FundamentalThrust
FROM ANTIQUITY CHINESE MILITARY THEORY emphasized rationality and control, calculation and planning. In the Art of War, perhaps written about theend of the Spring and Autumn period, Sun-tzu repeatedly stressed thenecessity of avoiding all engagements not based upon extensive, detailedanalyses of the strategic situation, tactical options, and military capabilities.1 Detailed calculations were apparently performed in the ancestral temple inhis era prior to mobilization for a campaign, with similar, more specificassessments being made by field commanders before actually engaging enemy forces. 2 Although undertaken in the ancestral temple, these calculations were not a form of divination but were based upon quantified estimates thatsystematically assigned numerical values to the strength of objectively examined aspects for both sides, perhaps employing a system of tally sticks.3 In "Initial Estimations," the Art of War's first chapter, Sun-tzu itemized the critical questions, thereby concretely defining the thrust of Chinese intelligence-gathering efforts thereafter: "When comparatively evaluating a situation through estimations, seeking out its true nature, ask: Which rulerhas the Tao? Which general has greater ability? Who has gained theadvantages of Heaven and Earth? Whose laws and orders are
more thoroughly implemented? Whose forces are stronger? Whose officers and troops are better trained? Whose rewards and punishments are clearer? From these I will know victory and defeat."
Sun-tzu formulated some forty mutually defined, interrelated pairs thatfurnished the essential intelligence parameters grounding tactical analysis forthe next twenty-five hundred years. Among them the major ones are Heaven-Earth, offense-defense, advance-retreat, and the unorthodox-orthodox. Thecomparative state of readiness can be deduced by reflecting upon suchopposites as hunger-satiety, exhausted- rested, ordered-disordered, fearful-confident, cold-warm, wet-dry, and
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lax-alert. Whenever the calculations or net assessment indicates that theenemy holds a decided advantage, the general must either avoid them, assume a defensive posture, or develop tactics that will convert superiority into weakness, such as harassing the rested until they become exhausted: 4"Ifit is not advantageous, do not move. If objectives cannot be attained, do notemploy the army. Unless endangered, do not engage in warfare. The rulercannot mobilize the army out of personal anger. The general cannot engage inbattle because of personal frustration. When it is advantageous, move; whennot advantageous, stop. Anger can revert to happiness, annoyance can revertto joy, but a vanquished state cannot be revived, the dead cannot be broughtback to life."5
Therefore, only through analytic calculations based upon factual intelligence can the ruler decide whether to commit the state to military activities:
Before the engagement, one who determines in the ancestral temple that hewill be victorious has found that the majority of factors are in his favor. Before the engagement one who determines in the ancestral temple that hewill not be victorious has found few factors are in his favor.
If one who finds that the majority of factors favor him will be victorious while one who has found few factors favor him will be defeated, what about someone who finds no factors in his
favor? If I observe it from this perspective, victory and defeat will be apparent. 6
Sun-tzu's thoughts, an expression of his belief that warfare is the greatestaffair of state, were echoed by virtually all the military writers thereafter, although frequently to little avail as rulers in the Warring States period andthereafter still insisted upon initiating campaigns without careful analysis, frequently in the face of insurmountable odds. A chapter entitled "TempleVictory" in the T'ai-pai Yin-Ching, the noted T'ang dynasty esoteric militarytext attributed to Li Ch'uan, essentially reformulates Sun-tzu's analytic thrustwith a metaphysical vision:
Heaven esteems preserving the full and adhering to the patterns of yin and yang and the four seasons. Earth esteems stabilizing the precarious andobserving the individuality of life and what is appropriate to ordinary land. Men esteem constraint in affairs, the harmonization of yin and yang, and the publication of seasonal edicts. When affairs come they respond to them, whenthings
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come they know them. All under Heaven fully express their loyalty and good faith and follow the government's orders. Thus it is said that "when the Tao of Heaven is free of disasters, you cannot come before them; when the Tao ofEarth lacks calamities, you cannot take the lead; when human affairs havenot suffered any losses, you cannot attack first." 7
When the four seasons encroach upon each other; deluge and droughtincrease and recede; there is thunder in winter and frost in summer; and flying insects devour the fields, these are disasters of Heaven. Whenmountains collapse and rivers block up; when the fields do not produceharvests; water does not sink down to irrigate the land; the five grains remainunplanted; and the eight cereals do not mature, these are calamities of Earth. Heavy taxes and onerous government, high towers and deep pools; laborforces excessively mobilized; drunkenness, orgies, and licentiousness; loyalofficials estranged and sycophants favored; soldiers exhausted and the armyspent through prolonged employment, these are losses of
the human realm. 8 Heavenly disasters are discerned above, calamities of Earth are observed below, and human loss witnessed all about.
Armies not modeled on Heaven should not act; those not patterned on Earthshould not move; expeditions and attacks not in harmony with men shouldnot be completed. Heaven must sanction the time, Earth make its resourcesavailable, and men define the plans. When the enemy is quiet observe theiryang aspects [visible behavior], when they move investigate their yin [silent, hidden] side. 9 First observe their traces, thereafter know the enemy's mind.
What is termed a victorious army is victorious first and then seeks to engage in battle, whereas a defeated army first engages in battle and then seeksvictory. 10 Thus Sun-tzu said: "Before the engagement one who determines inthe ancestral temple that he will be victorious has found that the majority offactors are in his favor. Before the engagement one who determines in theancestral temple that he will not be victorious has found few factors are in hisfavor. If one who finds that the majority of factors favor him will be victoriouswhile one who has found few factors favor him will be defeated, what aboutsomeone who finds no factors in his favor? Observing it from this perspective, victory and defeat will be apparent."11
The idea of calculation, of accurately determining the possibilities of victory through thorough planning, naturally found expression in
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numerous writings apart from the military tradition. For example, the ShuoYüan (a first-century B.C. syncretic text) states: "In undertaking an affair, thesage king invariably plans it carefully, scrutinizes it cautiously within thescope of his plans, and then confirms it through divination by the turtle and milfoil. The ordinary people dwelling in thatched huts are all concerned withhis plans, those engaged in menial labors all exhaust their minds in the task.Thus the king may undertake ten thousand affairs, yet no factor will be leftout or any plans fall."12 The method of course requires balancing thetendencies
of the moment with cognizance of their opposite: "Now whenever the wiseundertake affairs, if they are full, they ponder excess; if peaceful, theycontemplate danger; and if contorted, they consider the straight. For thisreason in a hundred affairs they never sink into difficulty." 13 Anothersection reiterates: "Plans that precede affairs flourish, affairs that precede plans perish." 14
Necessity for Intelligence and Agents
Because of the analytical nature of their approach to warfighting, virtually all the Chinese military writers addressed the need for an intelligence service toferret out vital information unavailable from open sources and simpleobservation. For example, the Ssu-ma Fa, parts of which may predate Sun-tzuArt of War, states: "In general, to wage war: employ spies against the distant;observe the near; act in accord with the seasons; take advantage of theenemy's resources; esteem good faith; abhor the doubtful."15 The great general Wu Ch'i subsequently identified four vital points of warfare--ch'i (spirit), terrain, affairs, and strength--defining "affairs" in terms of successfullyemploying agents: "Being good at controlling clandestine operatives; with a few light troops harassing the enemy, causing them to scatter; and forcingrulers and ministers to feel mutual annoyance, higher and lower ranks toreproach each other, this is termed the vital point of affairs." 16 Clearly suchagents did not just passively gather information, but also actively engaged insowing dissension and undermining administrations.
Sun-tzu, widely known even in the West as the progenitor of spycraft,17 advanced a strong economic argument for deploying agents in the firstparagraphs of his famous chapter "Employing Spies":
When you send forth an army of a hundred thousand on a campaign, marching them out a thousand kilometers, the expenditures of the common people and the contributions of the feudal
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Armies remain locked in a standoff for years to fight for victory on a single day, yet generals begrudge bestowing ranks and emoluments of one hundredpieces of gold and therefore do not know the enemy's situation. This is theultimate inhumanity. Such a person is not a general for the people, anassistant for a ruler, or the arbiter of victory.
Enlightened rulers and sagacious generals who are able to get intelligentspies will invariably attain great achievements. This is the essence of the military, what the Three Armies rely on to move.
Sun-tzu firmly believed that the successful management of warfare depended upon acquiring full knowledge of the enemy, for only upon such a basis canplans be formulated:
The prosecution of military affairs lies in according with and learning indetail the enemy's intentions. If one then focuses his strength toward theenemy, strikes a thousand kilometers away, and kills their general, it istermed "being skillful and capable in completing military affairs."
For this reason one who does not know the plans of the feudal lords cannotforge preparatory alliances. One who does not know the topography ofmountains and forests, ravines and defiles, wetlands and marshes cannotmaneuver the army. One who does not employ local guides will not secureadvantages of terrain. One who does not know one of these four or five cannotcommand the army of a hegemon or a true king. 18
Within the context of the vast commitments and expenditures required by warfare, Sun-tzu believed that wasting material and lives would be bothstupid and inhumane because the ultimate intent of warfare should be topreserve one's own people while rapidly vanquishing the enemy. Thus, failing to gather any information that might facilitate victory could only be considered inhumane. However, for the past thousand years
moral purists in China have condemned the book for its breaches of sincerity, righteousness, and trust, just as the first Westerners who eventually translated the text into French and later into English. (Remarkably, theseearly nonmilitary Western readers, being particularly appalled by the boldnessof Sun-tzu's asser
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tions, condemned the Art of War from a doctrinaire Christian perspective as a heathen work somehow typical of an inferior race, irrespective of their owncovert traditions and practices.)
Details, such as the identity of key personnel and the assignment of responsibilities that might be exploited through contacts, hostages, andextortion, should not be neglected: "In general, as for the armies you want tostrike, the cities you want to attack, and the men you want to assassinate, you must first know the names of the defensive commander, his assistants, staff, door guards, and attendants. You must have our spies search out andlearn them all." 19
When fully assembled, this information would furnish the means to"know the enemy," one-half of Sun-tzu's famous equation for victory:
If I know our troops can attack, but do not know the enemy cannot be attacked, it is only halfway to victory. If I know the enemy can be attacked,but do not realize our troops cannot attack, it is only halfway to victory.
Knowing that the enemy can be attacked, and knowing that our army caneffect the attack, but not knowing the terrain is not suitable for combat, isonly halfway to victory. Thus one who truly knows the army will never bedeluded when he moves, never be impoverished when initiating an action.
Thus it is said if you know them and know yourself, your victory will notbe imperiled. If you know Heaven and know Earth, your victory can becomplete. 20
Throughout the Kuan-tzu, an eclectic work traditionally attributed to the greatSpring and Autumn governmental adviser Kuan Chung but largely composedduring the middle to
late Warring States period, "foreknowledge" is constantly emphasized:
Being ignorant about estimations and calculations but yet wanting toundertake military affairs is like wanting to cross over a dangerous river without a boat or oars. 21 . . .
When plans are not determined within the state but troops are dispatched across the borders, this is warfare that will prove self- defeating, attacks thatwill be self-destructive. Therefore, if one deploys the army but is unable toengage in combat, surrounds enemies but is unable to assault them, gainsterritory but is unable incorporate it--any one of these three can produce defeat. Therefore one who is not knowledgeable about the enemy's governmentcannot make plans against them. One who is not knowledgeable about theenemy's true situation cannot constrain them with
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agreements. One who is not knowledgeable about the enemy's generals cannot mobilize the army first; one who is not knowledgeable about theenemy's officers cannot deploy the army against them. 22
Sun Pin, a brilliant descendant of Sun-tzu whose Military Methods was recently rediscovered after being lost for two thousand years, similarly emphasized the importance of knowledge gained through spy activities:
There are five aspects to constantly being victorious. One who obtains the ruler's sole authority will be victorious. One who knows the Tao will be victorious. One who gains the masses will be victorious. One whose left andright are in harmony will be victorious. One who analyzes the enemy andestimates the terrain will be victorious.
There are five aspects to constantly not being victorious. A general who is hampered by the ruler will not be victorious. One who does not know the Taowill not be victorious. A perverse general will not be victorious. One who doesnot use spies will not be victorious. One who does not gain the masses will not be victorious. 23
The Huai-nan Tzu's military discussion defined "tactical wisdom" in terms of clandestine intelligence gathering coupled with tactical command skills: "Onewho excels in employing secret agents [chien tie], investigating actions, andfathoming thought, establishing the obscure and setting ambushes, hiding and concealing his shape, and going forth where unexpected so that theenemy's troops never can succeed in defensive preparations is said to knowthe tactical balance of power."
The most successful military commander and thinker in the T'ang dynasty,which saw a sudden proliferation of military writings, was undoubtedly thegreat general Li Ching. Apart from the Questions and Replies, his views arepreserved in a synthetic work reconstructed from scattered fragments entitledLi Wei-kung Ping-fa. Several lengthy passages are directed to the nature and importance of spy work, and the entire book stresses the importance of acquiring knowledge:
Now there are affairs which appear similar but whose strategic power differs, and those whose strategic power is identical but appearances differ. By according with the situation you can be completely successful with onemovement, but if you strike when the
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situation is not conducive, your movements will certainly be defeated.
The measures for achieving decisive victory lie in investigating the opposing general's talent and abilities; analyzing the enemy's strengths andweaknesses; determining the configuration and strategic advantages of terrain; observing the advantages of the appropriate moment; and first being victorious, only thereafter engaging in combat and defending positions withoutlosing them. This is termed the Tao for certain victory. 24
The Sung dynasty Unorthodox Strategies summarized the thirteenth-century view in similar terms: "Whenever planning to conduct a major military expedition, you should first employ spies to determine the enemy's troopstrength, emptiness or
fullness, and movement and rest, and only thereafter mobilize the army. Great achievements can then be attained and you will always be victorious incombat. The Art of War states, 'There are no areas in which one does notemploy spies.'"25
In the Ming, about the mid- sixteenth century, an unknown author strongly asserted:
Now any general who, assuming the mantle of authority over the Three Armiesand controlling the fate of ten thousand men, confronts fierce enemies orpursues them into the wilds to engage in a standoff but does not know theenemy's situation is a blockhead. When two forces struggle to control eachother, anyone who does not undertake spycraft techniques is a wild animal.
For this reason attacking other states through their ruler is more intelligentthan attacking them yourself. Plotting against people through their ministersis more intelligent than plotting against them yourselves. Dispersing alliancesand bringing allies together in conflict are more intelligent than engagingthem in combat yourself.
It may be compared with the case of a tiger who eats men. Anyone who goesto pull its teeth ends up being eaten. Anyone who trusts it by feeding it meatalso ends up being eaten. Whoever pursues it wielding halberds also ends upbeing eaten. Whoever attacks the tiger with stones are also all eaten.Therefore, you should have other people pull its teeth, not pull its teethyourself; entrust other men to feed it with meat, not rely upon doing ityourself; have other men pursue the tiger with a halberd, not pursue ityourself. Conceal yourself when attacking a tiger with stones, and have othermen confront its anger. In this fashion you
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attack others through their ruler, plot against men through their ministers, disperse their alliances, and instigate conflict among them. But withoutagents, how can you investigate their true nature, without spies how can youemploy these techniques? 26
Whenever two armies stand off against each other, it is not just we who plotagainst the enemy, but also the enemy who plots against us. To fail to gainaccurate information about the enemy's situation but recklessly engage inbattle is senseless. How can you then employ subtle changes to wrest victory? Now as for the enemy's situation, there are those aspects that can be learned through observation, and those that cannot be learned through observation.There are many methods, inexhaustible changes in such matters! 27
Stress on Human Agency
Sun-tzu, among the first to decry the widespread, traditional reliance uponspirits and prognostication, insisted upon confining intelligence efforts to thehuman realm: "The means by which enlightened rulers and sagacious generalsmoved and conquered others, that their achievements surpassed the masses, was advance knowledge. Advance knowledge cannot be gained from ghostsand spirits, inferred from phenomena, or projected from the measures of Heaven, but must be gained from men, for it is the knowledge of the enemy'strue situation." 28
This well-known passage has frequently been cited by Western historians unfamiliar with the vast corpus of Chinese military writings to conclude thatChinese intelligence theory was not only founded upon, but also strictlylimited to human effort, in contradistinction to other lands and superstitiouspractices. 29 However, even though virtually all the tactical works stress human effort and deny the value of divination in fathoming the outcome of campaigns and battles, the prognosticatory tradition that originated in theShang dynasty not only continued to flourish, but also vigorously evolved toencompass the interpretation of such diverse phenomena as sounds, clouds, weather, phases of the moon, natural omens, and the numerology of dates, producing numerous volumes devoted to arcane practices.
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Commanders exhorted their men to ignore meteors, birds flying backward,and the sudden appearance of dense black clouds, but rulers and generalsmight still resort to nonhuman agencies in an attempt to predict favorablecourses of action amid the confusion of military confrontations, as will bediscussed in the final section on divination, prognostication, and countertrends.
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5 Nature and
Theory of Agents
SUN-TZU'S BRIEF CHAPTER " Employing Spies, " being fundamental to all subsequent military thought about covert agents and their activities, meritspresentation in itself before we dissect it and note a few historicalcommentaries and explications. The initial paragraphs presenting hisjustification for employing spies having just been cited, only the remainingtwo-thirds, which immediately analyze the types of agents, need be arrayed:
There are five types of spies to be employed: local spies, internal spies, turned spies [double agents], dead [expendable] spies, and living spies. When all fiveare employed together and no one knows their Tao, this is termed "spiritualmethodology." They are a ruler's treasures.
Local spies--employ people from the local district.
Internal spies--employ their people who hold government positions.
Double agents--employ the enemy's spies.
Expendable spies--are employed to spread disinformation outside the state. Provide our [expendable] spies [with false information] and have them leak it to enemy agents.
Living spies--return with their reports.
Thus of all the Three Armies' affairs no relationship is closer than withspies; no rewards are more generous than those
given to spies; no affairs are more secret than those pertaining to spies.
Unless someone has the wisdom of a Sage, he cannot use spies; unless he is benevolent and righteous, he cannot employ spies; unless he is subtle andperspicacious, he cannot perceive the sub
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stance in intelligence reports. It is subtle, subtle! There are no areas in whichone does not employ spies.
If before the mission has begun it has already been exposed, the spy and those he informed should all be put to death.
In general, as for the armies you want to strike, the cities you want to attack, and the men you want to assassinate, you must first know the names of thedefensive commander, his assistants, staff, door guards, and attendants. You must have our spies search out and learn them all.
You must search for enemy agents who have come to spy on us. Temptthem with profits, instruct and retain them. Thus double agents can be obtained and employed. Through knowledge gained from them you canrecruit both local and internal spies. Through knowledge gained from themthe expendable spy can spread his falsehoods, can be used to misinform the enemy. Through knowledge gained from them our living spies can be employed as times require.
The ruler must know these five aspects of espionage work. This knowledge inevitably depends on turned spies; therefore, you must be generous to doubleagents.
In antiquity, when the Yin [Shang] arose, they had Yi Chih [Yi Yin] in the Hsia. When the Chou arose, they had Lü Ya [the T'ai Kung] in the Yin. Thusenlightened rulers and sagacious generals who are able to get intelligent spieswill invariably attain great achievements. This is the essence of the military,what the Three Armies rely on to move.
In his penultimate chapter Sun-tzu thus delineated the characteristics and functions of five categories of spies that founded all future theorizing. Eventhough the categories were
gradually expanded over the years, essentially being subdivided, refined, and redefined until numbering some thirty-two in the Ming dynasty, the basictypes remained unchanged. Even though Sun-tzu's definitions are generallyclear, it should be noted that "local spies" refers not just to agents recruited inspecific areas, but may also include anyone who temporarily resides outsidetheir native habitant, such as emigrants, experienced travelers, andperipatetic "persuaders" who readily provide information about other states asan integral part of their persuasive efforts. Thus, as discussed in the sectionon early history, China's first spies--Yi Yin and the T'ai Kung--did not actuallyengage in clandestine spy work
within a foreign state (a function performed by internal spies or living spies), but were essentially defectors. In this role, essentially in exile, they providedvaluable general information about gov
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ernment officials and local configurations of terrain, thereby meriting the designation of "local spies" or "local guides."
Living spies were often talented individuals of exceptional perspicacity whocould be dispatched to foreign states, sometimes in diplomatic guise, toobserve and then report back. They normally comprised the greatest numberof agents so as to provide the state with multiple means for acquiring data.
Double agents were spies dispatched by the enemy who had been detected and subsequently either converted to the state's cause or bribed. ( Sun-tzu'sdefinition eventually evolved to include enemy agents who were being unconsciously manipulated. Although such manipulation certainly was notunique to China, most traditions would not term such individuals "double agents" or "turned agents" given the absence of any volitional component. However, throughout Chinese history the process of converting or turningthem to one's own use was the defining factor, not whether they wereknowledgeable or participants.) Sun-tzu highly esteemed true double agents because they might provide extensive, detailed information about the enemy'sinternal situation:
You must search for enemy agents who have come to spy on us. Temptthem with profits, instruct and retain them. Thus double agents can be obtained and employed. Through knowledge gained from them you canrecruit both local and internal spies. Through knowledge gained from themthe expendable spy can spread his falsehoods, can be used to misinform the enemy. Through knowledge gained from them our living spies can be employed as times require.
The ruler must know these five aspects of espionage work. This knowledge inevitably depends on turned spies; therefore, you must be generous to doubleagents.
The prolific Li Ching also pondered the nature of spycraft at the start of the T'ang dynasty, concluding:
Can victory in warfare be sought in Heaven or Earth, or must it be accomplished through men? When we examine the ways the ancientshistorically employed spies, we find that their subtle techniques were notsingular. Some spied on rulers, the ruler's close associates, capable officials, assistants, close neighbors, associates, and allies. Tzu Kung, Shih Liao, Ch'en, Chen, Su Ch'in, Chang Yi, Fan Sui, and others all relied upon thesetechniques to achieve results.
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There are five categories in the Tao of spycraft: Those who rely on local connections to submerge themselves, observe and investigate, and then reporton everything they have learned. Those who take advantage of the enemy'sclosely trusted people to deliberately leak false information for transmission tothem. Those who rely upon their emissaries to twist affairs about and then return. Those worthy and talented individuals who are dispatched to discoverthe enemy's inclinations and vacuities and return to discuss them. And thosewho are accused of fabricated offenses so that they might subtly leak out falsereports and specious plans, who then perish because of their reports to the enemy. Now these five categories of spies all must be kept hidden and secret. Treat them generously with rewards and keep them more than secret, for thenthey can be employed. 1
The Ch'ang-tuan Ching's military section, dating from roughly the first quarter of the eighth century, also discusses Sun-tzu's five agents in a chapter thatheavily quotes "Employing Spies" but illustrates the categories with interestinghistorical examples:
The Chou Li states, "The one who circulates among the feudal states and reports back on their spies is a 'turned agent.'"2 The T'ai Kung said, "When anagent snares words flying about, they can be accumulated to compose a company of troops." From this we know that the Tao for employing agents isnot a momentary affair. Thus there are five types of agents: local spies, internal spies, double agents, living spies, and expendable spies. These fivetypes of agents all originated together, no one knows their Tao.
Local spies--employ people from the local district.
Internal spies--employ their people who hold government positions.
Double agents--employ the enemy's agents.
Living spies--return with their reports.
Expendable spies--reemployed to spread disinformation outside the state. Provide our [expendable] spies [with false information] and have them leak toenemy agents.
In the Han dynasty when Pan Chao, Protector for the Western regions, was first appointed as chief of the regional generals, he
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mobilized all the infantry and cavalry from the areas under his control--some twenty-five thousand--to attack the minor border state of Sha-ch'e. Sha-ch'esought aid from the state of Kuei-tzu. The king of Kuei-tzu dispatched hisGeneral of the Left to
mobilize troops from the states of Wen-su, Ku-mo, and Wei-t'ou, assembling some fifty thousand men to assist him. Pan Chao then summoned hissubordinate commanders and the kings of Yü-t'ien and Su-leh and informedthem: "Our troops are too few to be a match for the enemy, so it would be bestto separate and disperse. The troops from Yü-t'ien should go east from here, I will return west. When you hear the sound of the drums in the middle of thenight, have your troops set out." They all concurred. Thereafter he secretly arranged to have some captured prisoners escape and report his words to theking of Kuei-tzu. Overjoyed, the king had his General of the Left, in command of ten thousand cavalry, set off to intercept Pan Chao at the western borderand the king of Wen-su, in command of eight thousand cavalry, intercept Yü-t'ien's forces at the eastern border. However, after conspicuously assigningtheir missions, Pan Chao secretly ordered his colonels, in command of picked troops and elite warriors, to race to Sha-ch'e encampment at the first cock'scrow, whereupon they assaulted and overcame them. Although the defenderswere terrified into running off, Chao's troops still killed some five thousand Hu tribesmen and eventually forced Sha-ch'e to surrender.
Furthermore, there is the case of Keng Yen conducting a punitive expeditionagainst Chang Pu. 3 When Chang Pu, who had rebelled against the Han, heardabout their approach, he had general Fei Yi deploy at Li-hsia and separatelyordered troops to encamp at Chu-a. In addition, he established a line ofseveral dozen fortified camps between T'ai-shan and Chung-ch'eng inpreparation for Keng Yen.
Keng Yen crossed the Yellow River and advanced to attack Chu-a first. Whenseizing it, he deliberately left one corner of the encirclement open in order toallow some of their troops to flee back to their base at Chung-ch'eng. Whenthe men there
heard that Chu-a had already collapsed, they were terrified and fled, leaving behind a deserted shell. General Fei Yi split up his forces and dispatched hisyounger brother Fei Kan to defend Chü-li. When Keng Yen advanced, he firstthreatened Chü-li, loudly ordering the troops to cut down numerous trees tofill in the moat and build hillocks and thereby force its surrender within days. When Fe Yi learned that Keng Yen was about to
assault Chü-li, he laid plans to go and rescue the city. Keng Yen thenordered every
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one to repair their assault equipment, visibly planning to employ all their strength to assault Chü-li's fortifications in three days. However, he secretly left an opening in the siege so that a few soldiers from the city might escape,race back to Fei Yi, and report the time of Keng Yen's attack.
On the appointed day Fei Yi himself came forth to rescue Chü-li. Keng Yenhappily addressed his staff generals: "The reason I had our assault equipmentrepaired was to entice Fei Yi to come here. His arrival is exactly what Iwanted." Then, after splitting off three thousand men to maintain the effort atChü-li, he personally led his elite units in ascending the surrounding hillsand ridges. Thus, they were able to exploit the heights when engaging Fei Yiin battle and managed to severely defeat his army, killing Fei Yi himself.These are examples of employing local spies.
During the Chin dynasty Luo Shang, regional governor for Yi-chou, dispatched Wei Po to assault Li Hsiung, who held the city of P'i. After several pitchedbattles Li Hsiung summoned P'u T'ai, a native of Wu-tu; whipped him until hebled; and then had him falsely report to Luo Shang that he wanted to mount a treacherous response within the city, and would mark its initiation by setting a fire. Trusting him, Luo Shang sent forth all his elite soldiers and alsodispatched Wei Po and other officers to follow to P'u T'ai's directions. Meanwhile, Li Hsiung had already dispatched Li Huan to establish an ambushalong Luo Shang's route of approach. Pu T'ai then set some long ladders outagainst the walls and started a fire. When Wei Po saw the fire arise, his troopsall competed with each other to climb their rungs. Pu T'ai also hauled upseveral hundred soldiers with ropes and killed them all. Li Hsiung thenreleased the troops both from within the city and held in ambush outside tosuddenly mount a two-pronged attack on the enemy. Striking from within andwithout, they extensively destroyed Luo Shang's army. Such is the power of employing internal agents.
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Through bribery Ch'en P'ing released double agents amid Ch'u's army and caused Fan Tseng's estrangement when Hsiang Yü, the king of Ch'u, doubted his loyalty. This is the power of employing double agents.
