- 故用間有五有鄉間有內間有反間有死間有生間
- 五間俱起莫知其道是謂神紀人君之寳也
- 鄉間者因其鄉人而用之
7. Hence the use of spies, of whom there are five classes: (1) Local spies; (2) inward spies; (3) converted spies; (4) doomed spies; (5) surviving spies.
8. When these five kinds of spy are all at work, none can discover the secret system. This is called “divine manipulation of the threads.” It is the sovereign’s most precious faculty.
道 is explained by Tu Mu as 其情泄形露之道 "the way in which facts leak out and dispositions are revealed.”
This is called
爲 is the reading of the standard text, but the T'ung Tien, Yü Lan and T'u Shu all have 謂.
“divine manipulation of the threads.”
Capt. Calthrop translates 神紀 “the Mysterious Thread,” but Mei Yao-ch‘ên’s paraphrase 神妙之綱紀 shows that what is meant is the control of a number of threads.
It is the sovereign’s most precious faculty.
“Cromwell, one of the greatest and most practical of all cavalry leaders, had officers styled ‘scout masters,’ whose business it was to collect all possible information regarding the enemy, through scouts and spies, etc., and much of his success in war was traceable to the previous knowledge of the enemy’s moves thus gained.”[1]
9. Having local spies
鄕間 is the emended reading of Chia Lin and the T'u Shu for the unintelligible 因間, here and in § 7, of the standard text, which nevertheless reads 鄕間 in § 22.
means employing the services of the inhabitants of a district.
Tu My says: "In the enemy’s country, win people over by kind treatment, and use them as spies.”
- ↑ "Aids to Scouting," p. 2
