I'm not an expert by any means, but I'll give it a go.

1). "If he is angry, disconcert him": When a person is angry or generally emotionally charged they will not be thinking logically and will have a greater tendency towards rash, impulsive and ill thought out decisions. So you would want to confuse or misinform them so that in a moment of anger the enemy would make a blunder that cost a battle or even a war. An example could be the battle of Larissa; Alexios Komnenos knows that he can not defeat the Normans in a head on confrontation so he sets up a trap. The main roman force lines up in battle order and engages the normans. After a brief period though they were to turn and "pretend to run pell-mell". This occurs and Bohemond (the Norman commander) believing the battle won pursues the 'fleeing' romans, far from his own now chaotic forces. Alexios then attacks the norman camp with a force he kept in reserve, killing many of the normans in the process and gaining a victory. When messengers finally arrived to tell Bohemond the news they found him "eating grapes. He was bragging loudly, full of his own vainglory." Naturally it was quite a shock to him to see that he had in fact lost.

2). "Ignorant meddling in military appointments perplexes officers and men": Similar to before, only this time the issues are within your army. If there is a senior officer who is ill informed of the current situation then they may give orders which conflict with those from other officers. The men serving beneath them will then be unsure as to what action to take. This lack of coordination could end up with an error being committed that could end up in a defeat.

3). "Oh, subtlety of subtleties! Without form! Oh, mystery of mysteries! Without sound! He Is master of his enemy's fate": Hmm, this is an interesting one. this could be advice to a commander not to obvious as to his plan of battle. If your forces show no discernible shape or pattern of deployment (that can be seen anyway) then your enemy will not know how to prepare, giving you the initiative (which has been critical in every battle fought). About the second part; unless I am mistaken The art of war advocates the use of espionage. If you were able to infiltrate the enemies forces and implant spies then the commander will not know who they can trust or what could happen next. They will either commit many resources to counter this unseen threat or even go fully on the defensive, both of which hand the initiative to you. An possible extension; In WW2 the soviets used partisan forces, that is groups who would operate behind enemy lines launching ambushes and sabotaing infrastructure. The germans would never know which way to turn and thus incurred severe losses from these guerilla forces.

Of course what I say is probably riddles with innaccuracies and gross generalisations but I hope that I am on the right track and that this helps you.

Sources: The Alexiad (Anna Komnena).

Well, depending on how patient you are, Zhongwen.com has a hyperlinked copy of Sunzi – you can click on any character and get their dictionary entry on it.

It’s very interesting to see the etymology of Chinese characters, I think… often there are pretty interesting correspondences, or even little stories behind how one character gets put together.

The presentation at Wengu is a little easier - it's an old English translation (Giles), with Chinese characters there on the page. The character definitions are a little harder to follow, though (at least if you mouse-over rather than click on each character).

They've also got a French translation (from Amiot, an interesting guy - but I can't read French, so can't speak to the translation at all).

Giles translates your "Strategic Offense" passage, for example, as:

By attempting to govern an army in the same way as he administers a kingdom, being ignorant of the conditions which obtain in an army. This causes restlessness in the soldier's minds.

With the footnote:

1. Ts`ao Kung's note is, freely translated: "The military sphere and the civil sphere are wholly distinct; you can't handle an army in kid gloves." And Chang Yu says: "Humanity and justice are the principles on which to govern a state, but not an army; opportunism and flexibility, on the other hand, are military rather than civil virtues to assimilate the governing of an army"–to that of a State, understood.

You can also go through character-by-character (vertically, from the top right) to read the original.

Edit: top right - sorry. It's more obvious if you look at the page... the "top" little bamboo strip.

Hi! I see you have a few answers discussion what Sun Tzu was trying to specifically say with his advice; I just want to talk a little about his writing style.

The work was originally done as a kind of educational poem; it entertains as well as advises. Probably some of the best and most accurate commentaries on the "Art of War" in England are illustrated because that captures the spirit in which it should be read - not as a binding book to be interrogated closely, but more of a text to be mulled over and discussed further with a teacher.

Try looking up the Silver Sparrow Art of War. I think it has commentary on Sun Tzu