether he existed at all. The easy questions ask what the name Sun Tzu actually means, how many chapters The Art of War has, which historian wrote his first biography and which 1980s film character quotes him between trades. Then it moves into the Shiji story: the king of Wu, the 180 concubines drilled as soldiers, the two executed favourites and the Battle of Boju against Chu. The hard end covers the scholarship: the Song-dynasty sceptic who noticed the Zuo Zhuan never mentions him, the anachronistic crossbows, the Han tombs at Yinqueshan that yielded both Sun Tzu's text and the lost treatise of his descendant Sun Bin, the earliest commentary by a famous warlord, the 1772 Jesuit translation and the 1910 English one. Along the way you will meet Takeda Shingen's banner, Admiral Togo, General Giap, Mao, MacArthur, Belichick, Scolari, Star Trek, The Sopranos and James Bond. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Sun Bin, the Yinqueshan slips and the people involved before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our ancient China and military history quizzes are natural next stops.
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Q 01The name Sun Tzu is an honorific. What does it mean?
Master Sun
His birth name was said to be Sun Wu, and he was known posthumously by the courtesy name Changqing.
Q 02What was Sun Tzu's birth name said to be?
Sun Wu
Some scholars think the name is an invented cognomen meaning roughly 'the fugitive warrior'.
Q 03Which Han-dynasty historian wrote the earliest account of Sun Tzu's life, in the Shiji?
Sima Qian
The sinologist Victor Mair considers that short biography 'essentially fictional'.
Q 04Around what year was the Shiji biography of Sun Tzu written?
97 BC
That puts the first written record of him some four centuries after he supposedly lived.
Q 05Traditional historians placed Sun Tzu as a minister to which king?
Helü of Wu
They dated his lifetime to 544–496 BC, though his historical existence is uncertain.
Q 06According to the Shiji, Sun Tzu was born in which state?
Qi
He was said to have fled to the southeastern state of Wu, where he impressed the king with his skill at drilling troops.
Q 07How many concubines did King Helü have Sun Tzu drill to test his training ability?
180
Sun Tzu split them into two companies under the king's two favourite concubines, who promptly ignored his orders and laughed.
Q 08When the two concubines commanding his companies laughed instead of obeying, what did Sun Tzu do?
Had them executed
Over the king's protests, the rest of the 'soldiers' fell into line at once and the king made him a general.
Q 09Sun Tzu is said to have led Wu to victory over the much larger state of Chu in 506 BC at which battle?
Boju
The Zuo Zhuan gives a detailed account of the same battle and never mentions him, which is one reason scholars doubt he existed.
Q 10After the victory of 506 BC, the Wu army captured and destroyed the Chu capital. What was it called?
Ying
During the sack, King Helü tried to assault the Chu dowager queen, who fought him off with a knife.
Q 11Later accounts say Sun Wu was introduced to King Helü by which refugee from Chu?
Wu Zixu
The same man was credited with writing the Wuzi, another ancient military text, and designed the great city that became Suzhou.
Q 12Song-dynasty sceptics noted which classic chronicle of the era never mentions Sun Tzu?
Zuo Zhuan
It was written centuries before the Shiji and describes the Battle of Boju in detail without him.
Q 13Which Song-dynasty scholar (1150–1223) is credited with first doubting Sun Tzu's historical existence?
Ye Shi
Most later Song, Qing and modern scholars followed him in dating the text to the start of the Warring States period.
Q 21At which battle did Sun Bin lure a Wei army into ambush by cutting his troops' cooking stoves?
Maling
The Wei read the shrinking stove marks as mass desertion and walked into a narrow valley full of Qi archers.
Q 22How many chapters make up The Art of War?
13
Each chapter is devoted to a different aspect of warfare, and the whole is referred to as one zhuan.
Q 23Which emperor formalised the Seven Military Classics anthology, led by The Art of War, in 1080?
Shenzong of Song
For imperial officers, some or all of the seven works were required reading to earn promotion.
Q 14Which weapon in The Art of War is cited as an anachronism for Sun Tzu's supposed lifetime?
Crossbows
There are also no records of professional generals in the Spring and Autumn period, casting doubt on his rank.
Q 15In 1972 bamboo-slip copies of The Art of War were unearthed at Yinque Shan, in which Chinese province?
Shandong
The tombs had been sealed between 134 and 118 BC, and the text matches about a third of the modern chapters very closely.
Q 16The tombs that yielded the 1972 bamboo slips dated from which dynasty?
Han
Tomb 1 alone held 4,942 bamboo strips, more than 38% of them heavily damaged.
Q 17The same 1972 tombs contained a lost military treatise attributed to which supposed descendant of Sun Tzu?
Sun Bin
Because both men were called 'Master Sun' in classical texts, some historians had assumed they were the same person.
Q 18Framed for treason while serving Wei, Sun Bin was crippled by having what removed?
His kneecaps
He later declined a command post in Qi because he could not ride a horse, fearing it would harm troop morale.
Q 19Which jealous fellow student framed Sun Bin for treason and later died in an ambush by Sun Bin's Qi army?
Pang Juan
Folklore says Sun carved 'Pang Juan dies under this tree' at the ambush site, and the torch Pang lit to read it made him a target.
Q 20Sun Bin's famous strategy of 354 BC is remembered as 'besieging Wei to rescue' which state?
Zhao
Instead of relieving the siege of Handan directly, Qi attacked the Wei capital and ambushed the withdrawing Wei army at Guiling.
Q 24Which early 3rd-century warlord wrote the earliest known commentary on The Art of War?
Cao Cao
His preface admits he edited the text and removed passages, though nobody knows how much he cut.
Q 25In what year was The Art of War introduced into Nara-period Japan?
760
It quickly became popular among Japanese generals and later shaped the 'Great Unifiers' Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu.
Q 26Takeda Shingen's battle standard names four elements: wind, forest, fire and what?
Mountain
The four-character slogan Fūrinkazan may be a later invention, popularised by Yasushi Inoue's 1953 novel of that name.
Q 27Which French Jesuit priest produced the first European-language translation of The Art of War in 1772?
Jean Joseph Marie Amiot
He arrived in Beijing in 1751 and never left, becoming Europe's main source on Chinese music as well.
Q 28Who published the first annotated English translation of The Art of War in 1910?
Lionel Giles
He was the son of the diplomat-sinologist Herbert Giles and also translated the Analects of Confucius that year.
Q 29The 1910 English translator of The Art of War kept Oriental manuscripts at which institution?
British Museum
He was educated privately in Belgium, Austria and Scotland before reading Classics at Wadham College, Oxford.
Q 30What did British officer Everard Ferguson Calthrop title his partial 1905 English translation?
The Book of War
It preceded the standard Giles translation by five years and is still on Project Gutenberg.