Sun Tzu's Art of War for Women. Catherine Huang
possible developments of fire so they can defend against them during the appropriate seasons and days. The ability to use fire as an aid to the attack is enlightened, and using water as an aid to the attack adds strength. Water can be used to isolate the enemy, but not to capture their supplies.
Winning battles and attacking successfully without exploiting gains is wasteful and stagnating. Thus it is said that the enlightened general lays his plans well ahead, and the good general cultivates his success.
Move only if you perceive an advantage; do not use your troops unless there is something to be gained; do not fight unless the position is critical. A ruler should not send forth his troops merely out of personal anger; and a general should not engage in battle out of frustration. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are.
Anger can give way to joy, annoyance to contentment. But a kingdom once destroyed cannot be restored; nor can the dead be brought back to life.
Hence the enlightened ruler is cautious, and the good general respectful. This is the way to keep the state at peace and the army intact.
13: Using Spies
Sun Tzu wrote:
Raising an army of a hundred thousand men and sending them a thousand li will wreak a heavy toll upon the people and drain the resources of the State. The daily expense will run a thousand pieces of gold. Seven hundred thousand families will be interrupted from their farm work on both sides of the border, and men will fall exhausted along the road.
Hostile armies will confront one another for years, striving for a victory to be decided in a single day. If a general begrudges the expense of a hundred pieces of gold and thus remains in ignorance of the enemy’s condition, he is devoid of humanity. Such a man is not a general for the people, no help to his ruler, nor a master of victory.
Wise rulers and competent generals are able to strike, conquer, and achieve results beyond the ordinary due to advance knowledge. This cannot be gained from the supernatural, inferred from experience, nor deduced by calculation. Information on the enemy’s dispositions can only be obtained from men who have this knowledge.
Five different types of spies may be employed, including native, internal, converted, expendable, and surviving:
1. Native: people from among the enemy;
2. Internal: enemy officials;
3. Converted: double-agents converted from the enemy’s agents;
4. Expendable: one’s own agents who are fed false information to pass on to the enemy;
5. Surviving: those who return with their information.
Spying
When these spies are put to work at the same time, this “spiritual manipulation” is the ruler’s most precious resource. Thus it is that of all military affairs, no relationship is more intimate than that with spies; none more liberally rewarded, and no arrangements more secret.
Spies cannot be usefully employed without the wisdom of a sage, and cannot be managed without generosity benevolence and humanity. Without subtlety and perception, the validity of their reports cannot be properly evaluated and put to use.
This is subtle, subtle work; for spies are used in every kind of situation. If a secret piece of news becomes exposed before its time, the spy and all whom he informed must be put to death.
Whether your objective is to attack an army, storm a city, or assassinate individual people, you must first learn the names of the commander, his assistants, staff, bodyguards and sentries. You need to send your spies to obtain this information.
Enemy Spies
Seek out the opposition’s spies; tempt them with bribes, and then provide instruction and retraining. This is how double agents are obtained and employed. Through their information we can then recruit and employ both local and internal spies. And through the information they provide, our expendable spies can misinform the enemy with false details; and our surviving spies can also be employed as needed.
The purpose of spying in its five varieties is knowledge of the enemy, which can only be derived from converted spies. For this reason, these double agents must be treated with the greatest generosity.
In former times, the rise of the Yin dynasty was enabled by I Chih, who had served under the Hsia. Likewise, the rise of the Chou dynasty was due to Lu Ya, who served under the Yin.
Thus it is that the enlightened ruler and the wise general who employ highly intelligent spies are able to achieve great results. Spies are a vital element in warfare, because the military depends on them to make their moves.
Footnotes
1 Approximately 500 kilometers, or 310 miles today (a bit less in ancient times)
2 Slightly over 133 pounds (about 60 kilograms).
3 500 kilometers, or about 310 miles.
4 Sun Tzu is referring to the professional (trained) army and the masses of untrained conscripts.
5 This reference to “nine changes” has confused scholars and translators for centuries; we can only surmise that they refer to the (10) points listed on page 29.
6 The “Tao of defeat.”
Sun Tzu for Women
“… supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resis-tance without fighting.”—Sun Tzu
The Art of War was written for the military leaders of the time, virtually all of whom were men. Fortunately, these strategies and tactics are universal, not gender-specific: they can be (and have been) successfully used by clever women and men all over the world.
This book addresses ways in which women can use Sun Tzu’s principles to help them succeed in a wide range of competitive environments. The differences in scope and audience lie not so much within the teachings of Sun Tzu, but rather in the ways that women can embrace and apply them to their own advantage.
1: Planning
“Warfare is of vital importance to the state, the basis of life and death, the way to survival or extinction. Therefore, it is essential to structure it according to the pros and cons of the five constant factors.”—Sun Tzu
This chapter introduces the five main pillars on which The Art of War is based:
1. Integrity
2. Conditions
3. Obstacles
4. Leadership/credibility
5. Management/policy
The topics introduced here, and their significance to women, will reappear in greater detail and different contexts throughout this book.
Integrity
“Righteousness (integrity) is the force that underlies creation.”—Sun Tzu
Sun Tzu emphasized integrity as an underlying force, or moral checkpoint, to