Thus we know that among the intimates of the Three Armies, none are closer than spies; no rewards are more generous than given to spies; no affairs moresecret than those pertaining to spies. Unless someone has the wisdom of a Sage, he cannot use spies. Unless he is secret and subtle, he cannot perceivethe substance in intelligence reports. 4 This is the essence of the ThreeArmies, emphasized only by the wise and perspicacious. 5
Although the chapter is organized around what might be termed "orthodox"definitions of agent categories, the actual terminology and examples are hardly what one would expect from Sun-tzu's definitions or the commentaries thatcoalesced around the Art of War. Perhaps this reflects the ignorance of an amateur writing on military matters; perhaps he had simply developed different conceptions of covert intelligence gathering. For example, the "local spies" found in his example are simply besieged soldiers who were tricked intobecoming false prophets, disseminating pre-scripted information that wouldprompt desired enemy action. Some theorists would in fact term them "double" or "turned" agents because they were enemy personnel converted toone's own use, even though not originally spies. (In fact, the term "turned"agent in most of the historical works simply refers to such "others" being
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double agents, but more likely were just agents sent in to spread disinformation, or perhaps local officials or staff members bribed to createsuspicion, and thus merely internal agents. Of all the theoretical writingsbased upon Sun-tzu "Employing Spies," this chapter diverges the mostradically.
Li Ch'uan, writing in his T'ai-pai Yin-ching perhaps a half century later, however, reverted to the old term of hsing-jen, which by this time had evolvedwith the language and lost the early connotations associated with the Chou dynasty official previously examined, coming to mean simply "traveler." Hecommences his chapter entitled "Hsing-jen," which might be translated"Roving Agents," in Sun-tzu's mode, condemning ignorance and any appealto otherworldly sources, then proceeds to examine what he considers the twofundamental types of agents:
If the ruler selects a day to ascend the altar and appoint a commanding general; has the weapons and armor put into good order; the troops venture forth to destroy the enemy's state, defeat the enemy's army, kill theenemy's general, and
take their people prisoner; transports provisions out ten thousand kilometers; and penetrates the enemy's borders, yet does not know the enemy's true situation, this is the commanding general's error.
The enemy's true situation cannot be discerned among the stars and constellations, or sought from ghosts and spirits, or acquired throughdivination or prognostication, but can be sought among men. 6 In antiquitywhen the Shang arose Yi Yin was a cook in the Hsia; when the Chou arose, the T'ai Kung was a fisherman in the Shang; when the Ch'in established imperial rule, Li Ssu was a hunter in Shantung; when Han Kao-tsu ventured forth Han Hsin was an exiled soldier from Ch'u; and Ts'ao Ts'ao found HsünHuo, Yüan Shao's cast-off minister. Ssu-ma T'an became emperor of Chinbecause Chia Ch'ung had been entrusted with government in Wei, while Weiitself arose because Ts'ui Hao had made Chin his home. Thus throughemploying such men these seven rulers became emperor over All under Heaven.
Now whenever worthy men flee a state, it must be because sycophantic ministers control the ruler's authority. The true measure of things is thenlost, the ruler's assistants form cliques, men of little merit monopolize power, and scoundrels usurp the authority of state. For example, Ya Yi promiscuously served King Chieh of the Hsia, Chung Hou immersed Chou ofthe Shang in licentiousness, and Yu Chan befuddled the second emperor of
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Ch'in with his music. When its three benevolent advisers departed, the Shang became a wasteland; when the two elders gave their allegiance to Chou itbecame glorious. When Wu Tzu-hsü died, the state of Wu was lost. Fan Lilived and Yüeh became hegemon. Wu Yang entered the border and Ch'in wasdelighted; general Yüeh Yi departed and Yen was terrified.
When a general succeeds in securing the enemy's people, entrusts them withresponsibility, and ferrets out the enemy's true situation, what worry willremain that he might not be victorious? Thus it is said that if you gather intheir stalwarts the enemy's state will be overturned; if you snare their valiants
the enemy's state will be empty. Truly, through stones from othermountains you can polish your own jade.
Now there are two employments for roving agents [hsing-jen]. First, we cancapitalize upon the men dispatched by the enemy to observe our defects by offering them higher ranks and making their salaries more generous. Thereafter, investigate their words and compare them with actuality. If they prove accurate, you can then employ them; if specious, you can execute them. Employ them as "local guides."
Second, have our roving agents observe the enemy's ruler and ministers, attendants, and officials, noting who is worthy, who stupid. Among the ruler'sintimates, those both inside and outside the palace, who is covetous, whoincorruptible. Among his attendants and diplomatic personnel, who areperfected men, who menial men. Once we have acquired this knowledge, we can proceed to achieve our purpose.
Among those serving in the Three Armies, none are more important thanspies. Among secrets within the Three Armies, none more secret than spies. When plots involving such spies have not yet been set into motion, anyonewho leaks them, as well as those they inform, should all be executed. On theday when a plot is initiated, destroy the drafts, burn the copies, silence their mouths, and do not allow internal plans to leak out. Be just like a blackbirdinvisibly entering the heavy forest or a fish diving into the deepest pool withoutany trace. Remember that, despite his surpassing visual acuity, when Li Loubent his head he couldn't discern the shape of things, and despite his acute hearing, when Shih Kuang tilted his ear downward he couldn't hear a sound.Subtle! Subtle, just like a swirl of fine dust arising. How can a drunken andsated general who must contend with force, yet lightly engages in battle,manage to discern the affairs of spies?
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Li Ch'uan's "roving agents" would thus perform most of the functions ofSun-tzu's five categories, with an emphasis upon converting enemy spies into turned agents and using one's agents to gain a detailed knowledge of the enemy's staff and
personalities preliminary to unspecified, but no doubt dramatic, actions.
By the late Ming the list of chien, normally understood as human agents, was expanded by an innovative military thinker, Chieh Hsüan, who regarded theemployment of various techniques and the utilization of inanimate objectsequally as "agents." Although this poses some problems for facile translation--requiring something like "agency through" or "clandestine action through"--hisconcept is clear and the range of activities comprehensive, amounting to somesixteen categories, prefaced and concluded with incisive remarks aboutemploying covert agents under the definition for agent (chien) in the Ping-faPai-yen:
Definition: Those who enter among the enemy and implement unorthodoxmeasures are termed "agents."
Original Text: Agents strike fear in the enemy's general staff, slay the enemy's beloved generals, and cause chaos in the enemy's estimates and strategies. The methods for employing agents include living, dead [expendable], written, civil, rumors, prophecy, songs, bribes, things, rank, the enemy, villagers [local guides], friends, women, goodwill, and awe.
Explanation: Spies [tie] who are dispatched and then return are living agents.
Those who enter enemy territory but do not return are dead [expendable]agents. 7
Creating forged letters is clandestine written action.
Holding discussions that stupefy the enemy is clandestine civil action.
Sullying and contaminating the enemy's generals are clandestine action by rumor.
Creating prophetic verses that circulate among the people is clandestine action by prophecy.
Songs, such as used against Ch'u, to disperse the troops are clandestine action through song.
Using ten thousand ounces of gold to make bribes is clandestine action through bribery.
Sometimes seizing things, sometimes granting gifts, are clandestine action through things.
To promise rank and position is clandestine bribery through rank.
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Allowing the enemy's agents to return and report is clandestine action thoughenemy agents.
To form connections with subordinates and partisan cliques with hamlets is clandestine action through local agents.
To influence people through their friends is clandestine action throughfriends.
Bribes that penetrate the women's quarters constitute clandestine action through women.
Exploiting personal friendship is clandestine action through goodwill.
Inflicting bodily harm to implement plans is clandestine action throughawesomeness.
It is not that implementing clandestine activities is difficult, but employing men that is difficult. Therefore employing agents is more difficult thanemploying the army.
The author concludes with twelve examples and then notes: "Living and dead are the general names for agents. Employing them through benevolence orfear is subtle. Now enumerating the above twelve types of agents, distinguishing them as living or dead, and then completing the categorizationby indicating whether they were employed through benevolence or fear are too complex to harmonize. Thus Sun-tzu Art of War established a single chapter todistinguish the five types of agents." Although somewhat cryptic, hiscategories may easily be subsumed under Sun-tzu's five rubrics, many ofthem being local guides simply coupled with a more explicit listing of themeans employed to entice or coerce cooperation among the enemy's people and thereby secure useful agents.
Shih Tzu-mei's Lectures on "Employing Spies"
In the middle of the Southern Sung dynasty Shih Tzu-mei penned a series of commentaries to the Seven Military Classics so extensive as to merit the titleof lectures. Much studied and reprinted in both Japan and China over thecenturies, they were the first work to treat the Seven Military Classics ascanonical, remaining especially significant today because they show the continuity of military thought from Sun- tzu's Art of War through Li Ch'uanT'ang dynasty T'ai-pai Yin-Ching and into his own work in the early thirteenthcentury. Moreover, several passages commenting on Sun-tzu's "Employing Spies" incorporate extensive, though unacknowledged, material from Li Ch'uan's chapter on roving agents. His views also embrace differing opinions
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from the Ten Commentaries edition of Sun-tzu Art of War, as well as Li Ching's thoughts from Questions and Replies, sometimes citing the speakers, at other times merely co-opting their phrases and sentences. (The moreimportant ones will be indicated with attributions in parentheses.) Althoughlengthy, because the interpretations and details are significant, the entire lecture on "Employing Spies" from his Sun-tzu Chiang-yi merits translating. Fortunately the lectures are mostly self-explanatory, so little additionalcommentary is required. Of particular interest are the examples interwovenamong the explications, almost invariably from the ancient period. ( Sun-tzu'soriginal text, upon which he comments, appears in italic type.)
Employing Spies
T'ien Tan unleashed turned agents in Yen and Yen was indeed defeated. Ch'in had spies speak in Chao and Chao indeed surrendered. Spies being ofsuch great use, Sun-tzu has a chapter called "Employing Spies."
Sun-tzu: "When you send forth an army of a hundred thousand on a campaign, marching them out a thousand kilometers, the expenditures of thecommon people and the contributions of the
feudal house will be one thousand catties of gold per day. Thoseinconvenienced and troubled both within and without the border, who areexhausted on the road or unable to pursue their agricultural work, will be sevenhundred thousand families.
Armies remain locked in a standoff for years to fight for victory on a singleday, yet generals begrudge bestowing ranks and emoluments of one hundredpieces of gold and therefore do not know the enemy's situation. This is theultimate inhumanity. Such a person is not a general for the people, anassistant for a ruler, or the arbiter of victory."
Mobilizing an army of a hundred thousand means the ultimate mass. Going forth a thousand kilometers means the farthest distance. When the ultimatemass was employed in a military campaign that took them the farthestdistance possible and they calculated the transfer of supplies, what wasexpended and not recovered, what the royal family contributed above and theexpenses of the common people below, each day they used a thousand cattiesof gold. Thus those bearing weapons were troublesomely employed in military service outside the state's borders, while grasses and grains were alsoonerously moved about within it. Along the roads delays could not be avoided.
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The number of farmers who could not pursue their occupations amounted toseven hundred thousand families because in the ancient well-field system ninefamilies farmed an equal number of plots, with the middle plot being theduke's share. If someone among the eight families personally farming theseplots was impressed into the army, the remaining seven had to supply his clothes and food. Therefore, when a hundred thousand troops were mobilized,seven hundred thousand families were unable to concentrate upon their ownaffairs. 8 How can the immensely disruptive effect be fully described?
With the daily expenses of the army being so great, if the commanding general wanted to find a way to certain victory but begrudged expendituresfor rank and salary or a hundred catties of gold to seek out the enemy's truesituation, how could he achieve victory? Moreover, the ruler easily acquiresthings, but the enemy's true situation is especially difficult to
Furthermore, maintaining a defensive posture for several years is extremely long, while victory or defeat may be decided on a single momentous day, sobeing incapable of employing agents to spy upon the enemy's situation wouldbe the greatest inhumanity! Someone like this cannot be a general for men, an assistant for the ruler, or the master of victory. Accordingly, the T'ai-pai Yin-ching states: "The ruler selects a day to mount the dais and appoint the commanding general, they put the armor and weapons in order, and when allthe troops are mounted they go forth to destroy other people's states anddefeat their armies. They kill the enemy's generals and take their menprisoner. They transport provisions out ten thousand kilometers and traverse the enemy's terrain, but if they do not know the enemy's situation, it is not theruler's error but the general's offense." If this is true, how can spies not beused!
Ch'en P'ing advised Han Kao-tsu that if he was willing to sacrifice several tens of thousands of catties of gold, he could send forth turned agents [fanchien] to estrange Ch'u's ruler from his ministers and cause doubts in hismind. Without any further questions Han Kao-tsu therefore gave fortythousand catties to Ch'en P'ing to freely employ as he might, and in the end he destroyed Ch'u through this method. Mencius said, "Those who work for wealth will not be benevolent."9 The Rescripts state,
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"When the general is not benevolent, the Three Armies will not be attached tohim."10
Sun-tzu: "The means by which enlightened rulers and sagacious generalsmoved and conquered others, that their achievements surpassed the masses,was advance knowledge. Advance knowledge cannot be gained from ghostsand spirits, inferred from phenomena, or projected from the measures ofHeaven, but must be gained from men, for it is the knowledge of the enemy'strue situation."
The T'ai-pai Yin-ching states, "The enemy's situation cannot be sought for among the stars and constellations, or among ghosts and spirits, not throughdivination by turtle shell or milfoil stalks, but should be sought throughmen." Someone who knows this understands how the enlightened rulers andsagacious generals of old controlled their victories. Not one of them failed tobase their efforts upon gaining knowledge of the enemy through humanagents. Assuredly, if you do not know the enemy's situation, you will lack themeans to realize great achievements. Similarly, if you are unable to use men, you will have no way to know the enemy's situation. If vital information aboutthe enemy cannot be obtained, it will be difficult to determine the path tovictory. Through relying upon men we can know the enemy's situation, so by employing spies we can fully know the enemy's advantageous anddisadvantageous procedures and the appropriateness of their coming andgoing. This is why enlightened rulers and wise generals esteemed advance knowledge.
Now foreknowledge can be sought from ghosts and spirits, but the way of ghosts and spirits lacks form and shadow. Relying on men whose actions aresubmerged in the vacuous and nonexistent is hardly trustworthy. If we seekit in linked phenomena, the border for phenomenal associations lies in whathas already passed. Since we cannot seek the future in the past, it is difficultto give it credence either. 11
Some take affairs to be simply a matter of officers, with "officers" being understood as the worthy officials and Confucians who wear round hats andwalk in square shoes. They are fully conversant about the Tao of the threerealms of Heaven, Earth, and Man. Now if our foreknowledge is adequate to illuminate things, why imagize it with officers, a method inferior to the theoryof phenomenal associations?
If we seek it through administrative order, although the traces and forms may be beautiful, they also cannot be believed. Then
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why not seek knowledge among men? Through employing agents we canknow the enemy's advantages and disadvantages, movements and stopping,interior and exterior,
Sun-tzu: "There are five types of spies to be employed: local spies, internalspies, turned spies [double agents], dead [expendable] spies, and living spies.When all five are employed together and no one knows their Tao, this is termed'spiritual methodology.' They are a ruler's treasures."
Those who put on armor, grasp sharp weapons, and are first to break throughthe enemy's lines and mount their walls are men who dare to fight. Thosewho know the Tiger Secret Teaching and Leopard Strategy, who have masteredmany methods and quick responses, excel at strategy. Those who understand riverboats and land wagons, the employment of cows and horses, excel atlogistics. Those who precisely investigate the auspiciousness of naturalphenomena and divine the implications of the wind's direction are divinersand prognosticators. We employ the courage of those who dare to fight, the wisdom of those who excel at planning, the labor of those who satisfy logistical needs, and the calculations of those who divine and prognosticate. As forthose who spy out the enemy's closely held secrets, who ferret out theirinternal and external affairs, how can they not be treated as resources for spying?
Now spy activities are not singular. There are "local spies, internal spies, turned spies [double agents], dead [expendable] spies, and living spies. Whenall five are employed together and no one knows their Tao, this is termed'spiritual methodology.' They are a ruler's treasures." Methodology is alsotechnique. Rulers must regard these five as valuable treasures. The subtlety of those who excel in spy work cannot be fathomed. Rulers also must esteemthose who excel at employing the vital
points. When the employment of these five types of spies attains the point that "no one
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knows their Tao" it becomes spiritlike. This is even more mysterious thanbeing unfathomable in employing the vital points. Are not the ruler'streasure to be valued?
Sun-tzu: "Local spies--employ people from the local district. Internal spies--employ their people who hold government positions. Double agents--employ theenemy's spies. Expendable spies--are employed to spread disinformationoutside the state. Provide our [expendable] spies [with false information] andhave them leak it to enemy agents. Living spies--return with their reports."
Local Spies--"By relying on the enemy's local people one learns the enemy's internal and external affairs, his vacuities and substantialities. If you manageto employ them, you can also have them act as reconnaissance scouts." Thisis Tu Yu's opinion. Chang Chao also comments: "Employing the enemy'speople refers to thoughtfully and ceremoniously treating them well in order torecruit them. Just like the T'ang getting male prisoners in order to attackKao-li [ Korea] or Wei Hsiao-k'uan enticing the men of Ch'i with gold coinsand learning about their activities. Just so.
Internal Spies--"Rely on those among the enemy who have lost theirgovernment positions, such as the sons and grandsons of those who suffered corporeal punishment and families who have been fined. Rely on fissures inorder to successfully recruit them." Thus says Tu Yu. Chang Chao comments:"Among the enemy's officials there will be those who resent having beendismissed for some offense, favorites and concubines no longer loved, thosewho are not employed, and those who lack conviction and love profits. All of them can be secretly lured in and forced to inform us about the enemy'ssecret affairs." This is like Chin using Miao Pen-huang and Ch'u employing PoChü-li. 12
Turned or Double Agents--"Double agents are those dispatched to spy on us whom we detect, generously bribe, and make
serious promises to so that they are turned around and employed as our spies." So says Tu Yu. Chang Chao comments: "When the enemy has spiescome here and we uncover them, pretend to let some false affairs leak out,causing them to know about them in order to mislead the enemy. Thus Sun-tzu speaks about 'turned agents.' Men such as Chao She serving Ch'in as aspy and Ch'en P'ing using Ch'u's spies."13 Truly.
Dead or Expendable Agents--"Undertake feigned and false affairs outside the state and leak them about. Inform our agents about something anddispatch them into the enemy's midst so that they
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will divulge it when captured. When the enemy, believing their accounts, follows up but our actions differ, the spy will be executed." So says Tu Yu. Men such as Li Shih-ch'i in Ch'i and T'ang Chien among the Turks. ButChang Chao states: "Expendable agents transmit disinformation outside thestate. Have our spies learn of something and transmit it to the enemy's agents. When their spies hear of it they will report back to the enemy." Thisshould be understood as creating some sort of secret affair that is leaked toour spies. Our spies in turn see that it is leaked to the enemy's agents so thatthe enemy will learn of this feigned affair. When it proves to be a ruse, theenemy's spies will be executed!
Living Spies--"Living spies mean selecting your own worthy, talented, wise,and clever people, men who can access the enemy's intimates and nobility, investigate their actions, learn their affairs and calculations, and discoverwhat they are doing. When they know the substance of such affairs they return and report, which is why they are termed 'living spies.'" So says Tu Yu. Chang Chao similarly notes: "Men who are wise but appear simple, whosedeepest thoughts are hard to discern, who can come and go between our stateand the enemy's, can act as spies. For example, when Chin attacked Yüan butYüan would not yet surrender and the Duke of Chin ordered the siege abandoned, a spy came out to report that Yüan was about to surrender. Hewas a living spy."
Li Ch'uan Yin-ching has a chapter entitled "Roving Agents." The roving agent is Sun-tzu's spy. The Yin-ching states: "Now there are three employments forroving agents. 14 First, we can capitalize upon men dispatched by the enemy to observe our defects by bribing them and making them reveal theirmissions. Second, we can exploit refugees who lost their government posts or committed offenses and fled to our state by offering them high ranks andmaking their salaries generous. Thereafter, investigate their words andcompare them with actuality. If they prove accurate, you can then employ them; if specious, you can execute them. Employ them as local guides. Third,have our roving agents observe the enemy's ruler and ministers, attendants, and officials, noting who is worthy, who stupid. Among the ruler's intimates,those both inside and outside the palace, who is covetous, who incorruptible.Among his attendants and diplomatic personnel, who are perfected men, whomenial men. Once we have acquired this knowledge, we can proceed toachieve our purposes."
If we take the Yin-ching's three roving agents and compare them with Sun-tzu's five agents, although the additional ones are
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special, the way in which they all learn the enemy's affairs are one.
Sun-tzu: "Thus of all the Three Armies' affairs no relationship is closer thanwith spies; no rewards are more generous than those given to spies; no affairsare more secret than those pertaining to spies."
The methods for employing the military include the urgent and dilatory, lightand heavy, hidden and visible. The urgent cannot be treated as dilatory, theheavy as light, or the hidden as visible. The urgency of spy work lies inweightiness and secrecy. Moreover, officers for supply, prognosticators, and strategists are all intimates of the ruler, but none are closer than spies. Thosein the army who are first to ascend walls or penetrate enemy formations arerewarded, those who assault cities and force towns to surrender are enfeoffed, and those
who seize battle flags from the enemy and kill their generals are alsorewarded. All of them are rewarded generously, but none more so than spies. The Tao lies in what cannot be seen, affairs in what cannot be heard, victory in what cannot be known. In all these cases one wants secrecy, but nothing ismore secret than spies. No one is more intimate than spies, for this is how the ruler treasures them. None are treated more generously than spies, for theruler does not begrudge rank, salary, or a hundred ounces of gold. Spies arethe most secret. This is why anyone who leaks out affairs before they areimplemented are executed.
Sun-tzu: "Unless someone has the wisdom of a Sage, he cannot use spies;unless he is benevolent and righteous, he cannot employ spies; unless he issubtle and perspicacious, he cannot perceive the substance in intelligencereports. It is subtle, subtle! There are no areas in which one does not employspies."
One who is not fully prepared in the Tao of spycraft is not qualified to control spies. One who does not keep their vital points secret is not qualified to knowthe true nature of spycraft. In spy work the most difficult aspect is knowing how to employ agents. The sagacity and wisdom of someone about to employ agents must surpass other men. When missions are assigned, agents must begoverned with benevolence and righteousness. However, since human mindsare difficult to fathom, without subtlety and mysteriousness of spirit how can anyone interpret the substance of their efforts?
Someone with sagacious wisdom can know men, so he can run spies. Arighteous and benevolent controller can motivate men, so he can employ spies. Those who penetrate the subtle mysteries
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can exhaust their patterns, so they can grasp the subtlety of spy reports.Those who employ spies must plan before events begin to break in the enemy'sstate so that agents can be present when they actually unfold. Han Kao-tsucan be said to have penetrated the Tao for entrusting spies and known thevital points of spy work. He knew that Ch'in's generals could be corrupted and that Hsiang Yü could be estranged from his
generals. Thus he employed agents with sagacious wisdom. He gave Ch'enP'ing a thousand catties of gold and used Shih-ch'i to subvert Ch'i. This wasemploying them with benevolence and righteousness. If Han Kao-tsu had notbeen so perspicacious, how could he have known the actual outcome? Although appearing similar these three cases are distinct, without spies theycould not have been implemented.
Employing spies in this fashion is subtle, most subtle! There is no place menwho cannot be fathomed are not employed. In the Yin-ching, the chapter onhsing-jen states: "Be just like a black-bird invisibly entering the heavy forest ora fish diving into the deepest pool without any trace. Remember that, despitehis surpassing visual acuity, when Li Lou bent his head he couldn't discernthe shape of things, and despite his acute hearing, when Shih Kuang tilted hisear downward, he couldn't hear a sound. Subtle! Subtle, just like a swirl of fine dust arising. How can a drunken and sated general who must contend with force, yet lightly engages in battle, manage to discern the affairs of spies?"
Sun-tzu: "If before the mission has begun it has already been exposed, thespy and those he informed should all be put to death."
There are no affairs more secret than spying. For spies you want secrecy, soapart from exceptional cases you cannot let anyone among the enemy knowabout them, nor can you let your own officers and troops know about them. Ifyou do not let anyone among your own people know about them except in rare instances, then even your attendants and assistants cannot be allowed tolearn of operations. Once they are no longer secret, such affairs will be widelydisclosed. When affairs are disclosed and widely known, the plan will have tobe abandoned. According to military law how should this be treated? It merits death.
Therefore, before spy work has been initiated, anyone who knows about the mission will have certainly learned it from our own spies. Thus the spy and allwho were informed should be executed. In his Hsing-jen chapter Li Ch'uansaid: "Among those serving in the Three Armies, none are more importantthan spies.
Among secrets within the Three Armies, none more secret than spies. Whenplots involving such spies have not yet been set into motion, anyone wholeaks them, as well as those they inform, should all be executed. On the daywhen a plot is initiated, destroy the drafts, burn the copies, silence theirmouths, and do not allow internal plans to leak out." Li Ch'uan's words all derive from Sun-tzu.
Sun-tzu: "In general, as for the armies you want to strike, the cities you want toattack, and the men you want to assassinate, you must first know the namesof the defensive commander, his assistants, staff, door guards, and attendants.You must have our spies search out and learn them all."
Whenever there are special objectives that you want to accomplish, you musthave detailed knowledge to undertake them, for then every aspect will besuccessful. If you initiate missions without adequate knowledge, whatever isdone will merely be a reckless attempt. Moreover, in military enterprises with their thousand changes and ten thousand appearances, spies are employedto go back and forth between the armies because ignorance will immediately result in failure. This is even truer in spy work!
Thus whenever there is an army you want to attack, and certainly a city youwant to assault, or men you want to assassinate, from the defensive generalon down to the door guards, you want to know all their names. "Defensivegenerals" are responsible for defending the army. "Assistants" means thesubordinate generals. "Staff" conduct guests to interviews. "Door guards"guard the gates. "Attendants" guard the lodges. You want to gain knowledge of all their names. Once you know them, as soon as a need arises you canexploit them to achieve your mission. Tu Yu asserts: "'You must know them inadvance' means that you have previously become intimate with them and callon them when some urgent affair arises. Then you won't be stopped and you will know the enemy's affairs."
In Chang Chao Art of War his methods for selecting officers include one for gaining information about gatekeepers and protocol directors so you cancause them to be spies. If you
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to the Art of War, employ people from the local district. You must then knowthe names of the defensive generals, assistants, staff, door guards, andattendants and entice them with profits." Hua Yüan used this technique andwas thus able to pass through.
Sun-tzu: "You must search for enemy agents who have come to spy on us. Tempt them with profits, instruct and retain them. Thus double agents can be obtained and employed. Through knowledge gained from them you can recruitboth local and internal spies. Through knowledge gained from them the expendable spy can spread his falsehoods, can be used to misinform theenemy. Through knowledge gained from them our living spies can be employedas times require. The ruler must know these five aspects of espionage work.This knowledge inevitably depends on turned spies; therefore, you must be generous to double agents."
Chang Chao says: "We employ agents to spy on others, and other men alsoemploy agents to spy on us. It is vitally necessary to preserve deep secrecy and not leak out the crux of affairs. For this reason when the enemy hasagents spy on us, we must strive to learn of their coming and turn themaround to our own use." Probably it is normal human emotion that if we satisfy their desires, they will do what we want. If we coerce them with their anxieties, they will not know that we are using them. When an agent whocomes to spy on us can be turned around and employed, it is as a doubleagent.
If we are to recruit him to work for us and spy on them, we must havetechniques. Accordingly, lure him with profits or lead and release him. Inorder to entice him through his desires
you cannot begrudge rank, salary, or the hundred gold coins that will satisfy his desires. To lead and release him, let him see our encampment's fortifications and actions in order to coerce him with anxiety. Open and leadhim with affairs, and then release him to report back just as Chao She sentback Ch'in's spies after profiting them. Although Ch'u had a vast force, itdisplayed only a small army. These are the ways to lead and release others,that turned agents can be made to work for us.
Moreover, through turned agents you will learn about the enemy's affairs. "Thus local agents and internal agents can be recruited and employed. Theexpendable spy can spread his falsehoods and misinform the enemy." Sincethe living spy can be made to return and report at a predetermined time,sooner or later you will gain information. Missions for these five types ofagents should certainly be known to commanding generals. Since the
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way they will know it is through double agents, double agents must be treated generously. Tu Yu says: "The double agent is the foundation of the five agentsand the crux of spycraft." This is like saying: "Double agents are like thepeople's lives, the officers of the martial chariots, the martial cavalrymen, toall of whom one must be generous. Among men spies are the substance thatcannot be slighted, among rulers the Tao that one does not dare disdain."
Sun-tzu: "In antiquity, when the Yin [Shang] arose, they had Yi Chih [ Yi Yin] inthe Hsia. When the Chou arose, they had Lü Ya [the T'ai Kung] in the Shang."
