王若不伐，楚必事徐。
」王曰：「若信有道，不可伐也。
If Your Majesty doesn’t attack him, Chu will for a certainty become a vassal of Xu.” “If King Yan of Xu is indeed practicing the Way,” King Wen replied, “then he cannot be attacked.” “When the great attack the little and the strong, the weak,” rejoined Wangsun Li, “the case is the same as when a great fish swallows a little one or when a tiger eats a piglet.
」對曰：「大之伐小，強之伐弱，猶大魚之吞小魚也，若虎之食豚也。
How could this be counter to principle?” King Wen thereupon raised troops, attacked Xu, and demolished it.
惡有其不得理！
」文王遂興師伐徐，殘之。
When King Yan of Xu was about to die, he said, “I relied on the cultivation of civil virtues and had no understanding of military strategy.
徐偃王將死，曰：「吾賴於文德，而不明武備；好行仁義之道，而不知詐人之心：以至於此！
」夫古之王者其有備乎！
I like to pursue generous and high-minded policies and didn’t know enough to practice deception—and so I came to this!” The kings of early times indeed [had need to take] precautions.