“We can form a single united body, while the enemy must split up into fractions. Hence a whole pitted against parts, which means we shall be many to the enemy's few.”
Concentrate into one body and you are many against his divided few; unity is a force multiplier.
Chapter 6 restates its asymmetry as arithmetic: we form a single united body, the enemy splits into fractions — a whole pitted against parts, many against few. The verse locates superiority not in total numbers but in local ratios you arranged. A smaller army that is always united fights, at every point of contact, a larger one that is always scattered.
Three regions of a bank pursue the same fintech partnership independently — three term sheets, three timelines, three internal sponsors — while the fintech negotiates with one team. The bank has more capital, more lawyers, more everything except unity. The deal that emerges prices the fragmentation: the fintech played one whole against three parts and captured terms no united principal would have granted.
Unity is not unanimity — internal disagreement is fine; internal incoherence at the table is not. Nor does unity require centralizing everything: it requires that externally, per engagement, there is one body. Companies achieve this with clear deal ownership, not with cultural monoculture. The whole Sun Tzu wants is a fighting formation, not a hive mind.