There are those who say that Sun-tzu's meaning is not that the T'ai Kung acted as a spy in the Shang and Chou. They claim that Sun-tzu's idea was that order gives birth to superior men, disorder to menial men. When theShang was just arising, Yi Yin was still in the Hsia, so initially he was not oneof the Shang's old ministers. The Hsia was unable to employ him, but the Shang used him, which is how they flourished. When the Chou firstflourished, the T'ai Kung was still in the Shang, so initially he was not an oldChou minister either. The Shang was
unable to use him, but the Chou employed him, which is how the Chou arose. King T'ang and King Wu were raised by benevolence and righteousness, Yi Yinand the T'ai Kung were assistants for kings. If these kings had their resourcesact as spies in order to achieve success, would later ages have praised them?
But if we investigate Sun-tzu's words to seek out his meaning, we find the twobeing discussed in the chapter entitled "Employing Spies," so they must havebeen acting as agents. That is certain. Now what the world terms "agents"certainly includes those who spied on their rulers, ministers, relatives,worthies, assistants, neighbors, and friends--not a one wasn't a spy. But if we go back to the original, ancient meaning for spies, it still would not beexhausted, for an agent knows the enemy's affairs. Sun-tzu earlier said that"advance knowledge cannot be gained from ghosts and spirits, inferred fromphenomena, or projected from the measures of Heaven, but must be gained from men." To know the enemy's situation the ancients employed spies. If oneonly wants to know the enemy's situation, then Yi Yin and the T'ai Kung in theHsia and Shang would certainly have had deep knowledge. So how doesgaining intelligence this way differ from employing spies? [As the Yin-chingstates]: "Probably when the Shang arose Yi Yin was a cook in the Hsia. Whenthe Chou arose the T'ai Kung was a fisherman in Chou. When Ch'in assumedemperorship, Li Ssu
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was a hunter in Shantung. When Liu Pang became king of the Han, Han Hsinwas merely an officer in Ch'u's army. When Ts'ao Ts'ao became hegemon, Hsün Huo was Yüan Shao's cast off minister. Ssu-ma T'an became emperor of Chin because Chia Ch'ung had been entrusted with government in Wei whileWei itself arose because Ts'ui Hao had made Chin his home." From this perspective Yi Yin in the Hsia and T'ai Kung in the Shang, even though notemployed as spies, well knew the enemy's situation and thus performed themission of early spies. So how could Sun-tzu not have spoken of theiremployment as spies!
Sun-tzu: "Thus enlightened rulers and sagacious generals who are able to getintelligent spies will invariably attain great
achievements. This is the essence of the military, what the Three Armies rely on to move."
[ Li Ching said:] "Water can float a boat, but it can also overturn the boat. Some use spies to be successful; others, relying on spies, are overturned anddefeated." Truly. Yet Sun-tzu's thirteen chapters end with "Employing Spies"not because he slighted espionage but probably because he emphasized it. [ Li Ching said:] "If one braids his hair and serves the ruler, maintains a proper countenance in court, is loyal and pure, trustworthy and completely sincere,even if someone were to excel in spy work, how could he be employed [to sowdiscord]?" But take the case of Ya-fu's estrangement in Ch'u. Wasn't he loyal?Wasn't he trustworthy? Yet through a single ploy mounted by Han agents hewas unable to preserve himself, so how can it be said that spies are not worthemploying! If you employ a spy but he proves incapable of being successful, itis not the spy's fault but yours because you didn't get the right man.
No doubt one must have surpassing ability to perform extraordinary tasks and thus realize greater achievements than ordinary men. Superior wisdomsurpasses ordinary capability. Spying transcends human affairs. Spies mustsuccessfully undertake actions beyond the capability of other men. How cantheir achievements be compared with merely assaulting a city, occupying terrain, capturing an enemy's flag, or killing a general? Their greatness isincalculable, beyond words. At the least spies with superior wisdom must belike Yi Yin and the T'ai Kung, who established the Shang and created theChou, amazing achievements!
The military's ultimate essence lies in spies. They are what the Three Armies rely upon to move and be employed, and without them cannot. Why? Spiescan learn the enemy's vacuities and substantialities, their activities, and theirinternal and external af
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fairs. Only after they have been successful can their desires be satisfied. Themasses of the Three Armies rely on them to move. Formerly Li Su got Li Yu and took Wu Yüan-chi prisoner.
15 Kuang Pi got Kao Hui and destroyed Ssu-ming. Wasn't this relying onthem and thereafter moving?
Expendable and Double Agents
The two categories of expendable and double or turned agents occasioned the most conceptual difficulty throughout Chinese history and therefore the mostverbiage. Sun-tzu's original concept of expendable or "dead" agents--spiesdeliberately employed on missions likely to result in their deaths--becamesomewhat less precise over the centuries, eventually coming to encompass any agent who died in the performance of his mission. However, it also stimulatedextensive discussions not just on the apparent righteousness of such actions,but also upon the applicability of the term. Although the question of whetherthe agent knew he was being sacrificed never arose--it was assumed that to beeffective, he would not, although there were exceptions--the issue of intentionwas less clear. Some unfortunate individuals, such as Li Sheng and T'angChien, the two most famous expendable agents in Chinese history, weresimply unfortunate victims of evolving circumstances, never having beendispatched on missions intended to threaten their lives. Li Sheng eventuallyknew Han Hsin's ruthless actions had fated him to death, but T'ang Chiennever expected the consequences of Li Ching's aggressive exploitation of anotherwise unattainable opportunity. (No doubt enemy agents who had beendeliberately deceived with false information and specious plans were equally surprised to find they were about to be executed for failure or collusion withthe enemy.)
Without question the Spring and Autumn period already witnessed the conversion of enemy agents and diplomats, and the term "turned agent" isoften employed in later commentaries discussing what should be simply "living spies." Surprisingly, the Tso Chuan even records a botched attempt to bribe and coerce a courier into betraying his mission and thus becoming adouble agent. As his story includes many intriguing aspects, it provides anexcellent example of early thought on missions and principles:
Under siege by Ch'u forces, Sung dispatched Yüeh Ying-ch'i to the state of Chin to advise the extremity of their position and
request their aid. The duke of Chin wanted to rescue them, but Po-tsung
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advised against it: "The ancients had a saying, 'However long the whip, it willnot reach the horse's belly.' Heaven is presently supporting Ch'u, so it is impossible for us to engage them in battle. Even with Chin's might, how canwe contravene Heaven? Let us await the outcome." The duke thereforedesisted in his plan and instead sent Chieh Yang on a mission to Sung toprevail upon them not to surrender by saying that "Chin, mobilizing all its forces, will shortly arrive."
En route to Sung's besieged capital Chieh Yang was captured in Cheng and forwarded to Ch'u's encampment outside the city. The prince of Ch'u,generously providing him with bribes, sought to have him reverse the contentsof his message to Sung. At first he refused, but after three such entreatiesconsented. Ascending to the top of a mobile siege tower, he shouted out hisoriginal message to the people of Sung's capital, thereby fulfilling his mission. The prince of Ch'u, about to have him executed, sent a messenger to say: "Why did you make a promise and then violate it? It isn't I who lackstrustworthiness, but you that abandoned it. Hasten off to your punishment."
Chieh Yang replied however: "I have heard that righteousness consists in the ruler being able to administer orders and fidelity in a minister being able toexecute commands. When faithfulness sustains righteousness in theimplementation of such orders it is advantageous. When plans do not losetheir advantage and thereby preserve the altars of state, this is a ruler for the people. Righteousness does not allow for two acts of faith, or faith for twocommands. When your lordship bribed me, he failed to understand theessence of command. If I am willing to die without regret, how can I be bribed? The only reason I consented was to complete my mission. To die in thecompletion of his mission is a minister's joy. My ruler has a faithful minister, one who has gained his objective. Even if I die, what more could I seek?" Theprince released him to return to Chin. 16
The background to this incident oozes diplomatic intrigue and powerdiplomacy. Briefly, Ch'u invaded Sung in the ninth month of the preceding year ( 595 B.C.) after their provocateur--an official emissary ostensibly on a friendly
mission to Ch'i--was captured while blatantly traversing Sung's territory without permission. This offense, which coincidentally illuminates the nature of state sovereignty and control in the Spring and Autumn period, compelledSung to either boldly assert its independence by executing the agent or coweras a mere minion before mighty Ch'u, whose strength was expanding ex
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ponentially. Prompted by courage, righteousness, and the prospects of doom in either case, they chose to assert their independence and executed theemissary, who had, in fact, gone forth fully cognizant that it was designed totrigger exactly this response and was therefore in Sun- tzu's subsequentdefinition a "dead agent." However, in dispatching him, the ruler had promised to invade Sung to exact a horrendous revenge, thus showing that the entiresequence was pre-scripted, consisting of a stimulus, primary response, andsecondary response or exploitative action designed to fabricate an excuse for Ch'u to subjugate the smaller, contiguous state of Sung and thereby at leastnominally adhere to the ethical standards of the period.
Such sophisticated duplicity was hardly confined to Ch'u alone in the Springand Autumn period, as Chin's actions in this very episode vividly illustrate. Although Chin never intended to undertake the military rescue of Sung, theduke still dispatched a messenger to encourage them to fervently resist theirenemies, no doubt to thereby entangle Ch'u in a protracted conflict that woulddrain their resources, diminish their military capabilities, produce numerouscasualties, and blunt their expanding influence into the northern plains. (Hewas perhaps oblivious to the possibility that Ch'u might enjoy much enhanced power once they conquered Sung and turned it into a client state.) The dukewas too easily persuaded to desist in his plans to relieve Sung, and thehistorical records confirm no action was even attempted, the siege of Sung being resolved
When the fate of the Chinese empire following Ch'in's collapse was stilluncertain, Liu Chi (Liu Pang), the eventual founder of the Han dynasty subsequently honored as Han Kao-tsu, benefited extensively from theclandestine work of Li Sheng, a headstrong Confucian remarkably capable of adapting himself to the momentary flux to realize great achievements. Thecircumstances that led to his tortured death suggest he was deliberately and unnecessarily sacrificed as a simple expedient by the ruthless Han Hsin, buthis previous service, whereby he was prepared to subvert a city's defenses inconjunction with an externally mounted assault, and his subsequentreputation as a dead agent imply unrecorded dimensions to the story. HisShih Chih biography preserves the essentials:
Li Sheng, whose personal name was Yi-chi, was a native of the town of Kao-yang in the district of Ch'en-liu. He loved to study,
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but because his family was impoverished to the point of despair and he lacked any other means of livelihood, Li Sheng served as one of the lictorsoverseeing the village gates. Even then none of the Worthies or powerful menin the district dared employ him, while everyone termed him a foolish student.
When stalwarts such as Ch'en Sheng and Hsiang Liang initiated their revolts against the Ch'in dynasty, many of their generals came through Kao-yang enroute to targeted areas. Li Sheng learned that these generals were all obsessedwith trifles, loved detailed ceremony, and were too self-reliant to pay attentionto portentous words, so he buried himself away. Subsequently he heard thattroops under Kao-tsu's command had occupied Ch'en- liu's border and thatone of their cavalrymen chanced to be a man of his own village. Han Kao-tsuhad frequently queried him about the village's worthy and
The cavalry officer said: " Kao-tsu does not like Confucians. Every time someone wearing a Confucian hat comes in, Kao-tsu grabs the hat off hishead and urinates in it. When he speaks with people, he always swears loudly. He has never allowed any Confucian to expound on anything." Li Sheng said,"Merely tell him what I have said!"
The cavalry officer casually spoke to Kao-tsu just as Li Sheng had directed.When Kao-tsu reached Kao-yang's official hostel, he had men summon Li Sheng. When Li Sheng arrived and went into the hostel for his interview, Kao-tsu was just lounging on the bed, where two women were washing his feet.After entering, Li Sheng simply bowed low rather than formally prostratinghimself and then asked: "Do you, sir, want to aid Ch'in in attacking the feudal lords? Or do you want to lead the feudal lords in destroying Ch'in?"
Kao-tsu cursed him: "Confucian dolt! Because All under Heaven have longendured the misery inflicted by Ch'in, the feudal lords are leading each otherforth to attack it. How can you ask if I want to aid Ch'in in attacking thefeudal lords?"
Li Sheng said, "If you are truly assembling followers to forge a righteous army that will execute perverse Ch'in, you should not
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interview your elders while lounging about!" Thereupon Kao-tsu ended the footwashing, arose, arrayed his clothes properly, and apologetically invited Li totake a seat of honor on the mat. Li Sheng then discussed the horizontal andvertical alliances that had developed during the Warring States period. Pleased,
Kao-tsu presented something to eat to Li Sheng and then inquired, "How should I proceed?"
Li Sheng replied: "You have hastily assembled an untrained mass and gathered the remnants of chaotic forces, somewhat less than ten thousand men, yet want to advance directly into mighty Ch'in. This is termed 'tempting the tiger's jaws'! Now Ch'en-liu is the realm's focal location, situated on terrainthat is open in all directions and traversable everywhere. Moreover, the cityhas accumulated large stores of grain. I am on good terms with the districtmagistrate and would like to be deputed to bring about its submission. If theyprove unwilling to listen, you can then mobilize your army for an attack, whileI will effect a response from within."
Accordingly Kao-tsu dispatched Li Sheng to proceed first and had his troops follow. They subsequently subjugated Ch'en-liu, so Kao-tsu granted Li Shengthe title of Lord of Kuang-yeh. Li Sheng then recommended his brother, Li Shang, to Kao-tsu, who entrusted him with command of several thousandmen. Thereafter Li Shang accompanied Kao-tsu on his campaign to seize the southwest, while Li Sheng served as an adviser and was frequently deputed asan emissary to the feudal lords.
In the third year of the Han dynasty, autumn, Hsiang Yü attacked Kao-tsu's forces and seized Jung-yang, compelling the Han forces to escape to Pao-kung and Luo-yang. Hsiang Yü, king of Ch'u, on learning that Han Hsin hadvanquished Chao and P'eng Yüeh had mounted several rebellions in Liang,divided his armies to rescue both Chao and Liang. Han Hsin was on the verge of attacking Ch'i in the east when Kao-tsu repeatedly encountered difficulty around Jung-yang and Ch'eng-kao. Kao-tsu therefore calculated that heshould sacrifice the territory east of Ch'eng-kao and encamp in the Pao-kung and Luo-yang regions in order to resist Ch'u's forces under Hsiang Yü. Li Sheng then said: "I have heard it said that one who knows the Heaven of Heaven can achieve kingship, but one who does not know the Heaven of Heaven cannot achieve kingship. A true king takes the people as Heaven, butthe people take food as Heaven. Now the realm has long been forwarding and transporting goods to the great storehouses at Ao- shan, and I have heard thatextremely substantial amounts
of grain are stored there. When Hsiang Yü captured Jung-yang, in
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stead of stoutly defending the granary at Ao-shan he took his forces to the east, deputing some former convicts to guard Ch'eng-kao. In this way Heavenhas provided resources for you. Now I dare to believe it will be a great error if we withdraw, thereby snatching opportunity away from ourselves, whenHsiang Yü may be so easily taken.
"Moreover, two valiant stalwarts cannot both be established. You and Hsiang Yü have long been locked in an indecisive standoff, so the common people arevexed into movement and all within the four seas rocked and jangled. Farmers have abandoned their hoes and women their shuttles, while thehearts of All under Heaven remain unsettled. I suggest you urgently resume advancing your army to seize and appropriate Jung-yang. Then, by relying upon the grain stored at Ao-shan, securing the defiles of Ch'eng-hao, blockingthe road to the T'ai-hang mountains, occupying the pass at Fei-hu, anddefending the Yellow River ford at Pai-ma, you may show the feudal lords thatyou have effectively taken control of the realm's strategic dispositions. Allunder Heaven will then know where to give their allegiance.
"Now that Yen and Chao have already been pacified, only Ch'i has notsubmitted. T'ien Kuang presently occupies several hundred miles of Ch'i's oldterritory, and T'ien Hsien, in command of some two hundred thousandtroops, is ensconced at Li-ch'eng. The mighty T'ien clan, backed by the sea and relying upon the obstacles posed by the Yellow and Chi Rivers, areencroaching upon Ch'u in the south. Their populace is highly changeable andcrafty. Even if you dispatch an army several hundred thousand men strong, itwill be months or years before they can be destroyed. I suggest you entrustme with the task of persuading the king of Ch'i to join you and thus become your eastern hedge."
"Excellent," Kao-tsu responded and then, in accord with his plan, retook the granary at Ao-shan, thereafter dispatching Li Sheng to exercise his persuasion upon the king of Ch'i.
"Does your majesty know to whom All under Heaven will give theirallegiance?" Li Sheng asked of the king of Ch'i.
"No," replied the king.
"If your majesty were to know to whom All under Heaven will give theirallegiance, you would be able to preserve your kingdom of Ch'i; if you do notknow to whom All under Heaven will give their allegiance, you will be unableto retain your kingdom of Ch'i," said Li Sheng.
The king inquired, "To whom will All under Heaven give their allegiance?"
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"To Han."
"Sir, how do you say that?"
Li Sheng replied: "Formerly, when Kao-tsu, king of Han, and Hsiang Yü, king of Ch'u, united their forces and ventured west to attack Ch'in, they agreedthat whoever penetrated Hsien-yang first would become king. Kao-tsu advanced into Hsien-yang first, but Hsiang Yü abrogated the agreement byenfeoffing him as king of the Han area instead of Ch'in. Thereafter, when Kao-tsu heard that Hsiang Yü had shifted the Righteous Emperor out of Ch'u andthen had him slain, he mobilized troops from Shu and Han to strike the threekings of Ch'in [set up by Hsiang Yü from the remnants of the Ch'in forces], went out through the pass, and gathered the soldiers of the realm to punishHsiang Yü for his treatment of the Righteous Emperor and to reestablish thedescendants of the feudal lords. Whenever he forced the submission of a city he enfeoffed a general, and whenever they gained material goods he divided them among his officers. Because he shared all the profits with All under Heaven, the powerful, valiant, worthy, and talented all take pleasure in being employed by him. Soldiers from the feudal lords are thus arriving from alldirections, while boatload after boatload of grain is being shipped down from Shu and Han.
" Hsiang Yü now has a reputation for contravening agreements and the responsibility for slaying the Righteous Emperor. He
"Now Kao-tsu has exploited Shu and Han, pacified the three Ch'in, ventured beyond the Hsi-ho area, and gathered the soldiers from Shang-tang; proceededdown through Ching-ching and executed the Lord of Ch'eng-an; destroyedNorthern Wei and occupied thirty-two cities. These are the soldiers of thelegendary Ch'ih Yu, objectives accomplished through Heaven's beneficence rather than the strength of men. Since Kao-tsu has already availed himself of the grain supplies at Ao-shan, secured the ravines in
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Ch'eng-hao, blocked the lower heights of the T'ai-hang mountains, defendedthe ford at Pai-ma, and occupied the pass at Fei- hu, the last to submit will bethe first to suffer destruction. If your majesty quickly becomes among the firstto submit to Kao-tsu, you will be able to preserve and retain Ch'i's altars, butif you do not submit to Kao-tsu, you will shortly be endangered and perish."
T'ien Kuang felt this to be true so he accepted Li Sheng's suggestions and desisted military preparations for the defense of Li- ch'eng, indulging himselfin wine every day thereafter with Li Sheng. 17 Meanwhile, after suddenly retaking control of Han Hsin's forces, Kao-tsu appointed Han Hsin aschancellor and deputed him to attack Ch'i with idle troops from Chao. Han Hsin therefore led his new army to the east, but before he had forded the Yellow River at P'ing-yüan, he learned that Li Sheng had already persuadedCh'i to submit and so wanted to
Han Hsin, feeling this to be true, therefore followed his original plan, forded the Yellow River, and suddenly struck Ch'i. T'ien Kuang, king of Ch'i, being informed about the arrival of Han troops, assumed Li Sheng had betrayed himand therefore said to him: "If you are able to stop this Han army, I will spareyou; otherwise, I am going to boil you!" Li Sheng replied: "Undertaking momentous affairs is not a matter of fastidious circumspection, overflowing Virtue not a matter of courteous yielding. Your elder will never change hiswords just for you!"
The king of Ch'i then had Li Sheng boiled alive before leading his soldiers off to the east, where he was eventually defeated by Han Hsin. 18
Li Sheng was thus a victim of Han Hsin's ambition coupled with Kao- tsu's probable duplicity or lack of confidence in Li's ability to successfully persuadethe king of Ch'i to join them as an ally.
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Another, somewhat earlier illustrative episode from the Warring States period finds a hapless courier being deliberately sacrificed (in accord with Sun-tzu'sdefinition) to subvert an informant residing in another state. This dramaticmeasure--literally setting up the courier for detection--was apparently resortedto in the expectation that rumors alone would prove inadequate to implicate the defector:
Ch'ang T'o fled to East Chou from West Chou and then fully informed themabout West Chou's internal affairs. East Chou was elated, but West Chou wasgreatly angered. Feng Tan said to the ruler, "If my lord will provide me withthirty catties of gold, I can have him killed."
Feng Tan then deputed an agent to take the gold and a secret letter to Chang T'o that instructed him: "You are advised that if the affair can be achieved, youmust exert yourself to complete it; if it cannot be achieved, you shouldimmediately flee back to West Chou. If the affair is prolonged and leaks out, itwill cause your death."
Shortly thereafter he dispatched an emissary to inform East Chou's border guards, "Tonight an evildoer will enter your state." The guards caught theagent and forwarded him to the ruler, who immediately had Ch'ang T'oexecuted. 19
Despite being unqualified for any sort of covert activities and never having been dispatched on a clandestine mission, either with or without his consciousknowledge, T'ang Chien became the second famous "expendable agent" of Chinese history. The outlines of the episode that occurred just after thefounding of the T'ang dynasty are found in the T'ang histories and the lengthy biography of General Li Ching, the probable author and chief spokesperson inthe seventh Military Classic, the Questions and Replies. However, the story'simportance may be seen from its employment as the illustration for Chapter59 of the Hundred Unorthodox Strategies, "Advancing," whose tactical principle states: "Whenever engaging an enemy in battle, if you truly know that theenemy has a weakness that can be exploited to yield victory, you shouldquickly advance your army and pound it, for then you will always bevictorious. A tactical principle states: 'Advance when you see it is possible.'"The story itself unfolds as follows:
During the T'ang dynasty, when Li Ching was serving as commander in chief for the Ting-hsiang Circuit campaign army, he suddenly attacked anddestroyed the Turks. Chieh-li, khan of the tribe, raced back to the protectionof Mount T'ieh and dispatched
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an ambassador to the T'ang court to acknowledge his offense and request thathis state be allowed to submit in allegiance to the T'ang. The emperor dispatched Li Ching to accept their surrender.
Although the khan had visibly requested the privilege of visiting the imperial court, he still harbored doubts. Li Ching guessed his intentions. At this timethe emperor summoned the Director of Rites, T'ang Chien, and dispatchedhim and others to officially condole with and placate the khan. Li Ching saidto Chang Kung- chin, the Military Commissioner attached to his command: "With the arrival of imperial ambassadors, the Turks will certainly feel quitesecure. If we were to have ten thousand cavalrymen, each carrying three days'rations, proceed via the Pai Road, we could suddenly attack them andcertainly gain our objectives."
Chang Kung-chin said: "The emperor has already assented to their surrender. And what about the men who have gone out there?" Li Ching said: "Theopportunity cannot be lost. This is the way Han Hsin destroyed Ch'i during thefounding reign of the Han dynasty. As for men of T'ang Chien's advanced age,what is there to regret?" He supervised the soldiers in an urgent advance.When they had proceeded as far as Mount Yin, they encountered more than a thousand of the khan's perimeter defense troops, all of whom surrenderedand joined Li's army.
When the khan received the T'ang's ambassadors he was greatly elated andneglected the army's supervision. Li Ching's vanguard took advantage of a heavy fog to advance within seven miles of the khan's command center beforethe khan first became aware of them. Before the Turkish formations could bedeployed, Li Ching released his troops in an assault that resulted in killing more than ten thousand enemy soldiers. They also took more than a hundredthousand men and women prisoner, captured the khan's son Ku- luo-shih, and killed Princess Yi-ch'eng. The khan fled but was subsequently captured by Chang Pao-hsiang, the commander in chief of the Ta-t'ung Circuit campaignarmy, and sent back to the emperor. The T'ang thus enlarged its territory fromMount Yin north to the Gobi Desert.
T'ang Chien's fame was further enhanced among military readers whenEmperor T'ai-tsung questioned his most successful and loyal general abouthis intentions and motives in so readily sacrificing the Director of Rites. Asrecorded in the Questions and Replies:
The T'ai-tsung said: "Formerly when T'ang Chien was an emissary to the T'u-chüeh [Turks], you availed yourself of the situa
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tion to attack and defeat them. People say you used T'ang Chien as anexpendable spy. Up until now I have had doubts about this. What about it?"
Li Ching bowed twice and said: "T'ang Chien and I equally served your Majesty. I anticipated that T'ang Chien's proposals would certainly not be ableto persuade them to quietly submit. Therefore I took the opportunity to followup with our army and attack them. In order to eliminate a great danger I didnot concern myself with a minor righteousness. Although people refer to T'angChien as an expendable spy, it was not my intention.
Li Ching's ruthlessness in consolidating the T'ang position prompted officialsand the literati in his own age and thereafter to severely condemn him. However, from the perspective of many years of warfare and persistentexternal threats to the fledgling T'ang dynasty, he obviously calculated thatsacrificing T'ang would be insignificant compared to the men and resources otherwise certain to be lost. That T'ang Chien became known as an"expendable spy" is one history's ironies because he was the epitome of theliterati, well versed in ceremony and protocol, merely a symbolic choice toaccept the khan's surrender on the emperor's behalf. Being a civil officialrather than a military officer, his mission was initiated without covertintentions, becoming subversive only when opportunely and astutely exploited by Li Ching, who viewed him simply as an expendable diplomat.
Sun-tzu's definition of double or turned agents was premised upon themhaving originally been dispatched by an enemy
Tung Feng, de facto ruler of Su-ch'i city, together with his younger brotherWei-ch'ü, revolted after having previously surrendered to the government, soChang Ni, the regional governor, executed him. However, as Tung's wife wasthe daughter of the king of the nearby mountainous state of Mao-niu, Chang Ni concocted a way to pardon her. Meanwhile Wei-ch'ü escaped across the western frontier.
Wei-ch'ü was hard, fierce, astute, and cruel, so all his subordinates were terrified of him. He deputed two of his close confi
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dants to get information about Chang Ni on the pretext of wanting tosurrender. However, Chang realized their true objectives, and by granting generous rewards converted them to double agents, thereafter planning withthem how to assassinate Wei- ch'ü. When this was accomplished Wei-ch'ü'sband all felt secure. 20
Peripatetic persuaders sometimes seem to have consciously acted as double agents, even freelance triple agents, as the following example shows:
Eastern Chou wanted to plant its fields with rice, but Western Chou had blocked the river's flow. Eastern Chou found this disastrous, but Su-tzuasked the ruler, "May I be sent as an emissary to force them to provide thewater?"
The ruler assented, so Su-tzu went to see Western Chou's ruler, to whom he said: "Your majesty's plan is in error. By cutting off the water you areenriching Eastern Chou because the people are now all planting wheat. Ifyou want to harm them, nothing would be better than now letting the waterflow
and thereby distressing their plantings. Once you allow the river to flowthrough, Eastern Chou will certainly plant rice again. When they havesown the rice, you can again cut off their water. In this way you can forcetheir populace to look toward you with raised heads, eager to receive yourorders."
The ruler of Western Chou consented and subsequently let the river flowthrough. Su-tzu thus received payment from two states. 21
Other Agents
Apart from the various categories of secret agent directly employed by statesand armies to individually operate against their enemies, military staffsincluded a number of officers with designated intelligence, counterintelligence, and covert operations functions. Although they are rarely indicated in theextensive bureaucratic listings found in the twenty-five dynastic histories,their presence may be discerned in occasional military notes on commandresponsibilities and staffing. Fortunately a chapter entitled "The King's Wings"in the Six Secret Teachings, a product of the middle to late Warring States period, in detailing perhaps the earliest formal general staff in history stipulates
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many positions that clearly entail vital intelligence, psychological,and covert warfare responsibilities:
Chief of Planning, one: in charge of advising about secret plans for responding to sudden events; investigating Heaven so as to eliminate sudden change; exercising general supervision over all planning; and protecting andpreserving the lives of the people.
