Sun Tzu

Chapter 13: 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.

THE END

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