The Art of War examinations. During the Sengoku period (c. 1467–1568), the Japanese "daimyō" named Takeda Shingen (1521–1573) is said to have become almost invincible in all battles without relying on guns, because he studied "The Art of War". The book even gave him the inspiration for his famous battle standard "Fūrinkazan" (Wind, Forest, Fire and Mountain), meaning fast as the wind, silent as a forest, ferocious as fire and immovable as a mountain. The translator Samuel B. Griffith offers a chapter on "Sun Tzu and Mao Tse-Tung" where "The Art of War" is cited as influencing Mao's "On Guerrilla Warfare", "On the Protracted
The Book of the Short Sun which point the narrative connects with the opening of "On Blue's Waters". For much of the first-person account, the narrator is imprisoned on Blue in a town called Dorp on trumped-up charges, and must use his various powers to foment a revolution against the unjust judges who rule the town. In the course of this effort, he again visits the Red Sun Whorl, where he meets a young Severian and inspires him to write a book. Once free, he returns to Lizard and New Viron, where the final riddle of his identity is solved, and helps defend against a massive