Planning Officers, five: responsible for planning security and danger; anticipating the unforeseen; discussing performance and ability; making clear rewards and punishments; appointing officers; deciding the doubtful; and determining what is advisable and what is not.
Topographers, three: in charge of the army's disposition and strategic configuration of power when moving and stopped;
Strategists, nine: responsible for discussing divergent views; analyzing the probable success or failure of various operations; selecting the weapons andtraining men in their use; and identifying those who violate the ordinances.
Secret Signals Officers, three: responsible for the pennants and drums, for clearly signaling to the eyes and cars; creating deceptive signs and seals; issuing false designations and orders; and stealthily and hastily moving backand forth, going in and out like spirits.
Officers of Authority, three: responsible for implementing the unorthodox and deceptive; establishing the different and the unusual, things that people donot recognize; and putting into effect inexhaustible transformations.
Ears and Eyes, seven: responsible for going about everywhere, listening towhat people are saying; seeing the changes; and observing the officers in allfour directions, and the army's true situation.
Feathers and Wings, four: responsible for flourishing the name and fame of the army; shaking distant lands with its image; and moving all within the fourborders in order to weaken the enemy's spirit.
Roving Officers, eight: responsible for spying upon the enemy's licentiousness and observing their changes; manipulating their emotions; and observing theenemy's thoughts in order to act as spies.
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Officers of Techniques, two: responsible for spreading slander and falsehoodsand for calling upon ghosts and spirits in order to confuse the minds of theenemy's populace.
The large number of central staff devoted to deception, disinformation, observation, and similar functions out of a total
of seventy-two clearly indicates the importance assigned to their functions in effecting victory.
"Selecting Officers," the second chapter in the military section of the Ch'ang-tuan Ching--a synthetic work written by Chao Jui in the T'ang dynasty thatessentially interweaves selected passages from the classic writings on differenttopics, forming them into an extended discussion interspersed with theauthor's unifying comments--similarly enumerates the key staff members of any military command. The following obviously exercised military intelligenceand spying functions:
Now whenever the king commands the army, he must carefully selectcourageous men and wise officers of all ranks, assign them duties in accord with their abilities, each based upon their individual strengths, to be histhighs [personal advisers] and wings [staff] in order to compete his awesomespirituality. Only thereafter will the myriad affairs be complete.
These include a chief of staff, five strategists, three astronomers, three topographers, nine tacticians, four quartermasters, four public relationsofficers, three signals officers for the drums and flags, four engineeringofficers, three tactical officers for unorthodox measures, seven ears and eyes[roving security agents], five claws and teeth [morale officers], four wings [psyops officers], eight roving officers [recon officers], two invocators [to callupon ghosts and spirits], two accountants, and two physicians.
The chapter continues with a discussion largely in the vein of Wu Ch'i's Wu-tzu: Select men of unusual motivation or physical skills, including those skilled in disputation and clever in speech, for grouping into cohesive units. Unmentioned in these two chapters but otherwise specified were the largenumbers of scouts and reconnaissance patrols (discussed in the followingsection on Military Intelligence) that would be employed to observe the enemyand penetrate their camps whenever possible, responsible for secretly gathering information about disposition, conditions, plans, and tactics.
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WHILE MILITARY WRITERS ALL AGREED that spies were an integral part of intelligence gathering efforts, astute voices warned against relying upon themtoo extensively. The T'ang general Li Ching was particularly cautious, but inthe conclusion to a passage previously cited about T'ang Chien, he expressed confidence that spies could not successfully penetrate a well-ordered courtand estrange the ruler from truly loyal and capable ministers:
According to Sun-tzu, employing spies is an inferior measure. I once prepared a discussion of this subject and at the end stated: "Water can float a boat, butit can also overturn the boat. Some use spies to be successful; others, relyingon spies, are overturned and defeated."
If one braids his hair and serves the ruler, maintains a proper countenance in court, is loyal and pure, trustworthy and completely sincere, even ifsomeone excels at spying, how can he be employed to sow discord? 1
Whereas Li Ching was somewhat oblivious to the impact of spy activities directed against court ministers and ruler, the Ming dynasty T'ou-pi Fu-t'anobserved: "Now some spies simply watch the way the winds blow and transmitfalsehoods, while others will be subject to enemy persecution and divulge youraffairs to the enemy. These are intimately related to being overturned and defeated. Thus agents can be employed but cannot be exclusively relied upon.Employing them is wisdom; relying upon them is stupidity."2
Apart from discussing the types of spies and the importance of double agents, Sun-tzu's chapter identified two other critical points: controlling agentsrequires talent and character, while interpreting the data acquired demandswisdom and perspicacity: 3 "Unless someone
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has the wisdom of a Sage, he cannot use spies; unless he is benevolent and righteous, he cannot employ spies; unless he is
Although personal integrity, righteousness, Virtue, and wisdom are considered prerequisites for understanding the spy and the data he retrieves, they arealso essential to motivating men to the cause. Thus, for example, the Three Strategies states:
The Army's Strategic Power states: "One does not employ righteous officers with material wealth alone. Thus the righteous will not die for the malevolent. The wise will not make plans on behalf of an obtuse ruler."
The ruler cannot be without Virtue, for if he lacks Virtue his ministers will rebel. He cannot be without awesomeness, for if he lacks awesomeness hewill lose his authority. A minister cannot be without virtue, for if he lacksvirtue he has nothing with which to serve his ruler. He cannot be withoutawesomeness, for if he lacks awesomeness the state will be weak. If he is tooawesome he himself will be overturned.
If your state's Virtue and strategic power are the same as those of the enemy, so that neither state has the means to overcome the other, then you must winthe minds of the valiant, share likes and dislikes with the common people, and only thereafter attack the enemy in accord with changes in the balance of power. Thus without stratagems you have no means to resolve suspicions and settle doubts. Without rumor and the unorthodox you have no means todestroy evildoers and stop invaders. Without secret plans you have no meansto be successful. 4
Even though Chinese history provided many examples of brutal rulers and perverse states, such as Ch'in in the final stages of its conquest, successfully employing clandestine agents to disrupt their enemies and wrest a telling advantage, the military theorists generally persisted in their belief thatrighteous causes and moral leadership must underlie intelligence efforts. Thefamous but ill-fated Chu-ko Liang thus stated:
One who doesn't know the advantages of the nine configurations of terraindoes not know the Tao for the nine
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emy; one who does not know their officers does not know the enemy. One whodoes not know the enemy will invariably be imperiled in every engagement. Thus for targets the army will suddenly strike, one must certainly know theruler's attendants, the mind of the officers and troops. In the Tao foremploying the five types of secret agents, they are what the army treats as most intimate, what the general is most generous to. Without Sagely wisdomone cannot employ them; unless one is a righteous worthy, one cannotdispatch them on missions. When the five categories of agents realize theirappropriate nature, the populace of the state can be employed and the state can be long preserved. 5
A chapter in the anonymous late Ming dynasty Ts'ao-lu Ching-lüeh further expanded the fundamental principles of spycraft with important insightsregarding the management of agents and comparative evaluation of theirmaterial:
The Military Rescripts states: "The means by which enlightened rulers andworthy generals initiated actions, conquered others, and achieved success thatsurpassed the ordinary was advance knowledge." Advance knowledge of theenemy's true situation can be derived only from materials obtained by agents,so how can intelligence work be slighted?
Sun-tzu spoke in detail about the Tao for employing spies, what he referred toas "without subtlety and mystery being unable to realize the substantialemployment of spies," so that especially in scrutinizing the essence, you mustexplicate the meaning. When the five types of agents are employed, you mustinvariably assemble all the data and probe for similarities. Thus for any singleaffair you cannot but multiply the number of agents employed in order toobserve whether their words actually cohere or not, for only then will youbegin to attain the truth.
You should question them in detail and observe their sincerity, evaluating the data in accord with appropriate parameters in order
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to discern the most subtle points, thus being as vaporous as illusion, as secretive as ghostly spirits. Then, even though the enemy excel at bolting their doors, will they be able to conceal their true situation? By notproceeding in this manner, some employed spies to achieve success, butothers relied on enemy spies to overturn their enemies, so how can agents berelied upon? As for managing them with benevolence and righteousness and stimulating them with heavy rewards, these hardly require mention. 6
To facilitate gathering information and targeting individuals and objectives, preliminary steps to secure fundamental data--such as employing the eighty "travelers" described in the Kuan-tzu--should be undertaken: "Kuan Chung dispatched eighty warriors to wander about the four corners of the realmoffering adornments, amusements, and delights for sale to the feudal lords inorder to discern what the upper and lower ranks liked and valued and therebyselect the dissolute and chaotic as priority targets for attack." 7
As late as the mid- sixteenth century the T'ou-pi Fu-t'an pointed out:
If you want to learn the enemy's true situation through spies, you must firstgain an understanding of their fundamentals--such as the price of goods, their customs and inclinations,
their causes of happiness and anger--and fathom who among the upper and lower ranks are in harmony, who marked by acrimony. Only thereafter, inaccord with slight openings, can you spy upon the ruler's close associates; through sycophants, estrange the loyal; through profits, control thedisputatious; and through doubt, contrive dismissals. Cause their words to be deceptive, sow confusion in their actions and stopping, estrange the intimate, and disperse their alliances, all through the subtle work of employing agents.
Therefore, successfully mounting covert operations in enemy states requires first acquiring some knowledge of their situation. If you want to gainknowledge of the enemy's situation, you must not begrudge the expense of a thousand pieces of gold. To be parsimonious about a thousand pieces of gold and lose agents is to be defeated. To expend a thousand pieces and thereby learn the enemy's situation is to be victorious. This is the subtle crux of victory and defeat, it must be investigated! 8
The importance of allocating adequate funds to acquire information, reiteratedin the last paragraph, deserves note. Because of the risks undertaken by secret agents and the need for courage, determination, and self-control, allthe military writers who pondered their em
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ployment emphasized two aspects: secrecy and generous rewards. As will be discussed in the section on counterintelligence, secrecy is paramount for any state that seeks to prevent the enemy from fathoming its plans andoperations. However, the measures to be implemented with regard to running spy operations must be even more extreme. Thus Sun-tzu stated: "Of all theThree Armies' affairs no relationship is closer than with spies, no rewards aremore generous than those given to spies, no affairs are more secret than those pertaining to spies. If before the mission has begun, it has already beenexposed, the spy and those he informed should all be put to death."9 Later, the Wu-pei Chih-yao asserted: "In employing the military, nothing is moreimportant than using spies. The methods for employing spies are not
Sun-tzu was also the first to assert that spies could neither be recruited nor retained without strong material incentives, and he was followed by manyothers thereafter. Although the financial requirements for agents werefrequently spoken of in isolation, the military sphere equally required courageand incentives, just as positions in the central government. Accordingly, boththe military and philosophical writings developed a complex psychology of rewards and punishments during the Warring States period that fully explored the power of incentives to motivate and manipulate men. A chapterentitled "Administrative Distinctions" in the Kuan-tzu observes:
The ruler does not begrudge gold and material wealth to the acute of hearingand sharp of eye. Thus a minor campaign occurring within one thousandkilometers is known about. The construction of substantial walls and thegathering of ten people will be espied within five days. A major campaign [bythe feudal states] anywhere under Heaven will be known about within five days because the ruler disperses gold and material wealth in order to employ those who have acute hearing and sharp eyes. Thus one who excels atemploying the military may lack ditches and ramparts because he has earsand eyes.
The value of clandestine information in reducing the state's militaryexpenditures deserves note.
As for targeting individuals and manipulating agents, including enemy spies, Li Ching advised:
If the enemy has spoiled favorites who are entrusted with confidential affairs, we should dispatch spies to bring them marvelous
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curiosities, to debauch them with their desires, to accord with and entice them. If the enemy has important officials who have been deprived of power orwhose ambitions are unsatisfied, we can inveigle them with generous profitsto prevaricate against those close to the ruler, to pluck their true situationand learn it. If the enemy has those close to the ruler or attendants who
are frequently boastful, who like to dispute about the advantages and disadvantages of things, we should have our spies pretend to warmlyembrace them, to honor and praise them, and then generously provide themwith marvelous gifts in order to ferret out their spies and convert them.
If the enemy dispatches emissaries with requests to us, we should detain their emissaries and have people constantly accompany them. They should actcourteously and attend them congenially morning and night, taking good careof them, while we double and redouble their bribes and provide gifts that suittheir tastes, constantly observing their countenances and words and investigating them. But early in the day and late at night we should see thatthey are always alone with our chosen attendants, and also dispatch men withacute hearing to conceal themselves in the double walls and listen to their leisure talk. When we have delayed their mission, they will fear being doubted and reprimanded by their governments, and will certainly discuss their trueaffairs among themselves. When we know their plans, we can dispatch themand use them for our purposes. 10
Through such efforts double agents can easily be recruited, for they will have been forced into untenable positions in which their survival depends uponcooperating with the enemy rather than continuing to loyally serve their ownstate.
Although double agents have inordinate value, their employment entails the dilemma of reliability, ensuring they are neither false double agents norexpendable agents planted to spread disinformation by feigning a new loyalty. As the preceding passages already indicate, one method would be to comparethe double agent's reports with those from other sources, increasing thecredibility accorded them only after their veracity has been attested over time. Li Ching offered some suggestions for grappling with this problem andhandling agents previously detained by the enemy who perhaps provided themwith critical information or were seduced into their employment:
You should not heed the words of any agent who was captured by the enemy but later returned. However, if you do manage to re
ceive true information through him, you can reverse your course and employ it. When you uncover an enemy agent, if you want to extinguish all trace ofhim, kill or imprison him. If you want to employ him as a double agent, treathim generously and then release him. This is the method for achieving certain victory, the essence of the military. 11
In Li Ch'uan's estimation even so-called local guides--essentially defectorsemployed in an extended role--pose reliability problems and thereforerequire extensive measures to secure their loyalty and confirm the validity of their information:
Although deer naturally enter forests, one who does not employ local guides will find it difficult to realize advantages of terrain. Now employing local guidesdoesn't necessarily mean natives. Anyone familiar with the difficult and easy ground among the mountains and rivers, or with the enemy's vacuities andsubstantialities, can be entrusted with the task. Reward them generously togain their willing allegiance, but be prepared to strictly guard againstdeception. Bestow offices and ranks upon them, enrich them with wealth andgoods, and thereby cause them to have things they cherish. Match them withwives and children, and thereby cause them to have people they embrace.Thereafter, investigate their speech, examine their countenances, turn theirwords upside down, and if they are consistent throughout, from beginning toend, they can be employed. 12
Li Ch'uan's policy was essentially a method of vetting spies rather than simply employing local guides on a temporary basis as the army advanced. His adviceto ensure loyalty through nurturing both desires and ties of localized affectionwas unique among the military writers, as were his methods for querying and probing (which will be seen in the section on evaluating men). Clearly any mensubject to such insightful handling were destined for future employment asspies and double agents.
Historically, many rulers fell victim to the machinations of trusted confidants who became enemy agents, often dismissing
truly loyal and meritorious ministers at their behest. However, at least one ruler proved capable of fathoming false reports and employing generals, unlikenumerous Spring and Autumn and Warring States failures, illustrating theknowledge necessary to successfully interpret events. His perspicacity inassessing agent reports was even cited by later generations:
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Having gained permission to pass through the states of Han and Wei, a Ch'inarmy advanced to attack the state of Ch'i. King Wei of Ch'i had Chang-tzu assume command of the counterattack. After confronting Ch'in's army, bothsides stood down and encamped. Meanwhile emissaries were dispatched backand forth a number of times. Then Chang-tzu changed their battle pennons and unit insignia [to match Ch'in's] in order to have his soldiers intermix withCh'in's forces. An observer came back to the court and informed the king thatChang-tzu had gone over to Ch'in with all his troops. 13 King Wei made noreaction.
After the passage of some time another observer came and reported thatChang-tzu had surrendered with all his troops to Ch'in. The king made noreaction. After this happened a third time the chamberlain asked: "Using thesame language, three different men have informed you that Chang-tzu hasbeen defeated. Why have you not dispatched a general to suddenly attackhim?"14
The king replied, "Since it is clear that he has not rebelled against me, why should I attack him?" After a while another report advised that Ch'i's forceshad gained a great victory, Ch'in's army having been severely defeated. Theking of Ch'in subsequently confessed his offense against Ch'i and bowed inacknowledgment as a barbarian subject. An attendant inquired how King Wei knew Chang-tzu had not deserted. He replied: " Chang-tzu's mother was unfaithful to his father, so his father killed and buried her beneath thestables. When I commissioned Chang-tzu as commanding general, Iencouraged him by saying, 'If you return with all your forces, you will certainly be formidable enough to rebury her as the mother of the commanding general.' He replied: 'It is not that I am unable to rebury her. However, whilestill my father's wife,
my mother proved unfaithful. Without instructing me otherwise he died. Toformally rebury my mother would be to deceive my deceased father. Therefore Ihave not dared to undertake it.' How would a son who is unwilling to deceivehis deceased father betray his living ruler while acting in the capacity of a high official?"15
Because King Wei understood Chang-tzu's character and believed inconsistency of behavior--something that Han Fei-tzu subsequently provedcould be highly misleading--he was able to correctly assess the incoming reports. Naturally he overlooked the possibility that fidelity to a ruler mightnot weigh so heavily as duty to a deceased father, even though this was anage when ministers and generals frequently betrayed their monarchs.
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Identifying and Recruiting Agents
By any functional definition of morality the army is inherently an evil enterprise because it requires people to perform perverse, violent, and inhumane acts. This implies that either psychopaths must be coerced intodirected action or good men somehow be motivated to abandon social andpersonal constraints to do what they would otherwise abhor and deem evil.Spy work naturally falls into this category, with some of the most successful spies even being comfortable in the least desirable circumstances, situationswhere so-called negative talents are best exploited. However, in general reliable spies can be found only among honorable, intelligent men andwomen, who must be persuaded to undertake what the Chinese literatialways condemned as deceitful and dishonorable. The only solution thusresides in motivation and control, as Chieh Hsüan indicated in hismeditations on the term "control" in the Ping-fa Pai-yen: 16
Definition: To employ the greedy and deceitful is termed "control."
Original Text: The military is not a good affair. The talents that are advantageous are exactly those that can harm it. The martial must kill, the courageous must hate, the wise must be
Explanation: If one simply gains their allegiance through material incentives but lacks deep plans and farsighted thoughts to control them, then thewarriors of the Three Armies will either be arrogant or lax. Thus there are fiveways to control them: First, Virtue, the armies of Emperors Yü and Yi.Second, public spirit, the armies of Kings T'ang and Wu. Third, righteousness,the armies of the hegemons Dukes Huan and Wen. Fourth, administration, the armies of Sun-tzu and Wu-tzu. Fifth, authority, the armies of Ssu-ma Yiand Ts'ao Ts'ao. Although their employment differs, they are still unified in being able to manipulate human talent.
Moreover, there is control in the realm of the formless. The first is termed ch'i:When the ruler's ch'i is overflowing, the men
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dare not have any rebellious intentions. Second, strategic power: When the army's strategic power is flourishing, the warriors dare not have any traitorous thoughts. These are matters of control found in a commander'scomplete achievement, not what just deep planning and foresighted thoughtsare able to attain. Thus when the general's ch'i is not flourishing, he need nottake command. When the army's strategic power is not flourishing, it neednot be sent forth on campaign.
Even though Chieh Hsüan's general solution for the martial dilemma was control, his thoughts represent the final development of the tradition andperhaps an unfounded optimism. Somewhat earlier, much in the tradition of the Wu-tzu and the retainers found among powerful Warring States nobles, in the Sung dynasty Hsü Tung advocated recruiting
men of every conceivable talent and employing them in accord with their skills, however despicable. Moreover, he made the remarkable point--astounding within the context of China's entrenched bureaucratic governmentand values of his era--that the normal method of selection and appointment, emphasizing the civil skills of language, literature, study, and disputation, automatically excluded men with martial talent and the courage to undertakeand complete dangerous military missions:
In selecting men the present age focuses upon extensive learning and ignores specialized skills. This is not a good method. In contrast, the military finds itadvantageous to employ men according to their strengths and weaknesses. Accordingly, those good at comforting others are not employed in the urgency of combat for fear that they will exhaust themselves but lack courage.17 Those who excel in defense are not employed in mounting assaults for fearthat they will be slow and not fierce. The crafty should not be employed indecisionmaking for fear that they will be indecisive. The recklessly courageousshould not be employed in planning against the enemy for fear that they willregard them too lightly.
Employ the truly cruel in combat, the decisively courageous in assaults, and the profoundly resolute and stubborn-natured in occupying the passes andravines. The petty-minded but greedy should not be employed in guarding stores and supplies. You can adopt the words of the wise and the adroitlydecisive. The agile should be employed to entice a response from the enemy.The firm and strong-willed should be employed in the front. The fluent andloquacious should be employed to work as spies. Those good at filching thingslike rats and snatching things like dogs
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should be dispatched to steal the enemy's signals and investigate the enemy.Those who speak foully and curse a lot should be employed to slander, deprecate, and undermine the enemy. Those with unorthodox talents andunique knowledge should be employed to discuss future events. Those whohave profound knowledge and are broad-minded should be
employed to settle the masses. Those marked by surpassing strength and great power should be employed to open the way and cut through dense growth. Those who excel at erecting fortifications suitable to the terrainshould be employed to measure trees and construct palisades.
Employ the timid and fearful in forwarding equipment. Employ the old and weak in preparing cookfires and wells. Those familiar with mountains andstreams, who can select the advantages of high and low, streams and springs, should be employed to carefully investigate the terrain's configuration. Thosewho speak about portents and fabricate sayings, who excel at elucidating themind of Heavenly ghosts and spirits, at invoking the mandate of Heaven,should be employed to raise a ruckus to delude the masses and thus move theenemy's hearts. Those who excel at selecting strategic configurations ofterrain, the easy and difficult, who know both the major roads and minor bypaths for coming and going, should be employed to establish supply routes.
Those who use unorthodox language and loquacious discourse, who caninflate the vacuous and amplify greatness, should be employed to shake and flourish the army's awesomeness and virtue. Those whose ears and eyes areperceptive and sensitive, who can clandestinely investigate the enemy's truesituation, should be employed to watch for villainy and artifice. The talented who are good at writing should be placed in charge of the documents and dispatches. Those knowledgeable about the sun, moon, five planets, blessings, and calamities should be made officers for calendrical matters. Those whoexcel at interpreting the auspiciousness and inauspiciousness of the windsand clouds should be made atmospheric officers. Those who understand the intricacies of portentous date calculation should be appointed officers incharge of selecting appropriate days for action. Those versed inprognostication by tortoise and milfoil should be made officers for divination.Even though these last four classes of officers all derive their prognostications from experience and embody predictions through yin and yang, they should bekept from confusing each other. Esteem any predictions in which they allconcur.
There should also be at least twenty medical personnel, appropriately increased in accord with the army's numerical strength.
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The number of veterinarians should be similarly calculated. When the commanding general weighs those with penetrating talents, he needdetermine only whether they can be employed in consultations or not. Thus,although there are both good and evil among the masses in our army, no onewill ever be discarded. Since there will thus be no disaffection, when thearmy moves, it will achieve its objectives. 18
Although relatively few personnel are entrusted with intelligence and covert operations, they clearly must have particularized skills thatenable them to succeed in their missions.
Premised upon historical justifications, the Ts'ui-wei Pei-cheng Lu of the succeeding dynasty continued this thrust by encouraging a dynamic approach to ferreting out the unique talents necessary for spies and military professionals in a chapter entitled "Selecting Officers":
I once read in the thirteenth and last chapter of Sun-tzu's book that the wisestshould be spies. "When the Shang arose, Yi Chih was in the Hsia. When theChou arose, Lü Ya was in the Shang." Now the kings of the Shang and Chou assuredly were granted the Mandate of Heaven, for otherwise how could Yi Yin and the T'ai Kung have brought about the rise and fall of these states? Thusin the method for employing spies do not be troubled that bravos have notarrived, but the departure of bravos is sufficient cause for worry. Do notregard heroes failing to give their allegiance a matter of urgency for the army,but their departure to be a grave concern in the matter of close assistants. Even though the Hsia had not yet perished, once Yi Yin departed itsuccumbed. Even though the Chou had not yet arisen, when the T'ai Kung went there it flourished. Thus we know that the retention and departure ofheroes and bravos determine the good or ill fortune of the empire andcountries. Our present urgency must be upon this, and not on that.
Now famous mountains and great rivers are where superlative talents gather,while steep precipices and lofty mountain peaks are where the spirits descend. When the penultimate day arrives, somewhere in the mundane worldthere will certainly be eminent talents and outstanding fellows. However, their dreams have not yet taken form, nor have diviners yet discerned them, for they dwell among the poor and lowly, amid the common culture of the villagesand lanes, or are hidden among the farmers, merchants, husbandry men,physicians, and prognosticators. Can you net them in through theexamination system? They do not excel at the Confucian compositions neededto pass. Can you entice them
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with profits and salary? They do not follow the official routes to eminence. May they be found among the staff in military camps? They were not bornamid fortifications and formations. The farmers of San-ch'eng T'ung-po, thewood merchants who gather firewood in Luo-yüan, the lofty recluses of Liu-an's distant peaks, the merchants of Yang-chien, and all others of this sortharbor dreams of outstanding accomplishments, but can they work together,will they be given a chance?
It is not that they do not want to be employed in the world, to exhaust theirhard-won abilities, but that the upper ranks have no method for summoning them, while the lower ranks lack steps by which they can advance. Within thecourt there are no techniques for searching them out, while outside there are no doors by which they might enter. This is why the court must widely bring men in without being deterred by the distance. The Secretariat must exertitself in listening and gathering, not being put off by the earliness or latenessof the day. Circuit supervisors in the prefectures and districts mustconcentrate upon recommendations, neglecting neither the insignificant nor the lowly.
There are eight doors: First, "officeholders," referring to those buried in the lowest ranks, unable to shake themselves free. Second, "those withoutoffices," normally found in rustic circumstances who are unable to advancethemselves. Third, "later generations," the sons and grandsons of generalsunable to distinguish themselves. Fourth, "bravos," leaders from
around the rivers and lakes, the outstanding among the mountains. 19 Fifth, "tears from offenses," those who once offended the laws [in some minor way] and seek to escape from the criminal registry. Sixth, "criminals," whose talentsand spirit surpass other men's, who carelessly offend the laws entailing corporal punishment. Seventh, "staff officers," who plot and plan and have long been buried in the regiments. Eighth, "minor clerks," who are hiddenamong the clerking staff and cannot become known.
The author goes on to detail the methods that might be employed to searchout potentially useful men among the various corners of the ever shrinking Sung empire, such as listening to recommendations from among the variousgroups themselves, then testing candidates with appropriate positions to see if they can actually perform.
A second chapter somewhat later in the text, entitled "Bravos MakeSpies,"20 continues his theme by focusing upon recruiting courageous men for spy work. After opening with an identical passage about Yi Yin and the T'aiKung, Hua Yüeh presses the argument for concentrat
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ing upon such men with further examples, no doubt because he was frustrated by the entrenched, appeasement-oriented literati currently monopolizing power.
Probably the retention or loss of the Mandate of Heaven is related to whether astate's heroes depart or remain. If you can bring in their heroes, enemy stateswill become impoverished by themselves. Only when the Ch'in dynasty trulylacked men could its adversaries begin to plan against it. Five times Yi Yin went to King T'ang, five times he went to King Chieh, and so acted as aminister to establish the state. Han Hsin was employed by the Han ratherthan Hsiang Yü, and Kao-tsu thus gained All under Heaven. Fen Juo-shui wasnot awarded a post by the Southern T'ang but by our Sung, enabling Emperor Yi to gain all of Chiangnan. Probably when officers with heroic qualities are brought into the court or employed in the field, they can become loyalministers and righteous warriors. But if they are left to the wilds, abandonedto the mountain forests,
then they may become rebellious subjects and brigands. When we get them,we can realize the achievements of emperors and kings, while if the enemy gets them, they are capable of supplying effective, perverse plans.
In antiquity, sages and worthies concentrated upon seizing the minds ofheroes; otherwise, assistants supplied by Heaven turned to become tools forothers. Even though the Hsia had not yet perished, once Yi Yin departed itsuccumbed. Even though the Chou had not yet arisen, when the T'ai Kung went there it flourished. Isn't this frightening? From now on it would be appropriate to order two or three high-ranking ministers to circulate widely, tobring your generals into the Secretariat, and perspicaciously to issueinvitations to gather the talented in, thereby keeping them from being banished to grassy wilds or neglected in suburban fields. When you selectoutstanding men, do not shy away from granting them strategic power or hesitate to assign them minor duties. Then you will see eminent men from Hsiang-huai, the bravos from among the rivers and lakes, the superlativeswordsmen of Ch'u, the fishermen of the misty waves, rumors accumulating like the fog, and the courage of men banded together--all will be sought outand prepared for our selection. This is what is referred to as bravos becoming spies.
