Sun Tzu and the Rules of Victorious Warriors; Analysing the rules of Sun Tzu using Mind maps Ghica van Emde Boas-Lubsen, Bonan Zhao, Peter van Emde Boas Abstract: In this paper we examine an ancient Chinese work on strategy and warfare: Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”, from the perspectives of logic, mathematics, and computer science. Making use of contempo- rary mind mapping methods, we show how logic can be extracted from this 2500 year old text. A hierarchical decomposition of the text, as constructed using mind maps, allows us to highlight patterns and structures in the text. We will look at: Pairs of Opposites. A pair of opposites is not an enumeration with two elements. It is used to explain how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, for example: direct and indirect (chapter 5), empty and solid (chapter 6). Enumerations, to clarify reasoning, such as: Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory (chapter 1). In addition to explicit enumerations, there is mention of numbered things, such as five colors (chapter 5), without saying what they are. Conditionals, such as: If victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped (chapter 2). Preference order, as illustrated by the following detail (chapter 3): • It is better to take a country intact, than to destroy a country; • It is better to capture an army intact, than to destroy an army; • ... 1• It is better to capture a squad, than to kill a squad; Implications (故 gu, therefore), with a discussion about its difference in meaning between ancient and modern Chinese. Our work is based on the translation of Lionel Giles, made in 1910, and on comparisons with the original Chinese text. We found that mind maps enable us to bring back some of the rhythm and visual structure of this book which are obscured in many translations, because the translators tried to produce a readable narrative.