My attempts to hijack this thread and make it all about Sun Tzu have failed. I should have known.
Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be obtained from other men.
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.
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.
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