According to records in "Historical Records", "Wu Yue Chun Qiu" and other books, the author of "The Art of War" was Sun Wu in the late Spring and Autumn Period. It is said that Sun Wu was originally from Qi. He used Thirteen Articles on the Art of War to apply to King Helu of Wu. He was worshiped as a general. He defeated Chu and entered Ying, making him famous among the princes. Together with Wu Zixu, he was a prominent figure who assisted Wu in defeating Chu.

"Sun Tzu" has been attributed to Sun Wu since the Han Dynasty, and it is believed to have been written in the late Spring and Autumn Period. However, since the Song Dynasty, many people have raised objections, believing that the ideological content of the book has a strong flavor of the Warring States Period, and it is very doubtful whether the author is Sun Wu. The first person to put forward this theory was Mei Yaochen, a famous scholar in the Northern Song Dynasty who commented on "Sun Tzu". Inspired by the Mei Theory, Ye Shi of the Southern Song Dynasty also speculated that "Sun Tzu" was "written by a scholar in the mountains and forests at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period and the beginning of the Warring States Period. His words could be applied to Wu, but they are exaggerated." Under the influence of the opinions of Mei, Ye and others, many doubts later appeared, among which the most influential one was "Sun Bin's theory". This theory was mainly put forward by some Chinese and Japanese scholars in modern times. They believed that the Sun Wu mentioned by the Han Dynasty was not found in ancient pre-Qin books. There were many doubts and it might have evolved from the legend of Sun Bin. Representative works that suspect that "Sun Tzu" was written in the Spring and Autumn Period include "A Study of the Times of Sun Tzu's Works" written by Qi Sihe in the late 1930s. Based on the combat methods, war scale and time, military system, other terms and writing styles seen in the "Sun Tzu" book, this article determines the time when it was written in the Warring States Period. But at the same time, it refutes "Sun Bin's theory" and points out that there are two art of war originally titled Sun Wu and Sun Bin in the Han Dynasty and cannot be confused with each other. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were some discussions in Chinese academic circles about the era and author of "Sun Tzu". The popular view is that "Sun Tzu" was created by Sun Wu and compiled by Sun Bin. There is an eclectic attitude towards the new and old theories, but there are still different opinions in the academic circles. A more reasonable view is that "Sun Tzu" is a summary of the military thought and war experience of the "Sun Tzu School", and its basic writing time should be during the Warring States Period. This can be confirmed from the content of "Sun Tzu" itself.

There are thirteen chapters in the whole book "Sun Tzu". Among them, "Ji" talks about temple calculations, that is, comparing various conditions between the enemy and ourselves in the temple before sending troops, predicting the outcome of the war, and formulating a battle plan. This is the outline of the book. "Combat" talks about the war mobilization after the temple calculation. "Strike" talks about attacking a city with wisdom, that is, it does not rely solely on force to attack, but uses various means to force the defenders to surrender. "Form" and "Position" talk about two basic factors that determine the outcome of a war: "Form" refers to factors that are objective, stable, and easily visible, such as the strength of combat effectiveness and material preparations for war; "Position" Refers to subjective, changeable, and accidental factors, such as the deployment of troops and the courage and cowardice of morale. "Virtual Reality" talks about how to use dispersion, massing, encirclement and roundabouts to create a situation where we are strong and the enemy is weak at the scheduled battle site, "attacking the few with numbers" and "avoiding the reality and attacking the fictitious". "Military Struggle" talks about how to "use detours to gain the advantage" and "take advantage of adversity" to seize the advantage of the battle. "Nine Changes" talks about generals adopting different strategies and tactics according to different situations. "March" talks about how to camp and observe the enemy's situation during the march. "Terrain" talks about six different combat terrains and corresponding tactical requirements. "Nine Places" talks about nine combat environments and corresponding tactical requirements divided according to the "subject and object" situation and the degree of penetration into the enemy. "Fire Attack" is about using fire to assist. "Yongjian" talks about the combined use of five kinds of spies. The book's narration is concise and the content is rich in philosophy. It has a profound influence on the military training and training of military preparations in the past dynasties. Many popular sayings have not lost their truth to this day.