By the Southern Sung the T'ai Kung had again fallen from the lofty positionaccorded him by the T'ang, when he was honored as the martial patron, whilean enervated Confucianism mouthed by an effete,
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self-serving literati largely dominated the court's political discussions and bureaucratic methods and objectives. The need for spies to penetrate thenorth, already lost to the Mongols, as well as the empire's fringe areas, wasapparent, yet largely ignored in favor of ordinary reports forwarded by localand circulating government officials who had little incentive to identify trouble, to contravene the prevailing political climate. 21 One solution would have beento recruit more dynamic personnel for the government in general, and spies inparticular, for whom many difficulties would loom. Although individual military commanders reportedly employed spies and
reconnaissance personnel during this distressed period, there seems to have been no systematic effort to gather critical intelligence.
Finally, in the context of talent and agents the late Ming dynasty Ping-fa Pai-yen enjoys the distinction of being the only military text to advocate therecruitment and employment of women in clandestine operations. (Althoughthe early historical writings are replete with examples of women in every covertrole imaginable, there was no theorizing about their talents and suitable missions, no doubt because of traditional Confucian prejudices.) In this regardChieh Hsüan's definition for women is illuminating:
Definition: Those who are able to act as intimate agents are termed "women."
Original Text: The great generals of antiquity sometimes relied on the pliancy of women. In civil matters they were employed to give pleasure to the enemy and amuse invaders, in the martial realm they were used to wage war anddrive wagons. To realize opportunities, respond to tactical changes, overcomedifficulty, and extricate forces from danger, they are always advantageous.
Explanation: Many of the ancient strategists relied upon female pliancy, eventhough it was not something that great generals were inclined to esteem. However, when commanding generals employed people it was like a physicianprescribing medicine. Medicinal potions blend every sort of ingredient--animal, mineral and vegetable--nothing necessary ever being neglected. Since male villains and bravados are accepted in the army, how much more so should those who can penetrate deep secrets, search out hidden ambushes, or actskillfully as secret agents? How can you not concentrate on collecting andnurturing them in order to prepare against some unexpected need to dispatchthem as part of your strategy? Furthermore, segmenting off the enemy's Armyof the Right in order to buttress your own army's strategic power and relying on internal assistance in order to establish a meritori
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Examples: Wen Chung and Fan Li [in the state of Yüeh] secretly plotted and by introducing Hsi Shih and Cheng Tan turned the state of Wu into a fishpond. Marquis Ying employed an unorthodox scheme to steal the military tally of authority [through the ruler's favorite concubine] and thereby relieved the siege of Chao. Meng Ch'ang-chün presented a fur robe; Chang Yi offered bribes; Li K'o had his son intermarry with the Jung barbarians and thereby obtained experience in crossbow use that allowed the Han to extinguish theJung. They all gained their power through female agents. Even if greatgenerals do no rely upon them to stupefy their enemies, they must still be cautious and emphasize internal defenses against them.
China's covert practices, from ancient times through this very moment, have systematically employed and aggressively exploited women, as well asfrequently adopted apparently feminine-oriented (passive) policies. However, apart from their role in debauching rivals and enemies, with the exception ofthis strong statement, their role in gathering information received only minimal, often grudging, recognition in the military texts. No doubt thisreflects the literati's prejudice against military measures in general andclandestine practices in specific, as well as extreme embarrassment at thethought of employing women in such despicable endeavors, even though theywere frequently married off for precisely such purposes and court intrigues often turned upon their effectiveness.
Operational Methods and Agent Control
With the flourishing of military thought in the T'ang dynasty and subsequent efforts in the Sung to compile the military classics and create integrated compendiums of tactical teachings, strategists began to addressthe question of how spies might be employed rather than simply categorizing and
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and "Deceiving the Enemy." Commencing with his reflections on the Hsing-jenof the Chou dynasty, "Employing Spies" proceeds to delineate eight methodsfor employing covert agents. 22 Although the first two apply exclusively tomilitary situations., several reflect fully developed counterintelligence practicesthat convert enemy agents to useful assets, whether knowingly or not, while the remainder are designed to acquire essential knowledge by subverting enemy officials:
The official described in the ancient Rites of Chou who traveled about the feudal states and reported back to the king on their plans was actually a spy.23 Thus Sages have always valued the Tao of spycraft. If you would utilize thearmy to determine victory, you must also employ agents. If you use agents tofathom internal affairs, you must be secretive. Apart from the very wisest, whocan attain this?
In general, a spy's activities depend upon the situation. There are eight basictechniques.
First, when your troops are locked in a standoff with the enemy at the border, pretend to be tired, in difficulty, and fearful. Clandestinely leak out word thatyou will generously provide gifts to the enemy's favorites so as to attain whatyou seek there. Next, dispatch emissaries with jade, silk, boys and girls,carriages, superlative horses, and subtle adornments to apparently seek areconciliation. When you observe the enemy becoming arrogant and insulting, secretly select and dispatch elite troops by several routes, having them presstheir advance both early and late in order to exploit the enemy's laxity andnegligence.
Second, when you capture enemy prisoners, leak false plans to them and secretly allow them to escape, thereby causing the
enemy to trust in their validity. Since your actions will differ, you will thus be employing the enemy's soldiers as your agents.
Third, when enemy agents come to spy on you, pretend not to realize it, instead allowing them to acquire information about a fake plan. Thereafterunexpectedly attack their forces, thereby turning their agents around so thatthey speak as if they were your own.
Fourth, when enemy agents come, bribe them generously to compel them to betray their missions, thereby spying on the enemy while converting their agents into your own.
Fifth, when engaged in battle with the enemy, feign a minor defeat and urgently withdraw the army into a deep fortress, displaying a terrified countenance. Then select men whose speech is rustic and blunt, of littleknowledge or thought, to act as emissaries
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to the enemy. Have them magnify and exaggerate your army's flourishing strength, causing the enemy to know that they are agents. They will certainly conclude that you are afraid since you have sent agents to speak boldly andspy upon them. After they have departed, mobilize your unorthodox troops tofollow on with a surprise attack. This is employing visible agents as spies.
Sixth, when there are favorites in the enemy's court, have your confidants ply their families with gold and jewels so that they might clandestinely learn theenemy's secret affairs. This is employing court favorites as agents.
Seventh, to subvert the enemy's strategists, secretly bribe the ruler's confidants with gold and gifts to have them slander them in the court. Then appropriately respond to the slanders from outside the state, causing theruler and his strategists to grow mutually suspicious, instigating them toruin and harm each other. This is using slanderers as agents.
Eighth, seek out those that the enemy trusts with their affairs, copiously satisfy their desires, and then secretly ferret out
Accordingly, we know that agents are the critical essence of the militarytheorists. But without sagacious wisdom and moral worth, one cannot employ agents. Thus the Tao for employing agents lies in the subtle, secretive,clandestine, and submerged, all of which have long been stressed by the bestgenerals.
The next chapter, "Deceiving the Enemy," continues Sun-tzu's thought on the critical importance of deceiving the enemy, a thrust that Hsü Tungenvisioned as fundamental, as well as the reason for counterintelligenceefforts. It expounds two techniques designed to spread disinformationthrough converting enemy personnel and victimizing false defectors:
Warfare is the Tao of deception. Even Heaven and Earth, ghosts and spirits cannot fathom the myriad changes of condensing and expanding. Thus there are two methods for deceiving the enemy.
When an enemy emissary comes to you, privately treat him as if he were apowerful minister, generously plying him with treasures and showing himgreat gifts. Converting his doubts with such manifest sincerity is thetechnique for tying up emissaries. When you have thus convinced him tobelieve you, when he has no further doubts, you can then delude him byapparently leaking state secrets. Contrary to the enemy's original intent, youwill se
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cretly entangle their estimations, yet they will never doubt their veracity. Then, in accord with the information thus passed on to the enemy's ruler, toencourage an internal response show that you are mobilizing troops at thetime and place designated. But when the moment arrives, act unexpectedly,employing your elite troops to pound their vacuities and press them from outside. This is the first technique.
Select a courageous and daring officer as an attendant, then suddenly pretend to be angry and have him beaten with a bamboo whip until blood isvisible. Afterward, secretly let him
The second case again shows how rulers might ruthlessly exploit their officers and revisits the question of volition and consciousness in the definition of"expendable agents" because Hsü Tung never implies any knowledge orwillingness on the hapless victim's part, unlike Yao Li, King Ho-lü's secondassassin, who may have been the inspiration for this method. According toSun-tzu's terminology anyone so manipulated would certainly qualify as a "dead agent," someone provided with false information deliberately sacrificedin the ongoing effort to deceive the enemy, to gain a critical battlefieldadvantage through misdirection and false expectation. However, the first case is not simply a classic "turned agent"--someone who consciously chooses towork for the enemy--but rather a diplomat who becomes mesmerized by richesand profits, who is manipulated into readily believing whatever he apparently manages to learn, as well as might be told. This sort of conversion thus coheres with the broader definition that allows for duping enemy agents, forsimply employing enemy agents without any shift in their allegiance orloyalties.
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7 Secrecy and
Countermeasures
CLIMATES IN WHICH SPIES PROLIFERATE naturally stimulatecountermeasures to thwart their efforts. China proved no exception, with the military writers constantly warning of the urgent necessity for secrecy. Somestates made it a matter of government policy. Astute generals required virtualsilence, formlessness, and strict control in their encampments and
when out on campaign to conceal their plans, strength, and preparations, as well as prevent dishonest practices, profiteering, and desertion. For example, within the context of strategic planning and tactical execution, the Six SecretTeachings advises:
Strategic power is exercised in accord with the enemy's movements. Changes stem from the confrontation between the two armies. Unorthodox andorthodox tactics are produced from the inexhaustible resources of the mind. Thus the greatest affairs are not discussed and the employment of troops is not spoken about. Moreover, words that discuss ultimate affairs are not worthlistening to. The employment of troops is not so definitive as to be visible. They go suddenly, they come suddenly. Only someone who can exercise sole control, without being governed by other men, is a military weapon.
If your plans are heard about, the enemy will make counter-plans. If you are perceived, they will plot against you. If you are known, they will put you indifficulty. If you are fathomed, they will endanger you.
In military affairs nothing is more important than certain victory. Inemploying the army nothing is more important than ob
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scurity and silence. In movement nothing is more important than the unexpected. In planning nothing is more important than not being knowable. 1
Sun-tzu, a prominent advocate of secrecy, advised making the army formlessto preclude the enemy from fathoming intentions. An ignorant enemy being compelled to spread their defenses, vulnerable points are immediately created:
The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless. If it is formless then even the deepest spy cannot discern it or the wise make plans against it.2 . . .
It is essential for a general to be tranquil and obscure, upright and self-disciplined, and able to stupefy the eyes and ears of the officers and troops, keeping them ignorant. He alters his
management of affairs and changes his strategies to keep other people from recognizing them. He shifts his position and traverses indirect routes to keepother people from being able to anticipate him. 3 . . .
Thus if I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have noperceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. Ifwe are concentrated into a single force while he is fragmented into ten, thenwe attack him with ten times his strength. Thus we are many and the enemy is few. If we can attack his few with our many, those whom we engage in battle will be severely constrained.
The location where we will engage the enemy must not become known tothem. If it is not known, then the positions they must prepare to defend will benumerous. If the positions the enemy prepares to defend are numerous, thenthe forces we will engage will be few. Thus if they prepare to defend the front,to the rear there will be few men. If they defend the rear, in the front there will be few. If they prepare to defend the left flank, then on the right there will befew men. If they prepare to defend the right flank, then on the left there will befew men. If there is no position left undefended, then there will not be anyplace with more than a few. The few are the ones who prepare against others;the many are the ones who make others prepare against them. 4
The later military classics echoed his concern, often in almost transcendentterms:
Control of the army is as secretive as the depths of Earth, as dark andobscure as the heights of Heaven, and is given birth from the
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nonexistent. Therefore it must be opened. The great is not frivolous, the small is not vast. 5
The Military Pronouncements states: "For the general's plans one wants secrecy." When the general's plans are secret, treacherous impulses arethwarted. If the general's plans leak out, the army will not be able to effect a strategic disposition of
power. If external agents spy out internal affairs, the disaster that will befall the army cannot be controlled. 6
Even the military chapter of the Former Han, markedly Taoist Huai-nan Tzuespoused formlessness as the best defense against being fathomed:
Among the spiritual nothing is more honored than Heaven, among strategic power nothing more conducive than earth, among movements nothing moreurgent than time, and among employments nothing more advantageous thanman. Now these four are the trunk and branches of the army, but they mustrely upon the Tao before they can be implemented and attain unified employment.
Now advantages of Earth overcome seasons of Heaven; skillful attacks overcome advantages of Earth; strategic power conquers men. Those who relyon Heaven can be confused, who rely on Earth can be constrained, who rely on time can be pressed, and who rely on men can be deluded. Nowbenevolence, courage, trust, and purity are attractive human attributes, butthe courageous can be enticed, the benevolent can be seized, the trusting canbe deceived, and the pure are easily plotted against. If the army's commanderdisplays any one of these attributes, he will be captured. From this perspective it is clear that armies control victory through the patterns of the Tao, notthrough relying upon the talents of worthies. Only those without form cannotbe ensnared. For this reason the Sage conceals himself in the originless sothat his emotions cannot be perceived. He moves in the formless so that his deployments cannot be fathomed. Without tactics or appearance, he actsappropriately. Without name or shape, he changes and creates an image. Evenamong those with acute vision, who can spy out his nature? 7
The late Ming dynasty Ping-fa Pai-yen even offered an operational definition ofsecrecy, examining the implications for personal behavior and demeanor:
Definition: Not to speak about anything to inappropriate persons is termed "secrecy."
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Original Text: The affairs of one person are not leaked to a second person; what is to be implemented tomorrow is not leaked to anyone today. Carryingthis to the minutest extreme, be careful not to leave even the space of a hair. When secrecy in meetings needs to be preserved, be wary about betraying theinformation in speech. When secrecy needs to be preserved in speech, be wary about betraying it in your demeanor. 8 When secrecy needs to be preserved inyour demeanor, be wary about betraying it in your spirit and emotions. Whensecrecy needs to be preserved in your spirit and emotions, be wary aboutbetraying it in your dreams and sleep. When you undertake an action, conceal the beginning; when you employ someone, gag his mouth. However, whensomething can be spoken about, you need not guard against being the first toreveal it so as to show other people that they are trusted. When such sincerityis extended over time, what is not secret will provide the means to establishthe secrecy of what is.
Explanation: One who fills the role of general has a stomach and belly [chief of staff], thighs [assistants], cars and eyes [intelligence agents], claws andteeth [elite warriors, enforcers], hands and feet [messengers], and blood andpulse [various officers]. 9 They are all parts of a single body. If I am secretiveabout all aspects of my single body, how does it differ from being secretive about myself? But among my officers and men there are those whounderstand affairs and those who do not; those who are circumspect inspeech and those who are not; those with scintillating wisdom, those withoutit; those who compete for achievement, those who do not. If I fail to carefullyselect them and warily take precautions, others will gain control over my menand some may then turn and impede our affairs. How will this differ fromdivulging something myself? Thus one technique for secrecy is to keep secretwhat ought to be secret, but not that which need not be secret.
Example: One who acts as a general cannot dwell by himself when the army halts or move alone when on the march. Plans cannot come from him alone, actions cannot be undertaken solely by him. By being cautious about one'sassociates, it can be managed. To conduct secret affairs, first seek outreliable persons.
The Yi Chou-shu wisely advised against employing the loquacious because they may inadvertently leak plans, commenting that "disaster and goodfortune lie in what is preserved in secrecy." However, the Han dynastyShuo Yüan summarized much verbiage on security issues by simply saying, "If you do not want people to hear about some
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thing, nothing is better than not speaking of it,"10 and added that "plans thatleak out will lack achievement."11 Accordingly, the Six Secret Teachingswarned: "Those who are unguarded in their discussions can be clandestinelylistened to." 12
Apart from generally emphasizing secrecy in all activities, three concrete steps were widely implemented: strict constraints on movement, the employment ofsecret means of communication, and deceptive measures. Prior to embarking on a campaign and whenever the army was out in the field, airtight securityhad to be implemented, completely prohibiting the passage of unauthorized personnel and thwarting any attempts by the enemy to infiltrate spies among the troops disguised in appropriate uniforms. Sun-tzu stated, "On the day thegovernment mobilizes the army, close the passes, destroy all tallies, and donot allow their emissaries to pass through."13 Wei Liao-tzu added, "Whenitinerant persuaders and spies have no means to gain entrance, this is thetechnique for rectifying discussions."14 Since it is evident from the historicalwritings that spies still frequently gained access to military encampments and acquired vital information, the imposition of strict security measures becamenecessary. The Ping-fa Pai-yen encapsulated these concerns under the rubricof "caution":
Definition: Being careful in every aspect is termed "caution."
Original Text: There isn't a single moment when the army's employment is notdangerous; therefore, you need to be cautious at all times. Enter the army [toassume command] as if there were spies all about; when crossing the border,be as strict as when approaching battle. Whenever you obtain or seize something, make certain no harm is entailed; when you encounter natural obstacles of terrain, you must search about for villains. When emissariesapproach from the enemy, ponder
their plans, when you go forth, make calculations. Being cautious inadvancing the army is the pinnacle of the Tao.
Explanation: When the ancients deployed their formations, they always consulted the Heavenly mansions and eight trigrams, so extreme was theircaution. Thus they illuminated and reacted to everything about them. Whenthe ancients advanced the army, they invariably had close, trustedassociates act as their eyes and ears and burly relatives for theirbodyguards. Moreover, they had wise and courageous men who were adeptat handling the masses act as their "feathers and wings," so extensive wastheir caution. 15
Within the army racing about on horses was prohibited, as was wild shoutingand horseplay. Preventing them from wandering
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about was the height of caution. They quieted their voices and breath and undertook investigations in accord with affairs. Through investigations theyrealized the doubtful, through doubt they achieved preparation. Throughpreparation they could be employed, which is the height of caution. They made their concerns and contemplations numerous.
The establishment of laws gives birth to caution; sufficiency in material resources gives birth to caution; severity in commands gives birth to caution; numerous doubts give birth to caution. Thus caution depends upon laws, relies upon materials, is completed through commands, and arises from doubt.
Example: Caution, this one word, truly is the first essential in controlling thearmy and confronting the enemy. None of the great ministers or generals of antiquity ever violated it. Those who hope to imitate the achievements of antiquity's famous generals must first learn to emulate their caution.
The many Ch'in dynasty camp regulations apparently preserved in the WeiLiao-tzu underscore the strictness of the army's methods:
The Central, Left, Right, Forward, and Rear Armies all have their segmentedterrain, each surrounded on all four sides by
temporary walls, with no passage or communication among thempermitted.
The general has his segmented terrain, the regimental commander has his segmented terrain, and the company commander has his segmented terrain. They should all construct ditches and sluices, and make the orders blockingcommunications explicit, so that it is impossible for someone who is not amember of the company of a hundred to pass through. If someone who is nota member of the company of a hundred enters, the commander shouldexecute him. If he fails to execute him, he will share the offense with him.
Along the roads crisscrossing the encampment set up administrative posts every 120 paces. Measure the men and the terrain. The road posts should bewithin sight of each other. Prohibit crossing over the roads and clear them. Ifa soldier does not have a tally or token issued by a general or othercommanding officer, he cannot pass through. Wood gatherers, fodder seekers, and animal herders all form and move in squads of five. If they are not moving in squads of five, they cannot cross through. If an officer does not have a token, if the soldiers are not in squads of five, the guards at the crossing gates should execute them. If anyone oversteps the demarcation lines, execute him. Thus if within the army no one contravenes orders or violates the prohibitions, then without there will not be any that are not caught. 16
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The Sung Hu-ling Ching advised two measures for camp security. First, observation towers should be erected some hundred paces outside the campto watch for enemy activity and signal with flags to indicate the presence anddirection of enemy movement. (They should also report force size, type,activity, and speed. 17) Second, roving security patrols should be established from among the "courageous soldiers knowledgeable about the mountains, rivers, springs, and wells." Each patrol's movements should be confined to a designated area well outside the camp, and they must undertake responsibility for "seizing living spies dispatched by the enemy." To precludethe loss of vital information during interrogation should they be captured byenemy
reconnaissance patrols, they were kept ignorant about their own troop dispositions and defensive measures. 18
Whenever a campaign army penetrated enemy territory, these issues became even more acute, particularly if the area was unfamiliar and reconnaissanceefforts less than effective. A primary concern would be anticipating anddefending against sudden attacks masked by the terrain's configuration. "Defending Against the Enemy," another Hu-ling Ching chapter, expanded thetactics advanced by the Six Secret Teachings when a force was besieged orsurrounded, 19 as well as the operational principles found in the Ssu-ma Faand Military Methods governing deep penetration of enemy territory:
Whenever you have penetrated deep within the enemy's borders, if all is silent and you do not encounter a solitary person, in order to defend againstambushes you should not carelessly move about. You should carefully investigate the cloud formations in all four directions, feed the horses, encourage your warriors, have them assume a crouching defensive position, and wait. As soon as night falls you should deploy strong, courageouswarriors as defensive forces all around outside the camp. You should alsoestablish ambush forces with powerful crossbows and facile shields andarray numerous drum sites. Beating the drums will signal a sudden perimeter assault.
If the enemy attacks the defensive forces, then the main camp should send forth light troops to support them. If they assault the main camp, then thedefensive forces should attack them from all four sides while your mainforces maintain a solid deployment, awaiting any changes that might arise. Ifthe enemy retreats, you should pursue but not press them. The main camp can also follow on and advance further inland.
Naturally the use of scouts and reconnaissance forces (discussed subsequently) should never be neglected.
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Communications
Communications being vital to the army's organization and mission, thePing-fa Pai-yen pondered its nature and implications under the term"communications":
Definition: To transmit information where desired is termed"communication."
Original Text: When an army maneuvers without any method ofcommunication, its segmented forces will not be able to recombine; its distantunits will be unable to respond. Allowing forces to be obstructed and cut off isthe Tao of defeat. However, if your communications are not secret, on thecontrary they will become part of the enemy's calculations. Thus there are such things as the special golden signal banners, swift post horses, arrowssymbolizing authority, and signal fires and smoke in order to report extremely urgent matters.
When two armies meet, you should establish clandestine watchwords. When athousand kilometers apart, you should employ a simple letter, use unformedwords, invisible writing, and even nonpaper strips. The messenger will notknow about them, and if someone else obtains them there will not be anyvisible trace. It is spiritual, spiritual! If you are cut off by the enemy, your line of march severed far off where no one can reach, then you must communicatethrough subtle techniques.
Explanation: Communicating information is the army's most essential activity. However, every army's orders are different, so the main point is keeping theenemy from becoming aware of them while informing your own army. Although communication is the most secret activity, there are only threeessentials: terseness, convenience, and astuteness. You should employselected officers who are close confidants, who are courageous and daring, and specially train those who have agility and speed, whose minds are strong andbodies robust, several hundred or more, to be employed in going back andforth to ensure communications. Select these couriers and make their rewards generous. Be cautious about their missions, be diligent in their employment, for then your communications will be timely and responses rapid, with fewfailures.
Clearly by the end of the late Ming numerous methods of transport were available, including post horses, as were ingenious techniques
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such as invisible ink that are unfortunately little discussed in the military compendiums and can only be guessed at.
Generally speaking, secrecy might be achieved through verbalcommunications memorized and carried by messengers; codes, which seemnot to have been much used in pre-Ch'ing China, although substitutioncharts or one-use pads could certainly have been created; prearranged secretsystems of tallies or markers; various types of hidden messages, whetherphysically disguised or embedded in innocuous texts; and fragmented written communications. Verbal communications entrusted to reliable individuals were no doubt the most common, but also most readily compromised shouldthe messenger be captured, killed, or simply bribed for his information. Sincevarious types of symbolic tallies split in half were employed to signify power and confirm the authenticity of written communications--forged letters and documents having a long, effective history in China--it was a simple step tocreate more systematic sets that might unequivocally convey predeterminedinformation. 20 Although simplistic and therefore limited in data capacity, something like the array described in the Six Secret Teachings may have beenemployed in the Warring States and thereafter:
The ruler and his generals have a system of secret tallies, altogether consisting of eight grades: for signifying a great victory over the enemy, one foot long; fordestroying the enemy's army and killing their general, nine inches long; for forcing the surrender of the enemy's walls and capturing the town, eightinches long; for driving the enemy back and reporting deep penetration, seveninches long; for alerting the masses to prepare for stalwart defensivemeasures, six inches long; for requesting supplies and additional soldiers, fiveinches long; for signifying the army's defeat and the general's death,
four inches long; for signifying the loss of all advantages and the army's surrender, three inches long. 21
The T'ai Kung's measures for preserving the secrecy and validity of these tallies merit note: "Detain all those who bring in and present tallies, and if theinformation from the tally should leak out, execute all those who heard andtold about it. These eight tallies, which only the ruler and general shouldsecretly know, provide a technique for covert communication that will notallow outsiders to know the true situation. Accordingly even though theenemy have the wisdom of a sage, no one will comprehend their significance."22 He also advocated the use of fragmented missives to convey more extensive information in relative security:
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Whenever you have secret affairs and major considerations, letters should be employed rather than tallies. The ruler sends a letter to the general, thegeneral uses a letter to query the ruler. The letters are composed in one unit, then divided. They are sent out in three parts, with only one person knowing the contents. "Divided" means it is separated into three parts. "Sent out inthree parts, with only one person knowing" means there are three messengers, each carrying one part, and when the three are compared together, only then does one know the contents. This is referred to as a "secret letter." Even if the enemy have the wisdom of a Sage, they will not beable to recognize the contents. 23
Of course the T'ai Kung assumed that only one of the messengers might be captured--which would of course render the other two parts useless even tothe intended receiver--and that every nefarious measure would be employed toconceal the letter or the message itself, as mentioned in the introductorysection.
In a section entitled "Tzu Yen" ("Verification Through Characters") the Wu-ching Tsung-yao cited an old method that essentially expanded the T'aiKung's limited, length-based tallies:
According to the old methods, whenever some affair needed to be transmitted through documents that were passed back and forth, it was necessary toguard against leaks. If confidants were employed to transmit the information, not only did it labor them, but it was also necessary to take precautionsagainst human emotions changing and rebelling. To issue orders or constrainthe army there were forty items, each to be secretly designated by a single character. These were for requesting bows, arrows, swords, armor, spears andpennants, pots and screens, horses, clothes and grants, foodstuffs andprovisions, grass and fodder, carts and oxen, boats, equipment for mounting sieges and defending against them, increasing the number of troops, shifting the encampment, advancing the army, withdrawing the army, and assuming a solid defensive position.
Also to report that the enemy had not yet been seen, had been seen arriving, that the enemy is numerous, few, an equal match, increasing their forces, shifting their encampment, advancing their army, withdrawing their army, ormaintaining a solid defense. And to report having besieged the enemy's fortifications, lifted a siege against the enemy, being besieged by the enemy,the enemy lifting their siege, not being victorious in battle, winning a greatvictory, gaining a minor victory, the general and officers sur
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rendering, the general and officers rebelling, the officers and troops falling ill, the regional commander being ill, and a significant conquest over theenemy.
All of them would be sequentially correlated with the individual characters ofan old-style, forty-character poem selected because it was free of duplications. When the commanding general received his order to go forth and mount anattack or siege, he and his subordinate generals would each have a copy.When there was something to report or a reply to send, the appropriate character would be sought out in an ordinary letter or document and marked[with a solid circle]. When the report was acknowledged or the request granted, the same character would then be written or similarly found in a text andmarked.
If it was not granted, then it would be marked with an open circle. Thiskept the masses from understanding.
