Allow

You may say, "Oh, you mean one should put up disciplinary action in order to set an example. That's a truth from the Sunday School."

(I shall not retort by saying that Sunday School is place of teaching the, supposedly, eternal truth. As Guan Lu [管輅] said: 老生者見不生，常談者見不談。)

No. My point is this: The problem does not lie (entirely) on the delinquent royal ladies.

Why did King Helü of Wu (吳王闔閭) allow - or tolerate - the women to behave in that way ?

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To go one step forward, the very thing that Sun Tzu did was taking over the decision from King Helü and set up an example of maintaining rules and orders, irrespective to the preference of his actual boss.

Or, to put it in another way, while seeing the delinquent women laughing at his order, he did not rush to the field and perform the orders himself.

Otherwise he would become an accomplice of the King.

As Francis Bacon said: If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.