The Art of War

  12. In every army, the five developments connected with fire must be known, the movements of the stars calculated, and a watch kept for the proper days.

  Tu Mu’s commentary . . . : “We must make calculations as to the paths of the stars, and watch for the days on which wind will rise, before making our attack with fire.” Chang Yü [says]: “We must not only know how to assail our opponents with fire, but also be on our guard against similar attacks from them.”

  13. Hence those who use fire as an aid to the attack show intelligence; those who use water as an aid to the attack gain an accession of strength.

  14. By means of water, an enemy may be intercepted, but not robbed of all his belongings.

  Ts’ao Kung’s note is: “We can merely obstruct the enemy’s road or divide his army, but not sweep away all his accumulated stores.” Water can do useful service, but it lacks the terrible destructive power of fire. This is the reason, Chang Yü concludes, why the former is dismissed in a couple of sentences, whereas the attack by fire is discussed in detail. Wu Tzu speaks thus of the two elements: “If an army is encamped on low-lying marshy ground, from which the water cannot run off, and where the rainfall is heavy, it may be submerged by a flood. If an army is encamped in wild marsh lands thickly overgrown with weeds and brambles, and visited by frequent gales, it may be exterminated by fire.”

  15. Unhappy is the fate of one who tries to win his battles and succeed in his attacks without cultivating the spirit of enterprise; for the result is waste of time and general stagnation.

  This is one of the most perplexing passages in [The Art of War]. . . . Ts’ao Kung says: “Rewards for good service should not be deferred a single day.” And Tu Mu: “If you do not take opportunity to advance and reward the deserving, your subordinates will not carry out your commands, and disaster will ensue.” . . .

  For several reasons, however, and in spite of the formidable array of scholars on the other side, I prefer the interpretation suggested by Mei Yao-ch’ên, whose words I will quote: “Those who want to make sure of succeeding in their battles and assaults must seize the favourable moments when they come and not shrink on occasion from heroic measures: that is to say, they must resort to such means of attack as fire, water and the like. What they must not do, and what will prove fatal, is to sit still and simply hold on to the advantages they have got.”

  16. Hence the saying: The enlightened ruler lays his plans well ahead; the good general cultivates his resources.

  The meaning seems to be that the ruler lays plans which the general must show resourcefulness in carrying out. . . . Tu Mu [offers this quotation from another commentator]: “The warlike prince controls his soldiers by his authority, knits them together by good faith, and by rewards makes them serviceable. If faith decays, there will be disruption; if rewards are deficient, commands will not be respected.”

  17. Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical.

  Sun Tzu may at times appear to be over-cautious, but he never goes so far in that direction as the remarkable passage in the Tao Té Ching, chapter 69: “I dare not take the initiative, but prefer to act on the defensive; I dare not advance an inch, but prefer to retreat a foot.”

  18. No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.

  19. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are.

  This is repeated from chapter XI, paragraph 17. Here I feel convinced that it is an interpolation.

  20. Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content.

  21. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being;

  The Wu State was destined to be a melancholy example of this saying.

  nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.

  22. Hence the enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution. This is the way to keep a country at peace and an army intact.

  XIII. THE USE OF SPIES

  When you conceal your will from others, that is Thick. When you impose your will on others, that is Black.

  Lee Zhong Wu, Thick Face, Black Heart (1911)

  The evolution of the meaning “spy” is worth considering for a moment, provided it be understood that this is very doubtful ground. . . . [It is defined elsewhere] as “a crack” or “chink,” and on the whole we may accept Hsü Ch’ieh’s analysis as not unduly fanciful: “At night, a door is shut; if, when it is shut, the light of the moon is visible, it must come through a chink.” From this it is an easy step to the meaning “space between,” or simply “between,” as for example in the phrase “to act as a secret spy between enemies.” . . . Another possible theory is that the word may first have come to mean “to peep,” which would naturally be suggested by “crack” or “crevice,” and afterwards the man who peeps, or spy.

  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.

  Chang Yü has the note: “We may be reminded of the saying: ‘On serious ground, gather in plunder’ [chapter XI, paragraph 13]. Why then should carriage and transportation cause exhaustion on the highways?—The answer is, that not victuals alone, but all sorts of munitions of war have to be conveyed to the army. Besides, the injunction to ‘forage on the enemy’ only means that when an army is deeply engaged in hostile territory, scarcity of food must be provided against. Hence, without being solely dependent on the enemy for corn, we must forage in order that there may be an uninterrupted flow of supplies. Then, again, there are places like salt deserts, where provisions being unobtainable, supplies from home cannot be dispensed with.”

  As many as seven hundred thousand families will be impeded in their labour.

