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XII. THE ATTACK BY FIRE
1. Sun Tzu said: There are five ways of attacking
with fire. The first is to burn soldiers in their camp;
the second is to burn stores; the third is to burn
baggage trains; the fourth is to burn arsenals and magazines;
the fifth is to hurl dropping fire amongst the enemy.
2. In order to carry out an attack, we must have
means available. The material for raising fire should
always be kept in readiness.
3. There is a proper season for making attacks with fire,
and special days for starting a conflagration.
4. The proper season is when the weather is very dry;
the special days are those when the moon is in the
constellations of the Sieve, the Wall, the Wing
or the Cross-bar; for these four are all days of rising wind.
5. In attacking with fire, one should be prepared
to meet five possible developments:
6. (1) When fire breaks out inside to enemy’s camp,
respond at once with an attack from without.
7. (2) If there is an outbreak of fire, but the enemy’s
soldiers remain quiet, bide your time and do not attack.
8. (3) When the force of the flames has reached its height,
follow it up with an attack, if that is practicable;
if not, stay where you are.
9. (4) If it is possible to make an assault with fire
from without, do not wait for it to break out within,
but deliver your attack at a favorable moment.
10. (5) When you start a fire, be to windward of it.
Do not attack from the leeward.
11. A wind that rises in the daytime lasts long,
but a night breeze soon falls.
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.
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.
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.
16. Hence the saying: The enlightened ruler lays his
plans well ahead; the good general cultivates his resources.
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.
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.
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; 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
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 onlybe 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 servicesof the inhabitants of a district.
10. Having inward spies, making use of officialsof 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 openlyfor purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know
of them and report them to the enemy.
13. Surviving spies, finally, are those who bringback 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 benevolenceand 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.
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