Essentially a one-time pad with a pre-scripted content, it represented oneapproach to encoding information. Assuming the forty items were strictly apportioned in standard sequence, the two parties would merely need to knowthe poem and silently recite it to themselves to determine the appropriatecharacter. A simple variant, undiscussed here, would be to scramble the forty items before assigning them to a poem, thereby preventing anyone fromguessing the contents even if they discovered the character and happened toknow the poem. The transmission could be further concealed by burying thecharacter at a predetermined position, thereby obviating any need to mark and thus draw attention to it. Fixed phrases or allusions could similarly beembodied within ordinary communications at specified count positions orappended to innocuous documents, such as a scenic scroll covered with poems. However, as David Kahn insightfully points out in his monumentalwork, until numeric codes (such as the nineteenth-century telegraphic code)were assigned to the individual characters, the nature of the writing systemlargely precluded ciphers. 24 Character substitution charts could of course be constructed--and no doubt were on a limited basis, especially for private, rather than official, use--but would invariably require cumbersome charactersubstitution. Book codes would equally have been possible, indicatingcharacters through page, line, and position numbers, but there doesn't seemto be any evidence for their use in either the historical writings or military texts.
Ordinary communications might also be couched in obscure language, written at length on paper, or conveyed by messenger unobtrusively, butthe most critical form--the issuance and conveyance of
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battlefield commands to troops deployed in the field and the heat of battle--required the exact opposite: visibility and clarity. From antiquity China's forces were expertly directed by signal flags, drums, and gongs, and thereforeearly in the Spring and Autumn period had already long been capable of segmented
and articulated action. Thus generals commanded rather than led, and were in fact expected to maintain control of the drums that signaled the type andspeed of movement and the battle pennants that designated direction and theunits that should respond to a command. To counteract the din of battle, writers from Sun-tzu on emphasized the need to multiply the drums andensure they sounded in unison, compelling every soldier to respond. However,as their volume and clarity increased, the enemy's ability to hear and learnsuch commands equally benefited. A chapter entitled "Countering Leaks" inthe Southern Sung Ts'ui-wei Pei-cheng Lu provides an overview of the problem and its solution:
I have heard that when we maintain security while the enemy leaks information, victory will always be ours. Conversely, when the enemy is secretive while we leak, victory will always be theirs. In recent years ourborder administration has truly been lax in this regard, and some nomadicpeoples have completely adopted our army's flags and pennants, resulting in our own forces often being defeated through misperceiving nomadic units for our own. Moreover, some of these barbarian peoples are thoroughly familiarwith our military organization, and our armies are constantly betraying themselves because their structure is not secret. Thus the methods forcountering leaks should probably be discussed.
Now there are four methods for countering leaks. First, "summoning by signals." This refers to previously employing a green flag to direct generalsand commanders, but now using green flags to summon officers and troops. Whereas formerly a white flag was employed to summon the commander inchief, now a white flag will be used to summon the divisional commanders.
Second, "flags and pennants." This refers to previously using green to signalthe left flank, white the right flank, and now exchanging green and white tokeep the enemy from learning the designations of my left and right armies. Whereas previously green was employed for the straight and black for the curved, now exchange the black and green to keep the enemy from knowing whether our strategic power will be deployed in straight or curvedformations.
Third, "gongs and drums." Whereas the army formerly advanced to the sound of the drums and retreated to the gongs, on
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the contrary when the drums are now heard, it will halt. Where formerly ithalted at the sound of the gongs, it will now advance to the gongs.
Fourth, "beacon fires." Whereas one torch previously signified enemyinvaders and two torches a request for help, on the contrary one torch will now signal a request for help. Previously, whereas no smoke indicated theabsence of incidents and smoke a warning, now on the contrary thepresence of smoke will signify the absence of incidents. These are the ways to counter leaks. 25
Whether these countermeasures would deceive the enemy or one's owntroops more thoroughly may well have been problematic.
Concealment and Deception
Although the practice of deception was already prevalent in the Spring and Autumn period, to counter the increasingly effective and focused reconnaissance efforts found on Warring States battlefields and thereafter,military theorists strongly advocated its employment and commandersincreasingly resorted to a wide variety of ruses, feints, and deceits. (Thepractice of deception is, of course, a hallmark of Chinese military thought,stemming in part from Sun-tzu's famous dictum that "warfare is the art of deception." However, to reduce Chinese warfare simply to an exercise in deception, as some uninformed Western writers have suggested, is absurd. 26) A number of clever techniques became commonplace, stimulating a correspondingly increasing sophistication in observation methods and analysis to penetrate them. Moreover, because observers were restricted by the powersof the human eye and the vantage points they might secure, the deployment of spies also soared in the belief that plans clandestinely obtained would prove far more accurate than deductions derived from
observations of partially obscured, not to mention aggressively deceitful, armies.
Given the difficulty of accurate observation, the first measure employed was concealment, whether through hiding a portion of the forces in another location, in ravines, inside tents, beneath clouds of dust or smoke, or evenwithin deployments themselves. Its effective application may be seen in theevents preliminary to Emperor Kaotsu's famous encirclement by Hsiung-nuforces (whose resolution is more fully examined in the section on consorts):
When King Han Hsin revolted in the seventh year of the Former Han dynasty, Emperor Kao-tsu personally led the army forth to
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strike him. Reaching Ching-yang, Kao-tsu learned that Han Hsin was planning to attack his army in alliance with the Hsiung-nu. Enraged, theemperor dispatched emissaries to the Hsiung-nu. However, the Hsiung-nuconcealed their stalwart warriors and stout horses and cattle so that all theemissaries saw were the old and weak, as well as emaciated livestock. Ten emissaries in a row came back to report that the Hsiung-nu would be easy toattack.
The emperor then had Liu Ching again go as ambassador to the Hsiung-nu, but when he returned he reported: "When two countries are about to engagein battle, they ought to diligently display their strengths [to overawe theenemy]. However, when I went out there, I saw nothing but emaciatedlivestock and the weak and old. This is certainly an example of wanting todisplay weakness while concealing troops in ambush in order to fight for advantage. I humbly believe that the Hsiung-nu cannot be attacked." At thistime the emperor's forces, more than three hundred thousand strong, hadalready crossed through Chü-chu and the soldiers were advancing. Theemperor angrily cursed Ching, saying, "Son of the despicable Ch'i, you gotyour position through your tongue, yet you now wantonly use it to impede ourarmy!" He then had him tied up and left at Kuang-wu and proceeded out.
When they reached P'ing-cheng, the Hsiung-nu indeed sent forth the unorthodox troops that surrounded the emperor at Paiteng, and he only succeeded in escaping seven days later. When Emperor Kao-tsu reachedKuang-wu he pardoned Ching, saying: "I failed to heed your words and thussuffered the difficulty at P'ing- ch'eng. I previously sent out ten emissaries, all of whom had concluded they could be attacked." He then enfeoffed him withtwo thousand households as a lord within the pass and changed his title toChien-hsin. 27
In the ongoing confrontation between the Central Kingdom and the peripheral border peoples, just as in the earliest days of the Chou dynasty's decline, intelligence missions were largely carried out by official emissaries rather thanindigenous spies. However, since the nature of these missions wastransparent, measures to mislead and frustrate them could easily be mounted. For the highly mobile nomadic and seminomadic peoples it would have been a simple matter to divert their best warriors and livestock to less visible areaswhen apprised of an emissary's approach, particularly as diplomatic missionswould have been burdened with extensive paraphernalia of office and probably relied on slow oxen to pull their supply wagons.
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An early example of observational countermeasures dating to 555 B.C. embedded in a Tso Chuan account of a confrontation between Ch'i and Chinturns upon the opposite principle of manifesting apparent strength:
The marquis of Ch'i ascended Mount Wu in order to observe Chin's army inthe distance. However, Chin had ordered its commanders to establishoutposts throughout the difficult terrain in the hills and marshes and evendeploy regimental flags in areas where they would not emplace troops. Moreover, they had their chariots manned by real warriors on the left butdummies on the right, 28 set up large flags at the front of the chariot forces, and had other chariots, dragging brush, follow on. When the marquis of Ch'isaw this, he was afraid of their numerousness, abandoned the field, andreturned to Ch'i. 29
Another part of the same account, at first innocuous looking, when viewed inthe context of Chin's actions indicates that the
marquis of Ch'i was psychologically set up, primed to see or accept reports of great enemy strength. One of Chin's commanders deliberately provided hiscounterpart with the frightening news that the Chin coalition had granted Lu and Chü, each capable of fielding a thousand chariots, permission to join theeffort and freely invade Ch'i. This fact was "sincerely" conveyed on the battlefield as if from one concerned officer to another, and therefore immediately advised to the marquis, who trembled at the prospect since thebattle was already going poorly. (The marquis' lack of courage may havealready been known to Chin, being much remarked by Ch'i's own forces,perhaps suggesting the possibility of literally frightening him off thebattlefield.) This psychological preparation no doubt facilitated the execution of an extensive but still inherently simple deception that detailed observation by reconnaissance troops might otherwise have prevented. The clarity of theepisode's lesson also prompted its selection as the historical example for the chapter entitled "Daylight" in the Hundred Unorthodox Strategies, abstracting and identifying it as an important lesson for later generations. The tacticalprinciple illustrated there states: "Whenever engaging an enemy in battleduring daylight, you must set out numerous flags and pennants to cause uncertainty about your forces. When you prevent the enemy from determining your troop strength, you will be victorious. A tactical principle from the Art ofWar states: 'In daylight battles make the flags and pennants numerous.'"
The story of Sun Pin's exploitation of P'ang Chüan's arrogance at the battle of Ma-ling some three centuries later provides another ex
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ample of a simple but effective deception. 30 With P'ang's massive force inpursuit, Sun Pin created a facade of fear and desertion by hastily retreating while also dramatically reducing the number of cookfires every night. SinceP'ang equated the number of fires with a corresponding troop presence, heconcluded that Sun Pin's forces were rapidly dwindling and had little will tofight, making them easy prey. Thus P'ang was lured into rushing forwardwithout adequate heavy forces and
quickly massacred at a preestablished killing ground. From this Chinalearned the trick of masking troop strength by manipulating the number of fires, making them more numerous to suggest larger armies and thereby deterattacks, or reducing them to lure the enemy forward. 31 Similarly, flags and pennons being essential for identifying and controlling the troops, as well as evidence of their degree of order or confusion (as discussed in the military intelligence section on evaluating enemy forces), Sun Pin himself advised that"spreading out the pennants and making the flags conspicuous are the meansby which to cause doubt in the enemy" and "amid grasses and heavyvegetation one should employ visible pennants." 32 Naturally these techniquesworked because signal flags and command pennants had to be positioned tobe clearly visible at all times on every terrain. 33
As a general tactical principle several writers advised multiplying the numberof flags and drums or increasing their spacing when attacking an enemy toconfuse the enemy's targeting and balk any estimates based upon them. Forexample, the Six Secret Teachings advises: "Change our flags and pennants several times and also change our uniforms. Then their army can be conquered. 34 Multiply the number of flags and pennants, and increase thenumber of gongs and drums. 35 In the daytime set up five colored pennantsand flags. At night set out ten thousand fire-cloud torches, beat the thunder drums, strike the war drums and bells, and blow the sharp-soundingwhistles." 36 Although primarily for communications purposes, Sun Pinhimself stated: "In the daytime making the flags numerous and at nightmaking the drums many are the way to send them off to battle. Rectifying the ranks and systematizing the pennants is the way to bind the formationstogether."37
Although innovative, effective, and amenable to categorization along general lines, the actual techniques employed to deceive enemies throughout China'smilitary history are too numerous to consider here and must therefore be leftfor another book. However, a few examples, particularly those that becamehistorically important through their inclusion in the Hundred UnorthodoxStrategies and the military writings, coupled with a
brief overview of the methods indicated in the theoretical classics, are merited. As with many con
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cepts, Sun-tzu apparently enunciated the first tactics designed to exploit the impetus to deception: "Although you are capable, display incapability. Whencommitted to employing your forces, feign inactivity. When your objective isnearby, make it appear as if distant; when far away, create the illusion of being nearby."38
In the massive work known as the Six Secret Teachings numerous suggestions for deceptively manipulating the enemy are interspersed throughout the sixty detailed chapters. For example, to resolve a difficulttactical situation, the T'ai Kung advised:
Make an outward display of confusion while actually being well ordered. Showan appearance of hunger while actually being well fed. Keep your sharpweapons within and show only dull and poor weapons outside. Have sometroops come together, others split up; some assemble, others scatter. Makesecret plans, keep your intentions secret. Raise the height of fortifications and conceal your elite troops. If the officers are silent, not making any sounds, theenemy will not know our preparations. Then if you want to take his westernflank, attack the eastern one. 39
The themes of secrecy and deception continued to be developed after the classical military writings. For example, Li Ch'uan's T'ang dynasty T'ai-pai Yin-ching integrates feints and deception with secrecy in an abstract, unifiedapproach:
Those who excelled at employing the army could not have established themselves without trust and righteousness, achieved victory without yinand yang, realized advantages without the unorthodox and orthodox, orengaged in battle without deceit and subterfuge. Plans are concealed in themind, but affairs are visible in external traces. One whose thoughts and visible expression are identical will be defeated, one whose thoughts andvisible expression differ will be victorious.
Warfare is the Tao of deception. When capable, display incapability. Whenabout to employ the army, feign that you are not. 40 When your mind is filledwith great plans, display only minor concerns. When your mind is planning toseize something, feign being about to give something away. Obscure the real, cast suspicion upon the doubtful. When the real and doubtful are notdistinguishable, strength and weakness will be indeterminable. Be profoundlike the Mysterious Origin free of all images, be an abyss like the unfathomabledepths of the sea. When you attain this, yin and yang can no longer beemployed to calculate your intentions,
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ghosts and spirits will be unable to know them, techniques and measures will be unable to impoverish them, and methods of divination will be unable tofathom them, so how much more so mere enemy generals!
Now those who excelled in warfare achieved their victories in the clash of armies. The historical records are inadequate to attest to their plans, the formof their victories too insubstantial to be observed. 41 Those who can discusstactics but not implement them harm a state, while those who can implementthem but are unable to discuss them can be employed by the state. Thus it issaid, "The highest plans are not spoken about, great military affairs are notdiscussed." It is subtle and mysterious!
Thus outstanding generals are able to penetrate the patterns of Heaven and Earth and fully prepare against the nature of the myriad things. They profitthe greedy, thereby nurturing their desires, and are deferential to the strong, making them arrogant and boastful. 42 They estrange the intimate, causingthem to become mutually disaffected. Men with insatiable desires will lack uprightness, the arrogant and boastful will neglect their defenses, anddisaffected strategists will depart. King Wen of the Chou made generous giftsto the Shang and the Shang king was subsequently slain. King Kou-chien ofYüeh humbled himself before the state of Wu and King Fu-ch'ai of Wu was later exterminated. Han Kao-tsu became estranged from the kingdom of Ch'u, and Hsiang Yü, king of Ch'u,
perished. Thus one subjugates the feudal lords with words and labors the feudal lords with plans. 43
Those who excel in commanding the army attack what the enemy loves so thatthey must respond, and strike their vacuities so that the enemy must react.44 They multiply their methods to coerce the enemy into dividing and createsuspicious facades to force the enemy to prepare. When the enemy's response fails to be successful, they are compelled to divide their forces and defendtheir cities. If they are thus unable to unite their soldiers, we will be restedwhile they are labored; they will be few, while we are many. Now attacking thetired with the rested accords with martial principles; attacking the rested withthe tired contravenes martial principles. Attacking the few with the many isthe Tao for military victory; attacking the many with the few is the Tao formilitary defeat. Attacking the few with the many and assaulting the tired with the rested is the way to attain complete victory.
Now debilitating the enemy's spirit, seizing the general's mind, 45 exhausting the strength of their troops, and severing thousand kilometer supply routesdo not lie in martial force but in the strategic power of deployments coupledwith wise officers calcu
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lating the tactical imbalance of power. It is weak and soft! Roll it up, it won'tfill the space of a sleeve. It is deep and secretive! Stretch it out, it will surpassthe seas. A five-inch bolt can control the opening and closing of a door, a square inch of heart can change success to defeat. Thoroughly knowing all theaspects of the myriad things and thus never being imperiled, flexibly completing the myriad things without omitting any, according with Heavenand trusting men, 46 investigating the beginning and knowing the end, whatworry is there that one's plans will not be followed? 47
The first part of this lengthy passage thus opens with an assertion on the importance of being unfathomable, but the discussion then proceeds to linkcritical material from Sun-tzu in an integrated discussion that well illustrateshow these concepts flow from one to another.
The Hu-ling Ching, composed during the Northern Sung period, advanced andexpanded Sun-tzu's initial concept of misdirecting the enemy's perceptions ina chapter entitled "Far and Near" that equally evidences a thoroughunderstanding of Li Ch'uan T'ai-pai Yin-ching. The text explicates six tacticalactions that exploit misdirections in the enemy's focus, including a nighttime river crossing made with bamboo rafts launched from upstream when theriver's depth and current preclude direct fording and assault operations. Although largely an adaptation of the techniques for deceit found in Sun-tzu'sthematic chapter "Initial Estimations," key passages merit scrutiny:
Warfare is the Tao of deception. Deception can make the empty appear full, the distant appear near, and the near appear distant. Thus there are sixmethods for employing the deception of the far and near. First, those whoexcel at attacking the enemy cause them to be alert to the front and then assault their rear, speak of the east then strike the west. They go forth where the enemy will not race, and race where the enemy does not expect. They lurethem with profits, causing the settled to move, the rested to labor, and thesated to become hungry. They observe where they are unprepared and suddenly exploit it. 48
These six all display objectives being nearby but gain victory far off. Such are the strategies of the unorthodox and orthodox. Suntzu said: "Armies engage inbattle with the orthodox and gain victory through the unorthodox."49 This iswhat he meant.
Another chapter in the Hu-ling Ching entitled "Five Differences," althoughostensibly focusing upon differences in command style, explicates severaldeceptive techniques for countering a more powerful
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enemy by exploiting their very superiority and consequent expectations, playing off normal perceptions and the "wisdom" of the common view:
The T'ai Kung said: "One whose wisdom is the same as the masses is not acommander for the army, one whose skill is the
same as the masses is not an artisan for the state. No movement is more spiritual than being unexpected, no victory greater than being unrecognized."50 Sun-tzu said, "The strategic power of those who excel inwarfare is sharply focused and their constraints are precise."51 "Leading"means to be different from the ordinary. For this reason those whose excel atemploying the military act distinctively in five circumstances: The first isconstrained terrain; the second, lightness; the third, danger; the fourth, stupidity; and the fifth, fear.
Exhausted roads and deep valleys, fatal and severed terrain, ruined fortifications and moats, places normally raced through, are ordinarily takenby the masses as constricted and to be avoided. However, on the contrary you should make your deployments internally solid while externally manifesting anappearance of disorder in order to entice the enemy. Internally you should be strict with your troops while externally appearing afraid in order to make theenemy arrogant. Then when they fail to recognize the true situation, oppressthem with changes, assault them with troops. This is the Tao for utilizing constricted terrain.
When they are numerous but you are few, your strength is ruined and supplies exhausted, and the power for victory lies with them, you should swear a blood oath with the warriors, strictly order generous rewards, andadvance and retreat as if certain to die. Also select a small number of soldiersto suddenly mount a fierce defense against them. The enemy, being more numerous, will assume you are light, but lightness has its employment. Passing through exhausted terrain on which the gate to life has been shutwill convert lightness into decisiveness. This is the Tao for employing lightness.
When a strong enemy mounts such a fervent attack that your soldiers are trembling, the masses will assume you are endangered, but you should notbecome agitated or chaotic. When you employ perilous conditions, yourorders must be strict, your preparations thorough. Encourage the officers andtroops with thoughts about the Will of Heaven; externally close off yourappearance; internally grasp the vital moment to covertly employ
unorthodox tactics in sending your troops forth. This is the Tao for employing danger.
When the enemy employs agents to spy upon you, pretend you do not realize it and receive them. When the enemy sends spies into your encampment,pretend you are unprepared, but establish ambushes to await their forces. The enemy will assume that you are stupid, but employing the method of apparent stupidity is, on the contrary, wise. This is the Tao for employing stupidity.
When you see the enemy's army approaching, retreat and concentrate behind defensive walls. When you see the enemy's emissaries approaching, speakdeferentially and act dispirited, as if you hope to be reconciled with them. Themasses will assume you are afraid. When utilizing fear you should withdrawand contract, establish ambushes, and then attack, employing unorthodoxtactics to penetrate them. Act as if you want to be reconciled, move them withprofits, and make them arrogant through your humility. This is the Tao foremploying fear.
These five are contrary to the methods of the masses. When the massesassume you are constricted, employ their advantages. When they assume youare light, employ lightness to be decisive. When they assume you areendangered, utilize their [sense of] security. When they assume you are stupid,employ their wisdom. When they assume you are afraid, employ their courage. Thus the T'ai Kung said, "One who cannot extend and move [his troops about] cannot be spoken with about the unorthodox."52 This is what he meant.
The inclusion of measures to thwart spies, treated as just one of many responses, provides further evidence that military forces were constantly employing agents to penetrate enemy encampments, no doubt in disguiseeither as merchants and other vendors or as members of the army itself. (A number of similar methods for exploiting enemy expectations arising from configurations of terrain, including examples from the Hu-ling Ching, will alsobe found in the section on military intelligence.)
The Northern Sung Ts'ui-wei Pei-cheng Lu advanced a method to deceive enemy spies by exploiting the reputation of armies and commanders:
I have heard that when a general is famous throughout the realm, shift the general, not the army. When an army is famous throughout the realm, shiftthe army, not the general. If a capable general
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whom the Three Armies heavily rely upon goes out one day to another encampment, enemy forces will secretly observe it and invariably exploit the rear. If elite troops that normally shake enemy states into submission one day go forth to some other area, enemy forces will certainly spy out this fissure andexploit it. Thus the army's secret method for shifting its generals is to not have the soldiers follow so as to make both armies heavy. Similarly, when you shiftthe army, the general does not accompany them so as to make them bothcomplete.
On the day the troops set out, discard the mats and cookstoves so that neither the fires nor bedding leaves a trace. At first light set out and travel at night sothat the dust will not arise. On the day when the general sets out, do notremove his official insignia from camp in order to stupefy the enemy's army, or lower the command pennants in order to keep our troops calm. Thus the general can be shifted without the army worrying about having lost their general, while the army may be shifted without the general being concernedabout the loss of his army. These are termed "submerged changes." 53
Again the techniques presuppose the presence of enemy agents in the encampment or their access to rumors and gossip.
By the late Ming period military contemplation of certain subjects such as theunorthodox and orthodox, secrecy, formlessness, and strategic power hadbecome highly rarefied and abstract, no doubt in part because of the influenceof such philosophical developments as Taoism, Buddhism, andNeoconfucianism over the nearly two thousand years since these subjects were first articulated by Sun-tzu. Conceptually important, their degree of realization in actual operations
remains problematic, although there certainly was a general cognizance of the essential principles and a recognition of the need to be as deceitful andunfathomable as possible without creating impossibly complex plans andtotally confusing one's own forces. The Ping-fa Pai-yen, a late Ming textcomposed by a loyalist leader and eventual recluse, ponders much of thecorpus of Chinese military theory in the light of field practices and historical records. To provide an overview of what certainly must be considered the theoretical apex of the genre, several relevant definitions are translated here,while others will be found in the theoretical section on intelligence evaluation.
The technique of "according with" the enemy's expectations and desires requires first determining what they believe and want, then apparently conforming to them until the situation can be exploited:
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Definition: When the enemy wants to take something and you yield it, it is termed "according with."
Original Text: In general, when going contrary to something merely solidifies it, it is better to accord with it in order to lead them to flaws. If the enemy wants to advance, be completely flexible and display weakness in order toinduce an advance. If the enemy wants to withdraw, disperse and open anescape route for their retreat. If the enemy is relying upon a strong front,establish your own front lines far off, solidly assuming a defensive posture inorder to observe their arrogance. If the enemy relies upon their awesomeness,be emptily respectful but substantially plan while awaiting their laxness.Draw them forward and cover them, release and capture them. Exploit theirarrogance, capitalize on their laxity.
Explanation: Whenever you encounter a strong enemy, unless you have extensive wisdom and great courage, it is not possible to oppose them headlong and sever their forces. It is better to assume a solid defensive stanceand refuse battle, waiting for their ch'i to decline. Deepen your moats andheighten your fortifications; conceal your sharp front and hide your arrows;endure taunts and curses without moving; accept insults without declining. Temporarily accord with the enemy's
"According with" the enemy's assessment is but one technique in the panoply of misperception. Every commander should consistently mount efforts tomislead the enemy into making errors of judgment and undertake whateveractions might directly produce "misperceptions."
Definition: Causing the enemy's plans to be erroneous is referred to as "misperception."
Original Text: The essence of conquering an enemy is not only using your strength to control them, but also employing techniques that mislead them. Perhaps you will use your own methods to mislead them, perhaps exploit theirmisperceptions to impede them. Cause them to misperceive their basis of support, advantages, stupidity, and wisdom, and also misperceive ongoing changes. Provoke them with emptiness [feints], seize them with substantiality. If they are knowledgeable, cause them to be mis
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led; when they are misled, you can be enlightened. Thus one who excels inmilitary affairs misleads others and is not misled by others. 54
Explanation: Misleading them with their own misperceptions accords with thenatural tendencies of the situation. Misleading them in the absence of misperception is contrary to the tendencies of the situation. Even when theenemy doesn't have a perceptible crack that can be exploited, there are stilltechniques. For example, display weakness in order to mislead them aboutwhat they can rely on, manifest fear in order to mislead them about the advantages they enjoy. Show disorder in order to mislead their stupidity, manifest stupidity in order to obfuscate their wisdom. Show them you do notdare act in order to interfere with their tactical changes. When they nominally provoke you, act startled, when they employ substantial forces to seizeterrain, display a sudden response.
In all cases act as if your generals are incompetent and the army incapable.These are the methods of inner court officials, the Tao of pliancy.
Alternatively, destroy their solidity and thereby interfere with what they rely upon. Seize their riches in order to impede their realization of advantages. Employ the extremes of skill and artifice to mislead them in their stupidity, deepen your plans in order to obscure their wisdom. Employ intertwinedattack and defense in order to confuse their tactical changes. When theynominally provoke you, exercise caution in the middle, when they employ substantial forces to seize terrain, occupy the strongpoints. In all thesesituations act as if neither your generals nor army can be matched by theenemy. This was the military strategy of the Yellow Emperor, the Tao of firmness.
The Tao of the Yellow Emperor, the Tao of Lao-tzu--sometimes being adragon, others a snake--anyone who excels in employing the army mustemploy such methods.
Although the term "misperception" is active, conveying the sense of inducing a misperception or erroneous evaluation, it also includes the idea of actively impeding, misleading, or obstructing, so no single English word suffices totranslate it, including "obfuscate," which has many appropriateconnotations.
In defining a word best translated as "displays" (although "extensions" or"screens," depending upon the type and context, would also be possible),the Ping-fa Pai-yen similarly provides evidence that the technique of doubtful flags and screens was still practiced in the late Ming and ancienttexts still assiduously studied, but now on more
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abstract level, implemented through actual deployments rather than just flagsthemselves:
Definition: The establishment of multiple doubtful deployments is termed"displays."
Original Text: Ostentatiously flaunting one's capabilities to shake anenemy is an ordinary method; only when the
Explanation: When an army lacks substance but displays a facade, it is termed a "display." The method is to amplify what should be extended. Whenyou blatantly flourish the army's actual awesomeness, it is termed a "substantial display." When you purely set out feigned deployments to incitedoubt, it is termed a "vacuous display." Even so, substantial displays require rearguard actions to prevent the enemy from fervently and courageously mounting a sudden attack. Vacuous displays value concealed ambushes toprevent the enemy from leading you into a fierce engagement. Thus somedisplays result in victory by exploiting the enemy's fear, others their ignorance.When you have no alternative but to employ them, any victory achieved will be a matter of luck, not of normal methods. Those who excel in this methodextend themselves externally but are constrained internally.
The concept essentially exploits Sun Pin's idea of confusing an enemy by setting out specious displays, especially when one is weak: "Set out artifice in order to cause doubt." The most spectacular example among those that ChiehHsüan provides is Chao Yün blatantly opening his camp to make a vastly superior enemy afraid to attack since a fatal ambush had no doubt beenprepared.
The foregoing measures, when abstractly extrapolated, may be theorized interms of "shadows," a more all-encompassing, multidimensional form of"displays":
Definition: Being skilled in setting out doubtful formations is termed "shadows."