  Mei Yao-ch’ên says: “Men will be lacking at the plough-tail.” The allusion is to the system of dividing land into nine parts, . . . each consisting of about 15 acres, the plot in the center being cultivated on behalf of the State by the tenants of the other eight. It was here also, as Tu Mu tells us, that their cottages were built and a well sunk, to be used by all in common. . . . In time of war, one of the families had to serve in the army, while the other seven contributed to its support. Thus, by a levy of 100,000 men (reckoning one able-bodied soldier to each family), the husbandry of 700,000 families would be affected.

  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 honours and emoluments

  “For spies” is of course the meaning, though it would spoil the effect of this curiously elaborate exordium if spies were actually mentioned at this point.

  is the height of inhumanity.

  Sun Tzu’s argument is certainly ingenious. He begins by adverting to the frightful misery and vast expenditure of blood and treasure which war always brings in its train. Now, unless you are kept informed of the enemy’s condition, and are ready to strike at the right moment, a war may drag on for years. The only way to get this information is to employ spies, and it is impossible to obtain trustworthy spies unless they are properly paid for their services. But it is surely false economy to grudge a comparatively trifling amount for this purpose, when every day that the war lasts eats up an incalculably greater sum. This grievous burden falls on the shoulders of the poor, and hence Sun Tzu concludes that to neglect the use of spies is nothing less than a crime against humanity.

  3. One who acts thus is no leader of men, no present help to his sovereign, no master of victory.

  This idea, that the true object of war is peace, has its root in the nat
ional temperament of the Chinese. Even so far back as 597 B.C., these memorable words were uttered by Prince Chuang of the Ch’u State: “The character for ‘prowess’ is made up of [the ideographs for] ‘to stay’ and ‘a spear’ (cessation of hostilities). Military prowess is seen in the repression of cruelty, the calling in of weapons, the preservation of the appointment of Heaven, the firm establishment of merit, the bestowal of happiness on the people, putting harmony between the princes, the diffusion of wealth.”

  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.

  That is, knowledge of the enemy’s dispositions, and what he means to do.

  5. Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits;

  “by prayers or sacrifices,” says Chang Yü.

  it cannot be obtained inductively from experience,

  Tu Mu’s note makes the meaning clear. . . . “[knowledge of the enemy] cannot be gained by reasoning from other analogous cases.”

  nor by any deductive calculation.

  Li Ch’üan says: “Quantities like length, breadth, distance and magnitude, are susceptible of exact mathematical determination; human actions cannot be so calculated.”

  6. Knowledge of the enemy’s dispositions can only be obtained from other men.

  Mei Yao-ch’ên has rather an interesting note: “Knowledge of the spirit-world is to be obtained by divination; information in natural science may be sought by inductive reasoning; the laws of the universe can be verified by mathematical calculation: but the dispositions of an enemy are ascertainable through spies and spies alone.”

  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.

  [The Chinese] is explained by Tu Mu as “the way in which facts leak out and dispositions are revealed.”

  This is called “divine manipulation of the threads.”

  Mei Yao-ch’ên’s paraphrase shows that what is meant is the control of a number of threads.

  It is the sovereign’s most precious faculty.

  [General Baden-Powell writes:] “Cromwell, one of the greatest and most practical of all cavalry leaders, had officers styled ‘scout masters,’ whose business it was to collect all possible information regarding the enemy, through scouts and spies, etc., and much of his success in war was traceable to the previous knowledge of the enemy’s moves thus gained” [Aids to Scouting].

  9. Having local spies means employing the services of the inhabitants of a district.

  Tu Mu says: “In the enemy’s country, win people over by kind treatment, and use them as spies.”

  [General George] Crook realized that no American soldier would be able to compete with the Apache warriors on a man-to-man basis in the field of endurance. . . . Recognizing the problem, Crook recruited scouts on a scale never before employed in order that he would have fighting troops with the necessary individual endurance and “know how” to fight Indians on their own terms. Navahos, Pimas, and friendly Apaches were hired.

  Lt. Col. Donald V. Rattan, “Antiguerrilla Operations: A Case Study from History”(1960)

  10. Having inward spies, making use of officials of the enemy.

  [The Chinese term] includes both civil and military officials. Tu Mu enumerates the following classes as likely to do good service in this respect: “Worthy men who have been degraded from office, criminals who have undergone punishment; also, favourite concubines who are greedy for gold, men who are aggrieved at being in subordinate positions, or who have been passed over in the distribution of posts, others who are anxious that their side should be defeated in order that they may have a chance of displaying their ability and talents, fickle turncoats who always want to have a foot in each boat.

