“The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors: the Moral Law, Heaven, Earth, the Commander, and Method and discipline.”
Victory depends on enduring elements — purpose, timing, ground, leadership, and discipline — not on luck or isolated brilliance.
Having declared the stakes, Chapter 1 immediately provides its instrument: five constant factors — Moral Law, Heaven, Earth, Commander, Method and discipline — through which every contest must be read. The word "constant" is doing quiet work: these are the factors that do not change with fashion or technology, which is why a 2,500-year-old checklist still discriminates good bets from bad ones.
An entrepreneur evaluates a new venture: the product is brilliant (Commander), the timing is right (Heaven), the niche defensible (Earth) — but nobody has asked whether the early team would follow the mission through an unpaid quarter (Moral Law), or whether the operation can bill, hire, and ship without heroics (Method). Two of five factors scored high, and the venture was funded on a 40% assessment.
The five factors are not a vibe-check to run once. Sun Tzu builds them into the seven comparisons — the same five, weighed against the other side — because factors only mean something relatively. A disciplined team is an advantage only until you face a more disciplined one; the checklist ends in comparison, not in self-congratulation.