orical incident related by Ho Shih: "Lo Shang, Governor of
I-Chou, sent his general Wei Po to attack the rebel Li Hsiung of
Shu in his stronghold at P`i. After each side had experienced a
number of victories and defeats, Li Hsiung had recourse to the
services of a certain P`o-t`ai, a native of Wu-tu. He began to
have him whipped until the blood came, and then sent him off to
Lo Shang, whom he was to delude by offering to cooperate with him
from inside the city, and to give a fire signal at the right
moment for making a general assault. Lo Shang, confiding in
these promises, march out all his best troops, and placed Wei Po
and others at their head with orders to attack at P`o-t`ai's
bidding. Meanwhile, Li Hsiung's general, Li Hsiang, had prepared
an ambuscade on their line of march; and P`o-t`ai, having reared
long scaling-ladders against the city walls, now lighted the
beacon-fire. Wei Po's men raced up on seeing the signal and
began climbing the ladders as fast as they could, while others
were drawn up by ropes lowered from above. More than a hundred
of Lo Shang's soldiers entered the city in this way, every one of
whom was forthwith beheaded. Li Hsiung then charged with all his
forces, both inside and outside the city, and routed the enemy
completely." [This happened in 303 A.D. I do not know where Ho
Shih got the story from. It is not given in the biography of Li
Hsiung or that of his father Li T`e, 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
(ss. 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