Chapter 13: The Use of Spies
Sun Tzu said:
Mobilizing a hundred thousand troops over a thousand miles costs the people and state a thousand gold pieces daily, disrupts internal and external affairs, exhausts travelers, and idles seven hundred thousand households.
Years of stalemate for a single day’s victory, yet begrudging titles or gold to learn the enemy’s plans, is the height of inhumanity—not the mark of a true general, a ruler’s aide, or a master of victory.
Wise rulers and skilled generals triumph and surpass others through foreknowledge.
Foreknowledge is not gained from spirits, omens, or calculations but from people who know the enemy’s situation.
There are five types of spies: local, insider, double, doomed, and living.
When all five operate undetected, this is the “divine web,” a ruler’s treasure.
- Local spies: Use the enemy’s locals.
- Insider spies: Use their officials.
- Double spies: Use their spies against them.
- Doomed spies: Spread false information to deceive the enemy, sacrificing themselves.
- Living spies: Return with reports.
The army relies on spies; none are rewarded more generously or kept more secret.
Only the wise can employ spies, only the benevolent can direct them, and only the subtle can extract their full value.
Spies are used everywhere. If a spy’s plan leaks before execution, both spy and informant die.
To strike an army, besiege a city, or assassinate an individual, first learn the names of their generals, aides, guards, and staff—spies must uncover these.
Identify enemy spies sent to observe you, turn them with incentives, and use them as double agents.
Through double agents, local and insider spies are recruited.
Through double agents, doomed spies spread deception.
Through double agents, living spies report reliably.
Rulers must master the five spies, relying on double agents, and treat them generously.
The rise of Yin was due to Yi Zhi’s espionage in Xia; Zhou’s rise was due to Lü Ya’s in Yin.
Only wise rulers and skilled generals using the most intelligent spies achieve great success.
This is the essence of warfare, the army’s foundation for action.
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