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13 The Use of Spies - The Art of War - Lao Tzu · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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  Chapter thirteen, the use of spies. Sun Zou said, raising a host
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  of one hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the
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  people and a drain on the resources of the state. The daily expenditure will
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  amount to a thousand ounces of silver. There will be commotion at home and
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  abroad, and men will drop down exhausted on the highways. As many as
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  seven hundred thousand families will be impeded in their labor. Hostile armies may face
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  each other for years, striving for victory, which is decided in a single
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  day. This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy's condition simply
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  because one begrudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emollients
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  is the height of inhumanity. One who acts thus is no leader of men,
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  no present help to his sovereign, no master of victory. Thus,
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  what enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer and achieve
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  things beyond the reach of ordinary men is four knowledge. Now, this four
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  knowledge cannot be elicited from spirits. It cannot be obtained inductively from experience,
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  and are by any deductive calculation. Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be
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  obtained from other men. Hence the use of spies, of whom there are
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  five classes. One local spies, two inward spies, three converted spies,
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  four doomed spies, five surviving spies. When these five kinds of spy are
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  all at work, none can discover the secret system. This is called divine
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  manipulation of the threads. It is the sovereign's most precious faculty. Having local
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  spies means employing the services of the inhabitants of a district, Having inward spies,
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  making use of officials of the enemy, having converted spies, getting hold
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  of the enemy spies and using them for our purposes. Having doomed spies doing
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  certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of
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  them and report them to the enemy. Surviving spies, finally, are those
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  who bring back news from the enemy's camp. Hence, it is that none
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  in the whole army are more intimate relations to be maintained than with spies.
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  None should be more liberally rewarded. In no other business should greater secrecy be
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  preserved. Spies cannot be usefully employed without certain intuitive sagacity. They cannot be
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  properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness. Without subtle ingenuity of mine, one cannot
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  make certain of the truth of their reports. Be subtle, Be subtle,
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  and use your spies for every kind of business. If a secret piece of
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  news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be
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  put to death, together with the man to whom the secret was told.
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  Whenever the object be to crush an army, to storm a city, or
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  to assassinate an individual, it is always necessary to begin by finding out the
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  names of the attendants, the aides de camp, and door keepers, and
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  centuries of the general in command. Our spies must be commissioned to ascertain these.
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  The enemy spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out,
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  tempted with bribes, led away, and comfortably housed. Thus they will
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  become converted spies and available for our service. It is through the information brought
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  by the converted spy that we are able to acquire and employ local and inward
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  spies. It is owing to his information again, that we can cause the
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  doomed spy to carry false tidings to the enemy. Lastly, it is by
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  his information that the surviving spy can be used on appointed occasions. The end
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  and aim of spying in all its five varieties is knowledge of the enemy,
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  and this knowledge can only be derived, in the first instance from the converted
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  spy. Hence, it is essential that the converted spy be treated with the
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  utmost liberality of old. The rise of the Yin dynasty was due to Ai
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  Ching, who had served under Hisha. Likewise, the rise of the Chu
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  dynasty was due to lu Yah, who had served under the Inn. Hence,
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  it is only the enlightened ruler in the wise general who will use use
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  the highest intelligence of the army for purposes of spying, and thereby they achieve
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  great results. Spies are the most important element in water, because on them
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  depends an army's ability to move. End of Chapter thirteen.