According to Sima Qian, the early Han version of "Sun Tzu" had the same number of chapters as the current version, but there were also other unknown chapters of "Sun Tzu" that were popular and produced one after another at that time and thereafter. These lost chapters of "Sun Zi" were originally written in separate books. They were edited by Ren Hong at the end of the Western Han Dynasty and combined with the above-mentioned thirteen chapters into one book, resulting in a sudden increase in the number of chapters to eighty-two chapters and nine volumes of pictures. This kind of book became popular during the Three Kingdoms period. Emperor Wu of Wei Cao Cao specially compiled a concise annotated version with only thirteen chapters, deleting all the lost chapters added at the end of the Western Han Dynasty. These lost chapters of Sun Tzu were still circulated in single volumes during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, but were later lost. Therefore, Du Mu, a native of the Tang Dynasty, said, "The books written by Wu contain hundreds of thousands of words. Emperor Wu of the Cao and Wei dynasties trimmed down the complexities and wrote them carefully, and all thirteen chapters were compiled into one volume." In the past, many people doubted this statement, and some people also did the opposite. There is a lack of evidence for supposing that "Sun Tzu" is a fake trust by Cao Cao.

After the appearance of Cao's annotated version, there are many people who annotated "Sun Tzu", but to this day, there are only three most important versions: ① The Shadow Song version of "Emperor Wei Wu's Notes on Sun Tzu" is included in the "Pingjin Guan Series" , originally collected by Gu Zhikui of the Qing Dynasty. This book is Cao's annotated version that still maintains the appearance of a single book. ② The Song edition of "Seven Books of Martial Arts", "Sun Tzu", is included in "Xugu Yi Series" and is now in Japan. This book is an unannotated version compiled by Zhu Fu and He Qufei during the Song and Yuanfeng years. A large number of martial arts textbooks in later generations used this book. ③The Song version of "Eleven Family Notes on Sun Zi" is in the collections of Beijing Library and Shanghai Library, and now there is a photocopy of it by Zhonghua Book Company. This book was originally published in Song Ji Tianbao's "Comments of the Grandsons of Ten Schools". The ten schools include Wei Cao Cao, Liang Mengshi, Tang Li Quan, Du Mu, Chen Hao, Jia Lin, Song Mei Yaochen, Wang Xi, He Yanxi, Zhang Yu, and others. The small notes on quotations from Tang Duyou's "Tongdian" included in the first note refer to eleven families. At the back of the book is also appended Song Zheng Youxian's "Comments and Prefaces to Sun Tzu's Ten Families' Annotations", which is the book that preserves the most old notes.

Complete and study "Sun Tzu", there are many previous works. Among those who study the records of "Sun Tzu", "Sun Tzu Kao" and "Sun Tzu's Art of War Bibliography" written by the contemporary Lu Dajie have the most comprehensive collection; in terms of collation, "Ten Comments on Sun Tzu" edited by Sun Xingyan of the Qing Dynasty is famous for its ancient fragments. ; In terms of annotations, recent scholars have made certain achievements in quoting Chinese and foreign military history, sorting out old annotations, clarifying textual meanings, and evaluating ideas; in terms of compilation, Bi Yixun's "Sun Zi Xu Lu" of the Qing Dynasty and Yan Kejun's "The Complete Ancient Three Dynasties, Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms and Six Dynasties", Ma Guohan's "Yuhanshanfang Collection of Lost Books", Wang Renjun's "Anonymous Classics", etc. all include the lost texts of "Sun Tzu". In addition, the Chinese Philosophy Research Laboratory of Tohoku University in Japan also compiled and printed the "Sun Tzu Index".

In April 1972, the bamboo slips "Sun Tzu's Art of War" and "Sun Bin's Art of War" were unearthed from Han Tomb No. 1 in Yinqueshan, Linyi, Shandong. It confirmed the "Historical Records" about "Wu Sun Tzu" and "Qi Sun Tzu" Since the early Han Dynasty, each has its own records, which clarified some people's misunderstandings on this issue. There are many words and sentences in the bamboo slip version of "Sun Tzu" that are different from the current version, but they are relatively close to the quotations of "Sun Tzu" that were lost in old books of the Han and Tang Dynasties. This is valuable information for understanding the spread of "Sun Tzu" and collating "Sun Tzu". In addition, wooden tablets recording chapters of "Sun Tzu" and five lost articles of "Sun Tzu" were also unearthed from the tomb. The wooden tablet divides the thirteen chapters of "Sun Tzu" into two parts: the first six chapters and the last seven chapters, calling the latter "Seven Potentials", and its order of chapters is different from the current version. The five lost articles on "Sun Tzu" provide new clues for studying the appearance of the lost articles on "Sun Tzu" in the early Han Dynasty. Many researchers have used this new material to write new annotations and research articles