The Art of War Japanese daimyō Takeda Shingen, and American military general Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. have drawn inspiration from the book. "The Art of War" is traditionally attributed to a military general from the late 6th century BC known as "Master Sun" ("Sunzi" or "Sun Tzu"), though its earliest parts probably date to at least 100 years later. Sima Qian's 1st century BC work "Records of the Grand Historian" ("Shiji"), the first of China's 24 dynastic histories, records an early Chinese tradition stating that a text on military matters was written by a "Sun Wu" from the State of Qi, and that this text
Sun Tzu most of the notable figures from the Spring and Autumn period. The name "Sun Wu" () does not appear in any text prior to the "Shiji", and may have been a made-up descriptive cognomen meaning "the fugitive warrior": the surname "Sun" can be glossed as the related term "fugitive" ("xùn" ), while "Wu" is the ancient Chinese virtue of "martial, valiant" ("wǔ" ), which corresponds to Sun Tzu's role as the hero's "doppelgänger" in the story of Wu Zixu. The only historical battle attributed to Sun Tzu, the Battle of Boju, has no record of him fighting in that battle.