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Explanation: Men have straightforward principles, but military strategy doesnot. The sincere and trusting will not be able to comprehend a slippery enemy commander. Thus there are techniques for real and feigned assaults, methodsfor vacuous and substantial defenses. For battle there are unorthodox andorthodox tactics, including giving when you want to take, and taking whenyou want to give. When you want to capture something, you liberate it, whenyou want to liberate something, you capture it. Sometimes one acts contrary to this principle and actually seizes or gives, captures or liberates, all of whichare termed "shadows within shadows." Thus shadows have shadows withinthem, but shadows also have reality within them. Within the real there areshadows, within the real there is reality. Thus reality and shadow completeeach other, ever attaining the inexhaustible.
Examples: Chu-ko Liang wanted to seize Hsi-ch'uan but first blocked SunCh'üan's advancing to attack. T'ang T'ai-tsung was capable of pacifying theTurks, but he first humbly sought to make peace. Duke Wen of Chin wantedto engage in battle, but he first feigned a retreat at Ch'eng-p'u. Ch'in's armywanted to retreat, so it sought to engage the enemy in battle. In all these cases stretching out was taken as contracting and contracting as stretching out. How can the mind of the strategist be real and substantial like other men?
Although highly abstract and esoteric, battlefield practices of this sortrepresent the pinnacle of deception and the ultimate challenge to the mysteries of evaluation. Even though the
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Ching's discussion on the unorthodox and orthodox, as well as Sun- tzu'soriginal passages on that topic, in Book I of the Questions and Replies. Moreover, it can be similarly conceptualized and phrased in terms of yin, thedark, passive polarity in the dynamic pairing of light and darkness, sun andmoon, day and night:
Definition: Wisdom that cannot be perceived is termed "yin" [dark,obscure].
Original Text: When you employ yang [visible, overt measures] but others still are unable to fathom them, then yang is yin [dark, covert]. When you employyin measures and others are even less able to fathom them, then yin measuresare yin. Thus sometimes one borrows yang to implement yin, sometimes revolves yin to complete yang, neither of which differs from simply employing unorthodox measures and seizing subtle opportunities, using ambushes andsudden strikes.
Explanation: The myriad military tactics of antiquity can all be exhausted by asingle word, yin. The talents of antique generals may similarly be encompassedby the single word yin. The wisest military calculations, if leaked out, will failto achieve anything, whereas if preserved in secrecy, they will be effective.Allowing plans to become prominent invites misfortune, concealing them preserves the army intact. However, unorthodox and dangerous compoundsand fiercely poisonous medicines such as bitter aconite or ta-huang are solely for striking diseases themselves. Thus if a disease's root is shallow butpowerful medications are inappropriately employed to purge it, the life force may be harmed and original essence congealed to the detriment of the patient.Yang must be ameliorated with yin; through surpassing skill in yinachievements will be complete. Yin must be perversely contrary
to yang; then, by reverting to yang, the Tao will be upright [orthodox].
After citing the Yin-fu Ching in the comments to his examples for "yin," theauthor concludes: "Without yin, how can the unorthodox aspects of calculations be successful? Without yin how can they be secret? The eye is a natural thief, the mind a natural robber." Although the language is enigmatic,the chapter simply focuses upon the ongoing battle between secrecy and perception, the contrast between things that, having form, are detectable andthe invisible, which, being indiscernible, thwarts intelligence efforts. Thechapter's insights depend upon the dynamic polar tension characterizing the opposition of yin and yang that underlies all phenomena in the traditional Chi
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nese view and no doubt reflects Taoism's close interrelationship with Chinese military theory over the centuries.
Counterintelligence
The classic historical writings of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods preserve several accounts of early counterintelligence efforts mountedto thwart political and military observers seeking to assess the prospects for a successful military invasion. To thwart these enemy agents, whether clandestine or politically accredited, the visit had to be anticipated--no doubtreported by one's own spies--and the parameters by which a judgment wouldbe rendered well understood. Generally speaking, until the middle of theWarring States period when disparate views began to arise, observers looked for a virtuous ruler, capable assistants, morally superior advisers, andeconomic prosperity among the people. A famous Spring and Autumn incidentinvolved Yen-tzu, an astute Ch'i statesman around whom many disparatestories eventually coalesced in the Warring States period to make up the lengthy book attributed to him, the Yen-tzu Ch'un-ch'iu. (Reputedly acompilation of his remonstrances and advice, much of the material appearstenuous at best.) However, in the following episode his quick response su ccessfully frustrated the enemy's attempt to insult them and
thereby probe their moral excellence and administrative order. Although the original version appears in the Tso Chuan (and appears in several later compilations such as the Hsin Hsü, Han-shih Wai-chuan, and Yen-tzu Ch'un-ch'iu itself), a later version incorporated in the Sung dynasty HundredUnorthodox Strategies is translated here because it provides evidence of thecontinuing importance of antique materials in the late Sung and subsequentcenturies for military students who pondered the Unorthodox Strategies as a tactical handbook:
During the Spring and Autumn period Duke P'ing of Chin wanted to attackthe state of Ch'i, so he dispatched Fan Chao to observe Ch'i's government. Ata feast in his honor Duke Ching of Ch'i presented him with a cup of wine, butFan Chao asked to drink from the ruler's goblet. The duke ordered that his cup be brought to his guest. Fan Chao had already drunk from it when YenTzu seized the goblet and exchanged it for another cup. Later Fan Chao, pretending to be drunk, unhappily rose to dance. He asked the Music Master:"Can you perform the music of Ch'eng-chou
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for me? I want to dance to it." The Music Master said, "Your ignorantservant is not familiar with it."
When Fan Chao went out Duke Ching said: " Chin is a great state. He came toobserve our government. Now that you have angered this great state'semissary, what will we do?" Yen Tzu said, "I observed that Fan Chao was notignorant of the proper forms of court behavior but sought to embarrass ourstate, so I did not comply." The Music Master said: "The music of Ch'eng-chouis the music of the Son of Heaven. Only the ruler of men can dance to it. NowFan Chao, although a subject, wanted to dance to the music of the Son of Heaven. Therefore I did not perform it."
Fan Chao returned to Chin and reported to Duke Ping: "Ch'i cannot yet be attacked. I tried to insult their ruler, but Yen Tzu realized it. I wanted to actcontrary to their forms of court behavior, but the Music Master perceived it."Confucius subsequently said, "The saying 'to shatter an enemy a
thousand miles off without going beyond the banquet hall' refers to YenTzu.
The tactical principle illustrated by this incident in the Hundred UnorthodoxStrategies derives from Sun-tzu Art of War: "If you attack the enemy just afterthey have formulated their strategy, it will ruin their plans and force them tosubmit. The Art of War states: 'The highest realization of warfare is to attack plans.'"
Even Ch'u, although regarded by the original Chou states as semi- barbaric, was similarly able to deter a planned Chin attack by thwarting its probethrough an unexpected display of surpassing talent:
Ch'in wanted to attack Ch'u, so it dispatched an emissary to observe Ch'u's valuable treasures. Learning of his coming, the king of Ch'u summoned hisprime minister Tzu Hsi and inquired: " Ch'in wants to inspect our valuabletreasures. We have the famous Ho-shih jade and Sui-hou's pearl. Can weshow them these?"Tzu His replied, "I do not know."
The king then summoned Chao Hsi-hsü and asked him the same thing. He replied: "They want to observe our state's attainments and losses and makeplans against them. The state's valued treasures are its worthy ministers. Pearls and jewels are merely things for amusement, not the treasures that astate really esteems." The king then deputed Chao to prepare their response.
Chao Hsi-hsü deployed three hundred elite soldiers within the western gate. On the eastern side he constructed one mound, on the south four, and one inthe west. When Ch'in's emissary ar
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rived Chao said, "Honored guest, please assume a position in the east." He had prime minister Tzu Hsi stand in the south with Tzu Fang behind him, TzuKao in turn behind him, and Ssu-ma Tzu Fan behind him. Chao himself stoodon the mound in the west and then called out: "Our guest wants to observe Ch'u's valued treasures. However, what Ch'u treasures is its worthy officials.
"To bring order to the people and ensure that the storehouses and granaries are full and settle the people in their positions are prime minister Tzu Hsi'sresponsibilities. To present appropriate offerings, undertake embassies to thefeudal lords, mitigate difficulties of friction, bring states together in harmony,and keep us free from the worry of military affairs are Tzu Fang's responsibilities. To defend the borders and be careful about their definition sothat we neither encroach on others nor other states encroach on us are TzuKao's responsibilities. To organize the armies and array the troops in order tooppose strong enemies, to take up the drumsticks and stir our million men toaction so that they will all rush into boiling water or fire, stomp on nakedblades, and die a thousand deaths without troubling about the difficulties ofone's life, are Ssu-ma Tzu Fan's responsibilities. To embrace the bequeathed instructions of the hegemons and take hold of the winds of order and disorder, I am here. It only remains for your great state to observe us."
So frightened that he could not reply, the ambassador from Ch'in bowed and departed. He then returned to Ch'in and reported, " Ch'u has manyworthy ministers so we cannot yet plot against them." Subsequently theydid not attack. As the Book of Odes states, "With his splendid array ofofficers King Wen enjoyed tranquillity." This is what it means. 55
A brief anecdote involving Chang Yi, the famous proponent of the so-calledhorizontal alliance that would submissively unite all the states under Ch'in, reveals he apparently had his own sources of information and was thereforeable to counteract his opponents even though active in another state: " Chou Tsui was a partisan of Ch'i, while Ti Ch'iang advocated an alliance with Ch'u. Both of them wanted to harm Chang Yi's standing in Wei. Chang Yi heardabout it and managed to have one of his people placed as a staff member tothe king's protocol director to secretly observe audiences with the king, so they did not dare harm Chang Yi."56
As the military and political situation became more complex and intense inthe Warring States period, the sort of highly visible observational missionsundertaken by equally high-profile diplomats yielded
to low-profile and totally clandestine efforts. Despite the most stringentmeasures to preserve secrecy, enemy agents often succeeded in penetrating them to gather information, bribe disaffected and greedy officials, or sowdiscord. They, and those already emplaced by the enemy, had to be detectedand either eliminated or converted to one's own use, whether knowingly or not. As already examined, Sun-tzu discussed the need to recruit converted spies,valuing turned agents as the basis for all other efforts to penetrate the enemy, but with the benefit of another thousand years of experience General Li Chingof the T'ang dynasty provided perhaps the most succinct characterization of the situation's dynamics:
Now while we employ agents to spy on other people, other people also use agents to spy on us. Our spies go forth secretly, theirs come forth secretly. Theoperative principle is that one must simply investigate reports with respect topossible motives and evaluate them comparatively, for then they will not be lost.
If the enemy dispatches men to discover our vacuities and strengths, investigate our movement and rest, observe and learn our affairs and plans, and implement covert activities, we should feign being unaware of it, allowingthem to continue, generously profiting them, and treating them well. Housethem and feast them, subtly inform them of false information and speak speciously of unreal affairs, both former and subsequent. What I need thenwill be what the enemy loses. Relying upon their spies, we will turn about andspy upon them.
If they assume our vacuities are substantial and our substantialities vacuous, we can then take advantage of their exhaustion and seize their will. Now watercan float a boat, but it can also overturn it. Although some use spies to besuccessful, others relying on them are overturned and defeated. 57
At the end of the passage Li Ching pointedly raises the ultimate question inshadow work--how to ensure an agent's reliability--
Several military writers addressed the general question of how to evaluate men and motives, and in particular how to detect enemy agents and traitorsfrom their behavior. The Northern Sung Hu-ling Ching includes a chapterentitled "Recognizing Villains" devoted to such evidence, together withresponsive measures designed to gain control of the situation and in turn secretly exploit the opportunities thus presented:
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When an emissary comes from the enemy whose eyes constantly move about, countenance frequently changes, and words are dissolute, he is anassassin.
When an enemy who is not yet distressed requests peace talks, it is a plot.
An enemy that speaks deferentially and presents generous gifts is trying tomake you arrogant.
When they do not cease their plundering even though urgently dispatching emissaries, they are insulting you.
Those who provide generous gifts to your attendants want to ferret out your secret plans.
When their emissaries speak fluently, are skilled in disputation, and want toresolve tensions between your two states, they are about to mount a surpriseattack when you are unprepared.
One whose emissaries speak brusquely and belligerently wants to deceive you.
When you encounter any of these seven forms of behavior in an enemyemissary, you should minutely investigate in order to seize and coerce them. Turn their plots against those who would plot against you. Feign arrogancetoward those who would make you arrogant. Deal brusquely with those whoinsult you. Display false plans to those who seek to ferret out your plans. Respond by suddenly attacking those who hope to attack when you areunprepared. Execute those with desires.
You cannot detain their emissaries for long because if they remain long, they will know your smallest affairs, in which case it would be better to kill them. For these reasons knowing the techniques of these seven villains is one of thefoundations of military art and must therefore be investigated.
In conjunction with the methods for detecting and converting enemy agents to one's own use already presented in the theoretical sections on agents andturned agents, from the preceding passages it is clear that the militarywriters, and therefore military commanders, were compelled to actively ponder the problem of spies and undertake vigilant countermeasures.
A passage from the biography of the famous Sung general Yüeh Fei depicts the exploitation of a captured spy exactly as specified in the theoretical writings. At the time Yüeh Fei was pursuing the rebel leader Ts'ao Ch'eng, who wasretreating before him in command of some one hundred thousand troops:
When Yüeh Fei advanced into Ho-chou they captured one of Ts'ao Ch'eng's spies and tied him up outside Yüeh Fei's tent. When
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Yüeh came out from his tent the quartermaster advised: "Our provisions are exhausted, what should we do?" Yüeh Fei boldly replied, "We will temporarily return to Ch'a-ling." After that he looked at the spy as if he were verydiscouraged and walked heavily back into his tent. Thereafter he secretly ordered that the spy be allowed to escape.
The spy returned to Ts'ao Ch'eng's camp and reported these events. Greatly elated, Ts'ao Ch'eng decided to initiate his pursuit the next day. However, Yüeh Fei meanwhile ordered his officers and troops to eat early the nextmorning while still in their tents, after which they secretly raced out aroundthe mountain and arrived before daybreak at T'ai-p'ing-ch'ang, where they destroyed Ts'ao's outlying camps. Ts'ao's forces then resisted by occupying the ravines, but Yüeh led his troop in a sudden, unexpected thrust thatseverely shattered the enemy. 58
After having suffered a defeat, Li Heng's rebel army and Chin forces, inanticipation of uniting, proceeded by separate routes to mount an invasion ofSung-controlled territory. By his own hand the Sung emperor ordered HanShih-chung, then serving as Pacification Commissioner for the area east of theYangtze River, to cautiously defend his position while making plans to advanceand seize the enemy. As the edict's language was bleak and earnest, when hereceived his instructions Shih-chung was moved to tears and exclaimed, "Howcan I live when the ruler's worries are so great?" Then he had the army crossthe river from their fortified encampment and also ordered Major General Chieh Yüan to defend Kao-yu and await Chin's infantry forces. Meanwhile, hepersonally led his cavalry forces to temporarily occupy Ta-yi in order toconfront the enemy's cavalry. Once there, they cut down the trees to erectpalisades and sever the return route.
It happened that Wang Liang-ch'en, a Sung emissary just being dispatched by the Sung emperor to the Chin, was present, so Han Shih-chung had hisrefectories withdrawn on the pretext that he had received an imperial order toshift camp and defend the estuary. Wang Liang-ch'en then raced off on hismission. When Shih- chung calculated that Wang Liang-ch'en had crossed over the border, he jumped on his horse and ordered the army to "follow wherehis whip pointed." Thereupon he led the army to reposition at Ta-yi, configuring them into five deployments. He also es
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tablished ambushes at more than twenty other places, ordering them to arise in a sudden attack when they heard the sound of the drums.
After Wang Liang-ch'en arrived at the Chin encampment the latter inquired about the actions of the Sung armies, to which he replied in detail about allthat he had seen. When Che-erh-pei- chin, the Chin commander in chief,heard that Han Shih-
chung had withdrawn, he was greatly elated and led his troops to the mouthof the river, about five kilometers from Ta-yi. Moreover, he dispatched a secondary force composed of valiant cavalry under the command of GeneralT'a-pei-yeh to bypass Han Shih- chung's five deployments on the east. Shih-chung then ordered the drums sounded and the troops in concealment raised their flags on all four sides of the enemy. Their flags were soon intermixedwith those of the Chin troops as the latter were thrown into confusion, allowing Han's soldiers to successively advance. With their backs to theheights, Han's soldiers wielded long-handled axes that struck the enemy's chests above and chopped at the horses' legs below. In full armor the enemy'scavalrymen fell heavily into the mud. Han Shih-chung then signaled hisstrong cavalry to trample them from all four sides so that men and horsesalike perished. Subsequently they captured T'a-pei-yeh and some two hundred others. 59
Prisoners
One of the major sources of information has always been prisoners capturedeither preliminary to battle, often as a result of conscious effort, or incidental to the course of conflict. Although there are numerous problems associatedwith such potential sources, including deliberate fabrication, self-delusion, and simply inaccurate information derived from a limited perspective, throughthe techniques advised in the theoretical writings, perhaps buttressed by a general awareness of the principles of evaluating men and motives found inHan Fei-tzu, the Six Secret Teachings, Jen-wu Chih, and similar texts, coupledwith duplication, cross-checking, and an occasional defector, vital informationcould be elicited. The following example of Tzung Tse, a prominent generalwho lived at the end of the Sung and start of the Southern Sung (A.D. 1060-1128), effectively employing moral persuasion to sway a prisoner intorevealing essential details is but one of many successful cases preserved inChina's voluminous historical writings:
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Wang Ts'e, originally a Liao chieftain, had been actively serving as a Chingeneral in the upper part of the Yellow River. When Tzung Tse's forces captured him, Tzung untied his bonds, had him seated in the upper part of the hall, and addressed him: "The Khitan and the Sung were originally brotherstates. Now you have truly insulted my ruler and moreover abandoned your allegiance to your own state. It would be proper to plan together to wipe away this shame." Wang Tse, moved to tears, was willing to die to achieve this end. Tzung then interrogated him about the enemy's vacuities and strengths andobtained complete, detailed information. Thereafter he decided on a plan for amajor mobilization that resulted in the Chin forces being defeated and compelled to withdraw from the area. 60
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Part Three COVERTACTIVITIES
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8 Systematic Programs and
Psychological Warfare
BY THE EARLIEST RECORDED LITERATURE it had become apparent thatmilitary measures constituted expensive solutions to problems of state andthat other alternatives might prove more efficacious. Particularly as military exercises designed, in part, to confirm each clan member's position and
role became less important than the mobilization of citizen populaces and the fielding of mass infantry armies, less disruptive solutions were much to bedesired. Although unrecorded, clandestine activities such as bribery, estrangement, and deception no doubt began simply and early. By the Springand Autumn period typical objectives for the frequently mounted covertoperations included sowing dissension, causing misperception, assassinating key personnel, ruining public confidence, and mounting other political measures to subvert enemy governments and undermine their ability to wagewar. As theorists began to ponder the nature and implication of such efforts, they naturally envisioned coordinated programs designed to weaken and eventopple their enemies, to achieve Sun-tzu's ideal objective of conquering theenemy complete.
Sun-tzu's famous chapter on spies only touched upon the employment of double agents to spread disinformation, but a Warring States work entitledthe Six Secret Teachings contains two explosive chapters on clandestineoperations that were much condemned thereafter for their inhumanity andperverse approach to warfare, one held to be inconsistent with antiquity's great Sages. The first, entitled "Civil Offensive," although presumably providing measures for undermining the power of the dominant Shang,elucidates many techniques of universal validity:
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There are twelve measures for civil offensives. First, accord with what he likes in order to accommodate his wishes. He will eventually grow arrogant andinvariably mount some perverse affair. If you can appear to follow along, you will certainly be able to eliminate him.
Second, become familiar with those he loves in order to fragment hisawesomeness. When men have two different inclinations, their loyaltyinvariably declines. When his court no longer has any loyal ministers, thestate altars will inevitably be endangered.
Third, covertly bribe his assistants, fostering a deep relationship with them. Although they will bodily stand in his
court, their emotions will be directed outside it. The state will certainly suffer harm.
Fourth, assist him in his licentiousness and indulgence in music in order todissipate his will. Make him generous gifts of pearls and jade, and ply himwith beautiful women. Speak deferentially, listen respectfully, follow hiscommands, and accord with him in everything. He will never imagine you might be in conflict with him. Our treacherous measures will then be settled.
Fifth, treat his loyal officials very generously, but reduce the gifts you provide to the ruler. Delay his emissaries, do not listen to their missions. When heeventually dispatches other men, treat them with sincerity; embrace andtrust them. The ruler will then again feel you are in harmony with him. If you manage to treat his formerly loyal officials very generously, his state can thenbe plotted against.
Sixth, make secret alliances with his favored ministers, but visibly keep his less favored outside officials at a distance. His talented people will then beunder external influence while enemy states encroach upon his territory. Fewstates in such a situation have survived.
Seventh, if you want to bind his heart to you, you must offer generous presents. To gather in his assistants, loyal associates, and loved ones, youmust secretly show them the gains they can realize by colluding with you. Have them slight their work, and then their preparations will be futile.
Eighth, gift him with great treasures and make plans with him. When the plans are successful and profit him, he will have faith in you because of theprofits. This is what is termed "being closely embraced." The result of beingclosely embraced is that he will inevitably be used by us. When someone rulesa state but is externally controlled, his territory will inevitably be defeated.
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Ninth, honor him with praise. Do nothing that will cause him personal discomfort. Display the proper respect accruing to a great power, and yourobedience will certainly be trusted.
Tenth, be submissive so that he will trust you and you will thereby learnabout his true situation. Accept his ideas and respond to his affairs as if you were twins. Once you have learned everything, subtly gather in his power.Thus when the ultimate day arrives, it will seem as if Heaven itself destroyedhim.
Eleventh, block up his access by means of the Tao. Among subordinates there is no one who does not value rank and wealth or hate danger andmisfortune. Secretly express great respect toward them, and gradually bestowvaluable gifts in order to gather in the more outstanding talents. Accumulateyour own resources until they become very substantial, but manifest anexternal appearance of shortage. Covertly bring in wise knights, and entrustthem with planning great strategy. Attract courageous knights and augmenttheir spirit. Even when they are sufficiently rich and honored, continue toincrease them. When your faction has been fully established, you will have attained the objective referred to as "blocking his access." If someone has a state but his access is blocked, how can he be considered as having the state?
Twelfth, support his dissolute officials in order to confuse him. Introduce beautiful women and licentious sounds in order to befuddle him. Send himoutstanding dogs and horses in order to tire him. From time to time allow himgreat power in order to entice him to greater arrogance. Then investigateHeaven's signs, and plot with the world against him.
When these twelve measures are fully employed, they will become a military weapon. Thus when, as it is said, one "looks at Heaven above and investigatesEarth below" and the proper signs are already visible, attack him.
An example of implementing something like the fifth measure appears in theChan-kuo Ts'e:
The king of Ch'in said to Kan Mao: "The emissaries that Ch'u has dispatched to us are mostly robust persuaders. When we
argue, I have frequently found myself confounded. What should I do?"
Kan Mao replied: "Your majesty need not be concerned. When effective emissaries come, you should ignore them, but when timid and weakemissaries come, you should listen to their ad
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vice. Then these timid, weak officials will be employed in Ch'u, while the strong will be neglected. Through this method you will control Ch'u." 1
The second Six Secret Teachings chapter, entitled "Three Doubts," expounds the preferred method for undermining enemy rulers, concretely focused interms of the hated Shang:
King Wu inquired of the T'ai Kung: "I want to attain our aim of overthrowing the Shang, but I have three doubts. I am afraid that our strength will beinadequate to attack the strong, estrange his close supporters within thecourt, and disperse his people. What should I do?"
The T'ai Kung replied: "Accord with the situation, be very cautious in making plans, and employ your material resources. Now in order to attack the strong, you must nurture them to make them even stronger, and increase them tomake them even more extensive. What is too strong will certainly break, whatis too extended must have deficiencies. Attack the strong through his strength. 2 Cause the estrangement of his favored officials by using his favorites, and disperse his people by means of the people.
Now in the Tao of planning, thoroughness and secrecy are treasured. Youshould become involved with him in numerous affairs and ply him withtemptations of profit. Conflict will then surely arise.
If you want to cause his close supporters to become estranged from him, youmust do it by using what they love, making gifts to those he favors, givingthem what they want. Tempt them with what they find profitable, therebymaking them ambitious. Those who covet profits will be extremely happy atthe prospects, and their remaining doubts will be ended.
Now without doubt the Tao for attacking is to first obfuscate the king's clarity and then attack his strength, destroying his greatness and eliminating themisfortune of the people. Debauch him with beautiful women, entice him withprofit. Nurture him with flavors, and provide him with the company of female musicians. Then after you have caused his subordinates to become estranged from him, you must cause the people to grow distant from him while neverletting him know your plans. Appear to support him, and draw him into yourtrap. Don't let him become aware of what is happening, for only then can your plan be successful.
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The fourth paragraph of "Civil Offensive" and the last paragraph just cited clearly advocate one of China's favored measures for weakening opponents,whether enemy states or barbarian kingdoms: Entice the ruler and his key advisers with the allure of beauty, and debauch them with scents, music, and sexual delights. Although remarkably obvious and simplistic, it repeatedly proved successful throughout Chinese history (and continues to be widelyemployed today), particularly among self-indulgent rulers whose arroganceinclined them to neglect the people's welfare and the state's administration,and is therefore accorded a separate chapter later in this section.
The importance of the two Six Secret Teachings' chapters to the enterprise of spycraft may be seen in the glowing evaluation of Wang Ming-lo, anexperienced high-level Ming dynasty commander who viewed them and Sun-tzu's chapter on "Employing Spies" as the very foundation of spycraft:
All the writings in the "Civil Offensive" chapter of the Martial T'ao within theSix Secret Teachings are concerned with concealed plots and secret plans forsubjugating enemy forces without engaging in combat. The military esteemsthe Tao of deception and relies on profits to attain a tactical imbalance ofpower. Thus the T'ai Kung, who with righteous and benevolent counsel assisted the Chou in realizing the strategic affair of emperorship, put forththe unorthodox and employed agents, actions that might be termed "notshunning anything." I really am amazed that the authors of such secretteachings and
Alas, without sagacity one cannot employ spies; without benevolence and righteousness, cannot use them; without subtlety, cannot distill theirsubstance. It is therefore truly hard to speak about spycraft. However, through the employment of spies certain historical rulers exceeded theordinary, and their fame has thus been inexhaustibly perpetuated. They truly followed the T'ai Kung's and Sun-tzu's bequeathed words.
In summary, when one's wisdom is all-encompassing and the moment for glory arrives, the subtle response cannot be entangled, intentions cannot befathomed, or measures taken from ghosts and spirits. Subtle, truly subtle! Itis truly difficult to speak
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about agents. Thus it is said, spiritualness and enlightenment lie with men! 3
The other military classics, while failing to emphasize covert actions to thisextent, generally advised undertaking a wide range of measures to underminethe enemy, including spreading rumors and manipulating officials. In fact, theThree Strategies, which evinces a world vision of Sagely rule, states: "Withoutstratagems you have no means to resolve suspicions and settle doubts. Without rumor and the unorthodox you have no means to destroy evildoersand stop invaders."4
King Kou-chien and the State of Yüeh
Po P'i's corruption (already recounted) just at the end of the Spring and Autumn period dramatically illustrates the fearful impact a single influentialadviser in the pay of a foreign state might achieve, especially whenmanipulating a headstrong, youthful ruler. 5 However, his employmentconstituted only one aspect, however critical, of an extensive program todebilitate
the state of Wu and destroy its ruler, King Fu-ch'ai. The outlines of this famous systematic effort, the process by which it was conceived, and the stepstaken to implement it are recounted in a Wu Yüeh Ch'un-ch'iu chapter entitled"Kou-chien's Secret Strategy." Although the Wu Yüeh Ch'un-ch'iu is a semihistorical work at best, these nine techniques were assiduously studied (and much decried) for nearly two thousand years and therefore merit careful scrutiny. 6 The death struggle between Wu and Yüeh stimulated Wen Chung to formulate a diabolical program:
In the second month of his tenth year Kou-chien, king of Yüeh, pondered deeply and thought extensively about the insults he had suffered as a resultof Wu's invasion, and how he had yet received Heaven's blessings and beenrestored to Yüeh. His numerous ministers and preceptors had each proposedplans, their words were harmonious and their intentions united. Kou-chien respectfully followed their advice and the state was already rich.
