Also to answer the other question why a traveller may have the skills to lead an army. So first I think this is just a story because I can't anything recorded in history regarding this battle. Secondly, many "travellers" during that time were strategists who were either of aristocratic origin or very rich. They made their livelihood to persuade kings to follow their advices and make profit (in money, fame and land) from it. Some of them probably were rich enough to own small armies so technically they could lead armies for kings.
But again this is probably a story Zhuangzi made up to "prove" his point.
Yeah, and mercenaries too, but more of a strategic one, not tactical as a modern one.
Some of them worked as "客卿" (persons who came from a foreign kingdom/principality but listed as a high-ranking official in the host kingdom/principality) and helped the king/prince with reforms. Local aristocracies were usually the target of reforms (in that sense, very much like a consultant of today) so someone from outside needs to move it forward. Some can serve as generals who own a small number of elite soldiers and can lead armies for the king/prince of the host kingdom/principality.
I'm pretty sure you can find similar examples in Medieval Europe.
BTW, great example why machine translation still doesn't work for quite different languages. Google Translate outputs the following given the Chinese input:
> The people of Song Dynasty have good medicines for not tortoises, and they have always used 洴澼絖 as their business. If you hear it, please buy one hundred gold. Gathering together and seeking out the family, said: "My life is a 紴澼絖, but I only count gold; now I have a hundred gold skills, please go with it. "The guest got it, so as to talk about the king of Wu." The more difficult it was, the King Wu made him to fight with the Yueren in winter, defeat the Yueren, and seal the ground.
I've just recently learned that Chinese is a very "analytical" language: The meaning of something is apparently to a large degree determined by how words are combined and isn't contained so much in the separate words by themself (at least that's my uninformed understanding of that subject, as I don't speak Chinese).
So without actually understanding the context it's likely hard to translate something. But a machine does not understand things. It doesn't have world knowledge so it can't interpret things in context. (An ancient context doesn't make things simpler either of course).
You would likely need AGI with a lot of world knowledge to translate such an things. But at that point machine translation for any language would be a solved problem anyway I guess.
The other thing is: How do you look up words you don't know having a writing system based on pictures? Without a computer this seems almost impossible to me. That's a big issue with such a writing system imho.
I would be keen on trying to learn a little bit Chinese as it's for sure interesting to learn to think in a very analytical language—if the writing system wouldn't be. I have already a hard time with the German orthography, even it's my main language…
Basically the formula can help soldiers fight during winter so whoever has it has an advantage over the other side.
BTW the Chinese version if anyone is interested:
宋人有善为不龟手之药者，世世以洴澼絖为事。客闻之，请买其方百金。聚族而谋曰：『我世世为洴澼絖，不过数金；今一朝而鬻技百金，请与之。』客得之，以说吴王。越有难，吴王使之将，冬与越人水战，大败越人，裂地而封之。
Also to answer the other question why a traveller may have the skills to lead an army. So first I think this is just a story because I can't anything recorded in history regarding this battle. Secondly, many "travellers" during that time were strategists who were either of aristocratic origin or very rich. They made their livelihood to persuade kings to follow their advices and make profit (in money, fame and land) from it. Some of them probably were rich enough to own small armies so technically they could lead armies for kings.
But again this is probably a story Zhuangzi made up to "prove" his point.