Liutao (Six Strategies) is a famous book on the art of war in ancient China. Including six chapters and 60 articles in total, it discussed the tactics of cavalryman in detail with simple and easy words in the form of questions and answers.

The time that Liutao came out was not later than the late period of the Warring States Period (475-221). Some fragmentary manuscripts were discovered among bamboo slips from the tombs of the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD) in Yinque Mountain in 1972, which proved that the book was widespread during the early Western Han Dynasty (206BC-8AD). It was possibly written by those men who were familiar with strategics in the Warring States Period.

Liutao is the longest work on strategics during the pre-Qin days. Because of the abundant contents and the more particulars than Sunzi Bingfa (the Art of War) by Sunzi. The book can be reputed as the strategics corpora of ancient China.

After the Western Han Dynasty, Liutao began to spread widely; after the Tang Dynasty (618-907), militarists liked to read and often quoted from Liutao. It was regarded as the indispensable book for militarists in the Song Dynasty (960-1279).