  “Officials of these several kinds,” he continues, “should be secretly approached and bound to one’s interests by means of rich presents. In this way you will be able to find out the state of affairs in the enemy’s country, ascertain the plans that are being formed against you, and moreover disturb the harmony and create a breach between the sovereign and his ministers.”

  The necessity for extreme caution, however, in dealing with “inward spies,” appears from an historical incident related by Ho Shih: “Lo Shang, Governor of I-chou, sent his general Wei Po to attack the rebel Li Hsiung of Shu in his stronghold at P’i. After each side had experienced a number of victories and defeats, Li Hsiung had recourse to the services of a certain P’o-t’ai, a native of Wu-tu. He began by having him whipped until the blood came, and then sent him off to Lo Shang, whom he was to delude by offering to co-operate with him from inside the city, and to give a fire signal at the right moment for making a general assault. Lo Shang, confiding in these promises, marched out all his best troops, and placed Wei Po and others at their head with orders to attack at P’o-t’ai’s bidding.

  “Meanwhile, Li Hsiung’s general, Li Hsiang, had prepared an ambuscade on their line of march; and P’o-t’ai, having reared long scaling-ladders against the city walls, now lighted the beacon fire. Wei Po’s men raced up on seeing the signal and began climbing the ladders as fast as they could, while others were drawn up by ropes lowered from above. More than a hundred of Lo Shang’s soldiers entered the city in this way, every one of whom was forthwith beheaded. Li Hsiung then charged with all his forces, both inside and outside the city, and routed the enemy completely.” [This happened in 303 A.D.]

  11. Having converted spies, getting hold of the enemy’s spies and using them for our own purposes.

  By means of heavy bribes and liberal promises detaching them from the enemy’s service, and inducing them to carry back false information, as well as to spy in turn on their own countrymen. . . .

  Ho Shih notes three occasions on which converted spies were used with conspicuous success: (1) by T’ien Tan in his defence of Chi-mo [chapter IX, paragraph 24, note]; (2) by Chao Shê on his march to O-yü [chapter VII, paragraph 4, note]; and (3) by the wily Fan Chü in 260 B.C., when Lien P’o was conducting a defensive campaign against Ch’in: The King of Chao strongly disapproved of Lien P’o’s cautious and dilatory methods, which had been unable to avert a series of minor disasters, and therefore lent a ready ear to the reports of his spies, who had secretly gone over to the enemy and were already in Fan Chü’s pay. They said: “The only thing which causes Ch’in anxiety is lest Chao Kua should be made general. Lien P’o they consider an easy opponent, who is sure to be vanquished in the long run.”

  Now this Chao Kua was a son of the famous Chao Shê From his boyhood, he had been wholly engrossed in the study of war and military matters, until at last he came to believe that there was no commander in the whole Empire who could stand against him. His father was much disquieted by this overweening conceit, and the flippancy with which he spoke of such a serious thing as war, and solemnly declared that if ever Kua were appointed general, he would bring ruin on the armies of Chao. This was the man who, in spite of earnest protests from his own mother and the veteran statesman Lin Hsiang-ju, was now sent to succeed Lien P’o.

  Needless to say, he proved no match for the redoubtable Po Ch’i and the great military power of Ch’in. He fell into a trap by which his army was divided into two and his communications cut; and after a desperate resistance lasting 46 days, during which the famished soldiers devoured one another, he was himself killed by an arrow, and his whole force, amounting it is said, to 400,000 men, ruthlessly put to the sword.

  12. Having doomed spies, doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our own spies to know of them and report them to the enemy.

  Tu Yu gives the best exposition of the meaning: “We ostentatiously do things calculated to deceive our own spies, who must be led to believe that they have been unwittingly disclosed. Then, when these spies are
captured in the enemy’s lines, they will make an entirely false report, and the enemy will take measures accordingly, only to find that we do something quite different. The spies will thereupon be put to death.” . . .

  As an example of doomed spies, Ho Shih mentions the prisoners released by Pan Ch’ao in his campaign against Yarkand [chapter XI, paragraph 36, note]. He also refers to T’ang Chien, who in 630 A.D. was sent by T’ai Tsung to lull the Turkish Khan Chieh-li into fancied security, until Li Ching was able to deliver a crushing blow against him. . . .

  Li I-chi played a somewhat similar part in 203 B.C., when sent by the King of Han to open peaceful negotiations with Ch’i. He has certainly more claim to be described as a [doomed spy]; for the King of Ch’i, being subsequently attacked without warning by Han Hsin, and infuriated by what he considered the treachery of Li I-chi, ordered the unfortunate envoy to be boiled alive.