The Art of War

Chin Shu
, ch.
120, 121.]
11. Having 
converted spies
, getting hold of the enemy's spies and
using them for our own purposes.
[By means of heavy bribes and liberal promises detaching them from the
enemy's service, and inducing them to carry back false information as well as to
spy in turn on their own countrymen. On the other hand, Hsiao Shih-hsien says
that we pretend not to have detected him, but contrive to let him carry away a
false impression of what is going on. Several of the commentators accept this as
an alternative definition; but that it is not what Sun Tzu meant is conclusively
proved by his subsequent remarks about treating the converted spy generously (§
21 sqq.). Ho Shih notes three occasions on which converted spies were used with
conspicuous success: (1) by T’ien Tan in his defense of Chi-mo (see 
supra
, p.
90); (2) by Chao She on his march to O-yu (see p. 57); and by the wily Fan Chu
in 260 B.C., when Lien P’o was conducting a defensive campaign against Ch’in.
The King of Chao strongly disapproved of Lien P’o's cautious and dilatory
methods, which had been unable to avert a series of minor disasters, and
therefore lent a ready ear to the reports of his spies, who had secretly gone over
to the enemy and were already in Fan Chu's pay. They said: "The only thing
which causes Ch’in anxiety is lest Chao Kua should be made general. Lien P’o
they consider an easy opponent, who is sure to be vanquished in the long run."
Now this Chao Kua was a son of the famous Chao She. From his boyhood, he
had been wholly engrossed in the study of war and military matters, until at last
he came to believe that there was no commander in the whole Empire who could
stand against him. His father was much disquieted by this overweening conceit,
and the flippancy with which he spoke of such a serious thing as war, and
solemnly declared that if ever Kua was appointed general, he would bring ruin
on the armies of Chao. This was the man who, in spite of earnest protests from
his own mother and the veteran statesman Lin Hsiang-ju, was now sent to
succeed Lien P’o. Needless to say, he proved no match for the redoubtable Po
Ch’i and the great military power of Ch’in. He fell into a trap by which his army

---

was divided into two and his communications cut; and after a desperate
resistance lasting 46 days, during which the famished soldiers devoured one
another, he was himself killed by an arrow, and his whole force, amounting, it is
said, to 400,000 men, ruthlessly put to the sword.]
12. Having 
doomed spies
, doing certain things openly for purposes
of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and report them
to the enemy.
[Tu Yu gives the best exposition of the meaning: "We ostentatiously do things
calculated to deceive our own spies, who must be led to believe that they have
been unwittingly disclosed. Then, when these spies are captured in the enemy's
lines, they will make an entirely false report, and the enemy will take measures
accordingly, only to find that we do something quite different. The spies will
thereupon be put to death." As an example of doomed spies, Ho Shih mentions
the prisoners released by Pan Ch’ao in his campaign against Yarkand. (See p.
132.) He also refers to T’ang Chien, who in 630 A.D. was sent by T’ai Tsung to
lull the Turkish Kahn Chieh-li into fancied security, until Li Ching was able to
deliver a crushing blow against him. Chang Yu says that the Turks revenged
themselves by killing T’ang Chien, but this is a mistake, for we read in both the
old and the New T’ang History (ch. 58, fol. 2 and ch. 89, fol. 8 respectively) that
he escaped and lived on until 656. Li I-chi played a somewhat similar part in 203
B.C., when sent by the King of Han to open peaceful negotiations with Ch’i. He
has certainly more claim to be described a "doomed spy", for the king of Ch’i,
being subsequently attacked without warning by Han Hsin, and infuriated by
what he considered the treachery of Li I-chi, ordered the unfortunate envoy to be
boiled alive.]
13.