On the other hand he had not heard any of his friends speak about death-defying action and thought that perhaps his high officials loved their personsand were unwilling to sacrifice their lives. Kou-chien ascended Chien Towerand looked out to see whether his ministers seemed troubled or not. The primeminister Fan Li and the high officials such as Wen Chung and Kou Ju
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were all sternly seated in rows. Even though they harbored worries andtroubles, none appeared on their countenances. Kou- chien then struck thebell to summon a war council and made a covenant with his ministers: "I havebeen insulted and shamed. Above I have been embarrassed before the king ofChou, below ashamed before the rulers of Chin and Ch'u. Fortunately, through your plans, I managed to return to our state. I have implementedgovernmental measures, enriched the people, and nurtured officers, but forfive years have not heard from any official willing to risk death or any ministerwho wants to wipe away our enmity. What do I have to do to achieve this?"
All the assembled officials remained silent, none dared reply. Kou-chien lookedtoward Heaven and sighed: "I have heard that when a ruler is troubled hisministers are disgraced, and when a ruler is disgraced his ministers die. I havepersonally experienced the misery of being a prisoner, suffered the shame ofbeing incarcerated and broken. I am unable to support myself alone, but musthave worthy advisers and entrust power to the benevolent, for only thereaftercan we calculate the possibilities for attacking Wu. How is it that ministersand high officials bearing heavy responsibilities are so easily seen but so difficult to employ?"
Chi Yen, a lowly young official seated well in the back, raised his hand, jumped off his mat, and advanced: "Your majesty's words are erroneous. It isnot that high officials are easy to see but difficult to employ, but that yourmajesty is incapable of employing them."
When Kou-chien asked what he meant, Chi Yen replied: "Now official position, riches, money, gold, and rewards are what your majesty disdains.Taking up sharp weapons, treading on naked blades, risking one's life, andflaunting death are what officials value greatly. Now your majesty wouldexchange the wealth that he disdains for undertaking responsibilities thatthe officials find heavy. Isn't this perilous?"
Thereupon the king fell silent. With a displeased look and embarrassed countenance he dismissed his assembled officials and had Chi Yen advance inorder to ask him, "What are the methods for gaining the hearts of myofficials?"
Chi Yen replied: "When the ruler respects benevolence and righteousness, this is the door to control. Officials and the people are the roots of rulership. For opening the door and solidifying the roots nothing surpasses rectifying yourself. The Tao for rectifying yourself is to be cautious about those aboutyou. Associates are the means by which a ruler flourishes or declines. I would like
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your majesty to wisely select his associates so as to obtain only the worthy. Inantiquity the T'ai Kung remonstrated nine times,
then fled, eventually suffering from hunger along the Pang-hsi River. TheWestern Duke [ King Wen] employed him and thereby became king of therealm. Kuan Chung was a prisoner from a lost state and had a reputation foravarice. Duke Huan of Ch'i obtained him and became hegemon. Thus the Tso Chuan says that /one who loses officials will perish, and one who gainsofficials will flourish.' I would like your majesty to carefully examine your associates. Why should you be concerned about your ministers not beingemployed?"
The king complained: "I employ the worthy and give responsibility to the capable, assigning them each different affairs. I empty my mind of highexpectations, hoping to hear about strategies for gaining revenge. At presentthey all conceal their sounds and hide their forms so that I have not heard anysuch discussions. Where does my fault lie?"
Chi Yen replied: "Selecting the worthy and successfully employing officials have their individual stages. Dispatch them far off with difficult affairs inorder to verify their sincerity, internally advise them of hidden affairs in orderto know their trustworthiness. Discuss affairs with them in order to observetheir wisdom, get them drunk in order to detect their disorder. Appoint themas emissaries in order to investigate their abilities, display differentcountenances in order to discern their attitude. 7 Establish them according totheir various virtues. Officers will then fully employ their abilities and men exhaust their wisdom. When you know that their wisdom is fully actualized,what worries will my ruler have about his ministers?"
Kou-chien said, "My strategists have exerted a substantial effort, and my men have exhausted their wisdom, but not all the officers have advancedbeneficial proposals."
Chi Yen said: " Fan Li is enlightened and understands internal affairs, while Wen Chung is far-sighted and perceives externals. I suggest you invite WenChung for a serious discussion because the techniques for attaining kingshipand hegemony lie with him."
The king of Yüeh, having invited Wen Chung to an audience, queried him: "Previously, through your advice I escaped from
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Wen Chung said: "I have heard that high-flying birds perish from beautiful food, while the fish found in deep pools yet die from fragrant bait. Now if you want to attack the state of Wu, you must first seek out what they love andparticipate in what they like, for only then will you be able you achieve it."
Kou-chien said, "How can we determine what people want, even their desires, and control them so that they will perish as a result?"
Wen Chung said: "If you want to repay insults, avenge enmity, destroy the state of Wu, and exterminate your enemies, there are nine techniques. Yourmajesty should investigate them."
The king of Yüeh replied: "I have been insulted and burdened with worry.Within the court I have been embarrassed before my ministers, outside thestate I have been shamed before the feudal lords. My mind is confused anddeluded, my spirit empty and vacant. Even though there might be nine suchtechniques, how could I know about them?"
Wen Chung said: "As for these nine techniques, T'ang of the Shang and Wenof the Chou employed them to become kings, Duke Huan and Duke Mu tobecome hegemons. With them, attacking cities and seizing towns are as easy as removing one's sandals. I would like you to scrutinize them.
"First, revere Heaven and serve ghosts in order to seek their blessings.
"Second, make generous presents and monetary gifts to the ruler and numerous presents and bribes to please his ministers.
"Third, make the five grains expensive in order to empty their state, take advantage of what the ruler desires in order to weary his people.
"Fourth, present the ruler with beautiful women in order to befuddle his mind and confuse his plans.
"Fifth, send the ruler skilled artisans and excellent materials to stimulate him to undertake palaces and mansions and thereby exhaust their wealth.
"Sixth, dispatch sycophantic ministers, causing the ruler to become easilyattacked.
"Seventh, stiffen those ministers who dare to remonstrate, forcing themto commit suicide.
"Eighth, enrich your country and prepare the implements of war.
"Ninth, discipline your soldiers in order to exploit the ruler's perversity.
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"Now your majesty should close his mouth and not transmit these nine toanyone. If you preserve them in spirituality, seizing All under Heavenwould not prove difficult, so how much less so the state of Wu!"
"Excellent," said the king and then proceeded to implement the firsttechnique. He established the eastern suburb in order to sacrifice to yang, calling it the August Duke of the East. He established the western suburb inorder to sacrifice to yin, calling it the Queen Mother of the West. He sacrificedto the hills and mountains at K'uai-chi and the rivers and marshes at Chiang-chou. After he had served the ghosts and spirits for a year, the state no longersuffered from disasters. The king of Yüeh exclaimed, "How wondrous yourtechniques. I would like you to discuss the next one."
Wen Chung said: "The king of Wu loves to erect palaces and mansions and employs his workers without respite. Your majesty should select somesacred materials from our famous mountains and present them to the king."
Kou-chien then had more than three thousand woodworkers venture into the mountains to fell trees. After more than a year the unfortunate officers of thisarmy thought about returning
While the decorations and colors where still new and scintillating, the kinghad Wen Chung present them all to Fu-ch'ai, king of Wu, saying: "Yourservant Kou-chien, dwelling near the East Sea where these materialsoriginate, entrusted me to humbly present them to your majesty. Throughyour lictors I dared to query your attendants. Based upon your majesty's strength, I dare say they will make somewhat more than a small palace.Therefore, respectfully bowing twice, I present them."
Fu-ch'ai was elated, but Wu Tzu-hsü objected: "Your majesty, do not acceptthem! In antiquity Chieh erected the Spirit Tower and Chou undertook theDeer Tower. Yin and yang were no longer in harmony, cold and warmthbecame unseasonal, and the five
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grains did not ripen. Heaven sent forth calamity, the people were vacuous,and the state changed, these two kings thereby invoking their ownextinction. If your august majesty accepts them, you will certainly beexterminated by the king of Yüeh."
Instead of listening, Fu-ch'ai accepted the materials and erected a tower atKu-su. It took three years to assemble the materials and five to complete it. From its heights one could see some seventy miles. Men died on the roads, the sound of wailing and crying was unbroken in the lanes and alleys. Thepeople were exhausted and the officials embittered, men had nothing by which to live.
The king of Yüeh said, "This second technique is excellent!"
In his eleventh year the king thought deeply and pondered extensively,wishing only to attack Wu, so he sent for Chi Yen and queried him: "I want toattack Wu but fear we may not be able to destroy it. I would have mobilizedthe army earlier but wanted to question you about it."
Chi Yen replied: "To mobilize the army and raise troops you must firstcultivate the five grains, accumulate silver and gold, fill the storehouses andwarehouses, and hone your mailed troops. Now these four require that you first investigate the ch'i of Heaven and Earth, make your sources yin andyang, and become enlightened about solitariness and vacuity. When you have attained a penetrating understanding of survival and extinction, you will be able to analyze the enemy."
Kou-chien said, "Where is the essence of Heaven and Earth, survival and extinction?"
Chi Yen replied: "Through the ch'i of Heaven and Earth things live and die, through their sources in yin and yang they are noble or base. One who isenlightened about the solitary and vacuous knows when they will intersect.One who has fathomed survival and extinction can discriminate the true andfalse."
Kou-chien said, "What do you mean by death and life, the true and false?"
Chi Yen replied: "In the spring one plants the eight grains, in summer nourishes their growth, in autumn harvests their maturity, in winter storesthem away. Now when it is the Heavenly season for birth and one doesn't exertoneself in planting, this is one death. In summer, when things grow, if there are no sprouts, this is a second death. In autumn, when things mature, if there is no accumulation, this is the third death. In winter, when one storesaway, if there has been no harvest, this is a fourth death. Even if onepossessed the Virtue of Yao or Shun, what could he do?
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"Now the seasons of Heaven include birth and striving, aging and completion. When one infrequently contravenes them and their ch'i is responsive, whenthe numbers never lack or are
Kou-chien said, "How is it that, despite your youth, you are so knowledgeable about things?"
Chi Yen replied, "Whether an official is talented or not is unaffected by age or youth."
The king of Yüeh said, "Your logic is excellent!" Then, looking up, he observed the constellations of Heaven and investigated the astrological configurations, structuring the images of the four seasons to accord with them. Based uponvacuity above he established eight granaries. Following yin he stored, observing yang he sold grain. After fully implementing this plan for three years the harvest had improved fivefold. Yüeh was glorious and rich. Kou- chiensighed, "This is the basis for hegemony" and thus proclaimed the excellence of Chi Yen's plan.
In his twelfth year Kou-chien addressed Wen Chung: "I have heard that the king of Wu is licentious, loves beauty to the point of confusion, and drinksso heavily that he neglects the management of state affairs. Can we lay some plot to exploit this?"
Wen Chung said: "We can destroy him. Now the king of Wu is licentious and loves beauty, while his chancellor Po P'i flatters him in order to gain controlover his heart. If we present beautiful women through Po P'i's intercession,the king will
certainly accept them. Your majesty need only select two beautiful women and forward them."
Kou-chien, approving, had his prime minister obtain two women named Hsi Shih and Cheng Tan from Chu-luo-shan and Yü-hsin. He had them adornedwith the finest silks, taught man
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ners and bearing, and educated at T'u-ch'eng. After they had been in the capital for three years and their education was complete, he had Fan Li, theprime minister, present them to the king of Wu, saying: "The king of Yüeh, Kou-chien, dares to present these two women. Yüeh is a miserable state andin its present difficulties does not presume to retain them. Therefore the king has ordered your servant Fan Li to present them to your august majesty. I hope he will overlook their rusticity and unattractiveness but accept them forsome menial task." The king of Wu, elated, responded, "The fact that Kou-chien has presented these two women is proof of his loyalty to Wu."
Wu Tzu-hsü remonstrated with him: "Your majesty cannot accept them. I have heard that the five colors cause men's eyes to go blind; the five notes, their ears to go deaf. In antiquity Chieh regarded T'ang lightly and wasexterminated; Chou thought little of King Wen and perished. If you acceptthem, your majesty will certainly suffer from calamity.
"I have heard that the king of Yüeh never rolls up the court records but poresover them until the middle of the night. Moreover, he has gathered several tensof thousands of warriors willing to fight to the death. If this man doesn't diefirst, he will certainly achieve what he desires. The king of Yüeh bears himselfwith sincerity and practices benevolence. He listens to remonstrance andadvances the worthy. If this man doesn't die, he will certainly become famous. The king of Yüeh wears a fur robe in the summer and endures linen in thewinter. If this man doesn't die, he will certainly avenge his enmity. I haveheard that worthy officials are a state's treasure, beautiful women a state'smisfortune. The Hsia perished through Mei Hsi, the Shang through Ta Chi, and the Chou through Pao Ssu." Unwilling to listen, the king of Wu accepted
the women. This prompted Kou-chien to exclaim, "How excellent this third technique!"
In his thirteenth year Kou-chien addressed Wen Chung: "All the techniques I have learned from you, the plans you have made, have proven to beappropriate and auspicious. If I want you to again plot against Wu, whatwould you advise?"
Wen Chung replied: "Your majesty has himself said that Yüeh is minuscule and rustic, our annual harvests not plentiful. I would have your majesty askthem to sell us some grain in order to attain your ambition. If Heaven is aboutto abandon Wu, their king will certainly assent." The king of Yüeh then dispatched Wen Chung as an emissary to Wu, where he sought an audience with the king through the intercession of Po P'i. He then formally
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proclaimed: "The state of Yüeh humbles itself before you. The elements of water and heat are out of balance, so the annual harvest has been sparse. Thepeople suffer from hunger and want, the roads are constantly filled with thefamished and starving. I would like to request your august majesty to provideus with provisions to be repaid to your great granaries in the coming year. Our only wish is that your august majesty will rescue us from our dire impoverishment.
Fu-ch'ai said: "The king of Yüeh is trustworthy, sincerely preserves the Tao,and is free of disloyal intentions. In their impoverishment he has turned andinformed us of his distress. How can I begrudge the expense or beparsimonious with our treasures, snatching away his hopes?"
Wu Tzu-hsü remonstrated: "You cannot! If Wu doesn't have Yüeh, Yüeh will certainly gain control of Wu! When good fortune departs, evil will come. You will nurture invaders who will destroy our state. Granting their request willnot bring them closer; not granting it will not cause disaster. Moreover,Yüeh's sagacious minister Fan Li is courageous and excels at plotting. He has certainly disguised their aggressive intentions in order to spy on us andsecretly observe us. Kou-chien has dispatched emissaries to requestprovisions not because their
state is poor and the people suffering, but to enter our state and spy onour internal affairs."
Fu-ch'ai said: "I insulted Kou-chien and forced him to submit. I possess his masses. I embraced his altars of state in order to shame him and Kou-chien'sspirit submitted. Moreover, he served as a carriage driver and stable hand, something all the feudal lords already know. Now that I have restored him to his state, resurrected his ancestral temple, and revived the altars of state, how would he dare think of turning against me?"
Wu Tzu-hsü said: "I have heard that when a poverty-stricken officer does notfind it difficult to repress his inclinations and humble himself before others, hewill later have an intimidating appearance. We have now learned that Kou-chien suffers from famine and his people are enduring hardship anddestitution. Therefore you can exploit this situation to destroy them. If you do not today employ the Tao of Heaven and accord with the patterns of Earth, butinstead ship them provisions, you will solidify your fate. This is like a foxplaying among chickens! When the fox humbles himself and the chickenstrust him, the fox will gain his ambition and the chickens will certainly die.How can you not be cautious?"
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Fu-ch'ai said: "If I provide grain to Kou-chien's state when it suffers from difficulty, this is beneficence flowing out and righteousness accruing. Thevirtuousness of this course is manifest, so what is there to worry about?"
Wu Tzu-hsü said: "I have heard that a wolf cub still has a wild heart and thatgreat enemies cannot be brought close. Tigers cannot be trusted with ediblesor snakes left to fulfill their desires. Today your majesty is about to reduceyour state's wealth in order to nourish unsurpassed enmity, to abandon thewords of loyal ministers and accord with the wishes of the enemy. I will certainly witness Yüeh destroy Wu, swine and deer amble about the tower atKu-su, and brambles and thorns fill the palace. I hope your majesty will take a lesson from the affair of King Wu attacking King Chou."
Wu Tzu-hsü replied, " KingWu thereby established his fame!"
Chancellor Po P'i then remarked, "I cannot abide a subject exterminatinghis ruler."
Wu Tzu-hsü said: "One who steals a state is enfeoffed as a feudal lord, onewho steals gold is executed. If you would now deprive King Wu of his principles, how would his actions have illuminated virtue in others?"
Chancellor Po P'i retorted: " Tzu-hsü is a subject who only wants to opposewhat your majesty wants, to frustrate your majesty's intentions in order todistinguish himself. How is it that your majesty has not recognized hisexcessiveness?"
Wu Tzu-hsü replied: " ChancellorP'i gratifies your desires in order toingratiate himself. He previously worked to release Kou- chien from his imprisonment and persuaded you to accept the presentation of two women.He has externally colluded with enemy states and internally deluded hisruler. Your majesty should investigate it, not let yourself be insulted bycoteries of menials. You should be like someone bathing an infant--eventhough they cry, no one listens. Such are the chancellor's words."
The king of Wu said: " ChancellorP'i is someone who never fails to listen to my words. This isn't the way of a loyal, faithful minister but similar to that of sycophants and flatterers."
Chancellor P'i replied: "I have heard that when a neighboring state suffers from distress, one races aid to them from a thousand
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miles away, for this is the way of a true king. To enfeoff the descendants of alost state is to continue the achievements of the five hegemons in supportingthe remnants of extinction."
Wen Chung said: "I undertake responsibility for bringing it to Yüeh. We will certainly repay Wu's provisions from the next abundant harvest." When hereturned to Yüeh, all the ministers wished him long life and congratulatedhim. Yüeh then apportioned the grain as a reward to its ministers and thepeople. The next year Kou-chien had the best grains selected to repay Wu, butsecretly had them heated before dispatching them to Wu. They repaid every bushel and moreover had Wen Chung accompany it back to Fu-ch'ai. WhenFu-ch'ai saw the size of the grain, he sighed and remarked to Chancellor P'i:"Yüeh is a fertile land, its grains are excellent. We should retain these for planting." Wu subsequently planted the grain from Yüeh, but as the seeds hadbeen killed, it didn't germinate. Wu therefore suffered from a serious famine.
Despite his loyal service over the critical years of struggle with Wu, Wen Chung ironically suffered the fate of all those who served headstrong rulers, beingexecuted when he refused to plan further military actions and otherwiseoffended Kou-chien. (His end had been foretold by Fan Li, who realized thatone could share hardship with Kou-chien, but not success.) Thevituperativeness of Kou-chien's final dismissal, while probably fictional, is striking: "We have already employed three of the nine measures contained inyour secret plans and strategies for overturning and seizing enemy states todestroy powerful Wu. What I want is for you to employ the remaining six onbehalf of my predecessor in the nether world to plot against Wu's former ruler."
Even though this dramatic narrative ventures into the mythical and improbable, it clearly depicts the fundamental intention of sowing dissensionand gaining control of Fu-ch'ai essentially through measures such asadvocated in the Six Secret Teachings. Moreover, it portrays Yüeh's ruthlessapproach to debilitating and impoverishing the state of Wu itself, not just theruler and his court, through what might be termed "indirect biological warfare." Unlike earlier in the Spring and
Autumn period when states felt compelled to aid their neighbors during timesof famine despite considerable tension and enmity between them, 8 WenChung conceived and enacted a two-step program
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to empty Wu's grain reserves and then destroy their next crop, a plotvociferously condemned as heinous and dastardly for two thousand yearsthereafter, even though it is only hinted at in the more reliable histories.(Others dismiss it simply as the stratagem of a semicivilized peripheral state, as might be expected from men not yet fully versed in righteousness.)Irrespective of the moral dimensions, this program, or at least some of its steps, perhaps paved the way for Yüeh to aggressively exploit King Fu-ch'ai'sgrandiose schemes and misperceptions and swiftly obliterate the state of Wu itself. This unimaginable reversal of fortunes thus became the basis of historyand legend, narrative and romance, creating an indelible impression uponsubsequent generations that subversive programs systematically implementedcould achieve remarkable results.
Later Contemplations
Wen Chung's program and other materials from the early period prompted the following meditation from Li Ch'uan in the T'ang dynasty in a chapter entitled"Techniques for Secret Plots."
Among the ancients, those who excelled in employing the military invariablyemphasized authority over the realm and investigated the thoughts of thefeudal lords. One who is not fastidious about the weightiness of tactical powerwill not know the relative imbalance of the light and heavy, the strong andweak. One who is not particular about probing emotions will not know hiddenevils or the transformations of movement and rest. For heaviness nothing ismore important than being thoroughly knowledgeable; for probing nothing ismore difficult than raising everything. In affairs nothing is more difficult than invariably being successful. A true Sage can undertake these three.
Therefore, military techniques that achieve a hundred victories in a hundred battles are not the height of excellence. Rather, subjugating the enemy's forceswithout engaging in combat is the pinnacle of excellence. The pinnacleemploys plots and plans; the next highest, human affairs; and the lowestundertakes warfare by attacking. Those who employ plots and plans mystify and confuse the enemy's ruler, secretly influence his slanderous ministers toaffect his affairs, muddle him with sorcerers and soothsayers, and cause himto respect ghosts and serve spirits. They cause him to indulge in colors andembroidery while cheapening the value he places on grains and foodstuffs, thereby emptying out his gra
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naries and warehouses. They send him beautiful women to unsettle his mind and dispatch skilled carpenters to inveigle him into constructing palaces,rooms, and high towers in order to exhaust the state's wealth and dissipatetheir strength in labor, thus changing the ruler's nature and inducing licentious practices.
When he has become extravagant, brutal, arrogant, and dissipated, his worthy ministers will bite their tongues, unwilling to provide correctives or support. When he grants overflowing rewards and perverts the punishments,determining them solely by his own happiness or anger, the orders of government will not be implemented. When he believes in divination and looksfor ghosts; contravenes the loyal but advances sycophants; publicly holdsprivate audiences but lacks wise men in government; provides positions tothose he loves and rank to those without merit; rewards people without achievement but pardons crimes because he is happy and perverts the laws toexecute people when he is angry, then although there are laws, the ruler ismerely indulging his inclinations and orders are not implemented. When he believes in divination by turtle shell and milfoil casting; when sorcerers andsoothsayers, sycophants and slanderers, the strange and skillful, are favoredand prevalent within his gates; and whatever he considers correct is actually incorrect, what he terms "incorrect" all correct, a chasm separates the rulerand his ministers.
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Even the Confucians say, "One whose forces are large and strong will certainly be victorious; one whose forces are few and weak will certainly perish." Forthis reason while the ruler of a small state has no hope of becoming hegemon, there is little indication that the king of one capable of fielding ten thousandchariots will be destroyed. However, in antiquity the Hsia was broad, theShang but narrow, yet the Shang prevailed; later the Shang was great and theChou small, yet the Chou overthrew them; and finally Yüeh was weak and Wu strong, but Yüeh exterminated them. Thus the strategy for wresting victorywithout fighting is actually the technique of secretly overturning them, the Tao of night implementation. The Sage is enlightened about the teachings of the martial and civil. He alone sees them clearly, he alone take pleasure inthem. 9
Li Ch'uan thus argued enthusiastically for the importance and necessity of covert actions, justifying them in part as having been historically employedeven by the great sages, despite the
Causing consternation in the enemy, the basic thrust of covert programs, is again evident in a chapter entitled "Putting the Enemy in Difficulty" from theSung dynasty Hu-ling Ching that shows theoretical continuity with earlierwritings and the timeless applicability of the approach:
When the enemy has planning officers, employ spies to estrange them. Whenthe enemy has accumulated stores, employ covert agents [hsi jen] to burnthem. Whatever the enemy has planted, cut it down when it ripens. If theenemy has people, forcefully make them prisoners. Secretly bribe the king's favorites to have them send him beautiful women to delude his thoughts, andpresent excellent dogs and superlative horses in order to incite his mind. Usenumerous methods to give him pleasure, and wait until they are sufferingconsternation without and delusion within, for then he will be remiss in state affairs. Thereafter you can mobilize the army to attack and be successfulwithout laboring. One who excels at employing the military always plots howto put the enemy in difficulty. When the enemy is in difficulty, you will be atease. When forces at ease strike those in difficulty, what enemy will not be conquered?
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Late in the Ming dynasty Chieh Hsüan also contemplated the nature of subversive programs designed to undermine and psychologically impact theenemy, providing two key analyses in his Ping-fa Pai- yen. The first definesthe character mu, which, while translated here as "focus," originally depictedan eye and thus had the primary meaning of "eye" or "eyes." However, in his conception the term obviously entails an extended meaning that on the onehand designates the linchpin of action or center of perception and strategy,on the other perhaps functionally approaches the modern concept of "center of gravity." 10
Definition: To cover and obfuscate the enemy's enlightenment is termed"focus."
Original Text: What the enemy invariably relies upon for their movement is termed their "focus." You must first observe the location of the enemy's focusand then seize what they rely upon. If the enemy takes their strategists astheir focus, concentrate upon expelling them. If they take their enlightenedgenerals as their focus, concentrate upon eliminating them. If they take their intimate, trusted ministers as their focus, you can estrange them. If they takefame and righteousness as their focus, you can destroy them. Extract theirroots; strike their strategic points; defeat their secret plans; alienate theirreliable allies; strip away their basis; destroy their customary profits. Whenmen have a focus, they are enlightened; in conflict, when they have eyes, they live. Isn't cutting off their lives and destroying their enlightenment the essenceof controlling the enemy?
Explanation: Eliminating the enemy's focus is not so easily planned. Until atree is rotten insects will not live in it. Until the strands snap a rope will notbreak. If an enemy ruler is free of doubts while his generals are wise, how willrumors succeed in defaming them, how will slanderous agents be able toharm them?
If there is no alternative, eliminating their wise generals has to be the firsttechnique. The wise rely upon the courageous to deploy the army for battle. Ifthere are no warriors capable of penetrating formations and forming anassault front, the wise will find it difficult to implement their plans bythemselves. If you can estrange them through covert agents, employ clandestine calculations to beguile them, and multiply the plots and battle plans designed to slay them, you will blunt the sharp edge of their army'sfront. When the vanes are removed from an arrow, even though
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the shaft and tip remain it is difficult for the arrow to penetrate deeply.Similarly, even the wisest have little recourse in such circumstances. Thus itmay be said that eliminating a state is not as good as eliminating the army'sfocus.
Definition: Misleading and confusing the enemy's hearing is termed "noise"[obfuscation]. 11
Explanation: A state beset by treacherous individuals is lost, but when they plague the enemy it is advantageous. In our state Po P'i and Ch'in Hui arebrigands, but in the enemy's they are treasures. Rely upon them to confusethe ruler's intelligence, stir up the will of the masses, destroy human relations,and throw the rules and regulations into chaos. When they do not attain theirambitions they grumble uselessly, but if we assist them in gaining theirambitions they will push out everyone who differs with them. Their discoursesand discussions are sufficient to confuse and befuddle the worthy and wise, toshake and startle the ordinary and stupid. They can cause the entire populaceof a state to be overturned and confused, bereft of any means to serve theruler. Eventually even the most upright Sages, Worthies, and scholars, as well as the greatest stalwarts and wisest strategists, will abandon their positionsand never speak again. Is not such a situation to our state's advantage?
Thus it is better for the enemy to delude themselves rather than for us todelude them. You should especially value the ruler's trusted confidants fornurturing such self-delusion. "Noise" thus has the meaning of deluding someone with the shimmering and sparkling. Reflexively, rulers and ministersshould focus upon achieving administrative excellence in order to strengthenthe state and preserve uprightness in order to eliminate the disorderly. 12
Examples: Female musicians and stylish horses were employed by Ch'i toobfuscate K'ang-tzu. Po P'i, Hsi Shih, and Cheng Tan were employed by Yüehto obfuscate Fu-ch'ai. How can all the cases in which noise caused harm everbe counted? Still, those who come from the enemy are easy to detect, thoseborn within a state hard to prevent.
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The thrust of such covert action is to occlude the enemy with a dazzling array of misinformation, distraction, and vices. Therefore the analogy is drawn withnoise--the buzzing of insects--that overwhelms the senses and precludescritical focusing, no doubt reflecting many concepts and measures originally formulated in the much excoriated chapter entitled "Civil Offensive" in the SixSecret Teachings.
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