Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
→Sun Tzu
Spies are a most important element in water, because on them depends an army's ability to move.
Laying Plans
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Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State.
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It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of
inquiry which can on no account be neglected.
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The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one’s
deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.
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These are: (1) the Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) the Commander; (5) method and discipline.
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The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow
him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.
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Heaven signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons.
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Earth comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes;
the chances of life and death.
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The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerity, benevolence, courage and strictness.
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By method and discipline are to be understood the marshaling of the army in its proper subdivisions,
the graduations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the
army, and the control of military expenditure.
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These five heads should be familiar to every general: he who knows them will be victorious;
he who knows them not will fail.[…]
Text Page: The Art of War http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html
http://www.anzishaprize.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Tzu-Sun_-von-Clausewitz-General-Carl_-Machiavelli-Niccolo_-Jomini-Baron-de-The-Complete-Art-of-War-Start-Publishing-LLC-2013.pdf