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Chapter XIII. THE USE OF SPIES
1. Sun Tzu said: Raising a host of a
hundred thousand men and marching them
great distances entails heavy loss on the
people and a drain on the resources of the
State.
The daily expenditure will amount to a
thousand ounces of silver.
There will be commotion at home and abroad,
and men will drop down exhausted on the
highways.
As many as seven hundred thousand families
will be impeded in their labor.
2. Hostile armies may face each other for
years, striving for the victory which is
decided in a single day.
This being so, to remain in ignorance of
the enemy's condition simply because one
grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of
silver in honors and emoluments, is the
height of inhumanity.
3. One who acts thus is no leader of men,
no present help to his sovereign, no master
of victory.
4. Thus, what enables the wise sovereign
and the good general to strike and conquer,
and achieve things beyond the reach of
ordinary men, is foreknowledge.
5. Now this foreknowledge cannot be
elicited from spirits; it cannot be
obtained inductively from experience, nor
by any deductive calculation.
6. Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions
can only be obtained from other men.
7. Hence the use of spies, of whom there
are five classes: (1) Local spies; (2)
inward spies; (3) converted spies; (4)
doomed spies; (5) surviving spies.
8. When these five kinds of spy are all at
work, none can discover the secret system.
This is called "divine manipulation of the
threads."
It is the sovereign's most precious
faculty.
9. Having local spies means employing the
services of the inhabitants of a district.
10. Having inward spies, making use of
officials of the enemy.
11. Having converted spies, getting hold of
the enemy's spies and using them for our
own purposes.
12. Having doomed spies, doing certain
things openly for purposes of deception,
and allowing our spies to know of them and
report them to the enemy.
13. Surviving spies, finally, are those who
bring back news from the enemy's camp.
14. Hence it is that which none in the
whole army are more intimate relations to
be maintained than with spies.
None should be more liberally rewarded.
In no other business should greater secrecy
be preserved.
15. Spies cannot be usefully employed
without a certain intuitive sagacity.
16. They cannot be properly managed without
benevolence and straightforwardness.
17. Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one
cannot make certain of the truth of their
reports.
18. Be subtle! Be subtle! and use your
spies for every kind of business.
19. If a secret piece of news is divulged
by a spy before the time is ripe, he must
be put to death together with the man to
whom the secret was told.
20. Whether the object be to crush an army,
to storm a city, or to assassinate an
individual, it is always necessary to begin
by finding out the names of the attendants,
the aides-de-camp, and door-keepers and
sentries of the general in command.
Our spies must be commissioned to ascertain
these.
21. The enemy's spies who have come to spy
on us must be sought out, tempted with
bribes, led away and comfortably housed.
Thus they will become converted spies and
available for our service.
22. It is through the information brought
by the converted spy that we are able to
acquire and employ local and inward spies.
23. It is owing to his information, again,
that we can cause the doomed spy to carry
false tidings to the enemy.
24. Lastly, it is by his information that
the surviving spy can be used on appointed
occasions.
25. The end and aim of spying in all its
five varieties is knowledge of the enemy;
and this knowledge can only be derived, in
the first instance, from the converted spy.
Hence it is essential that the converted
spy be treated with the utmost liberality.
26. Of old, the rise of the Yin dynasty was
due to I Chih who had served under the
Hsia.
Likewise, the rise of the Chou dynasty was
due to Lu Ya who had served under the Yin.
27. Hence it is only the enlightened ruler
and the wise general who will use the
highest intelligence of the army for
purposes of spying and thereby they achieve
great results.
Spies are a most important element in
water, because on them depends an army's
ability to move.