Tag: cunning

Twelfth-century France was divided into loose and shifting territories that owed little or no allegiance to any central authority, ruled across large swaths by noblemen who were little more than warlords. As he watched his tenacious and cunning father grind his way through the conquest of Normandy, Henry would have learned that political survival was a game of forestalling shifts of power, managing volatile relations between one’s friends and enemies, and appealing to the right allies at the right time in order to further one’s territorial objectives. In such a bewildering business, only the most devious and adept players survived.

— The Plantagenets, Ambition

Marangan called out to his students. They flocked around him and he singled one out. Marangan draped a hand over the younger man’s shoulders and gave him some instructions. The student wore track pants and a black T-shirt with a red insignia on the chest. They told me later it was a fighting cock, a pretty popular martial image in the Philippines.

I sized him up. He was about my size, which was good. In combat, the length of an opponent’s arms and legs can be critical. Unfortunately, he was probably ten or fifteen years younger than I was. You hate to admit it, but over thirty your body doesn’t work as well as you’d like and is more subject to injury. In purely physical terms, he was probably my match. So I’d have to use some finesse. Cunning was a technique not well appreciated by the young.

— Tengu, Chapter 15

The army relied mainly upon archers and pikemen, some very lightly armored, some protected by a cuirass and a conical helmet, and carrying a short sword for close fighting. Coordinated with this infantry was the cavalry, which at first fought from chariots. Later on, when the warrior rode the horse (about 700 [B.C.E.]), he had the infantryman’s bow and spear. Still later came the most original Assyrian contribution to the art of warfare, siege artillery. No fortified city could withstand the assault of Assyrian engines. A choice body of troops fought beside the king, but it was the foot-bowmen who wrought havoc on the enemy.

The Assyrian army’s power cannot be entirely explained by the bravery of the individual soldier, the competence of the king-general, or the sheer numerical strength so easy to attain in a country where every able-bodied man was subject to military service. Perhaps it is better explained by the theory that the Assyrians used iron extensively. Indeed something like a revolution in the metal industry apparently took place under Sargon II (722-705 [B.C.E.]) when he invaded Urartu and exploited its iron mines. Cunning, too, aided Assyrian armies: an efficient espionage and intelligence service was conducted by the royal governors and bureaucrats in the provinces and centered in the king’s palace. Frequently when the troops entered a country they were aided by carefully organized fifth columns.

— The Ancient World, p. 89-90

Emphasis mine.