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.”[[184]]
9. 鄉間者因其鄉人而用之
Having local spies
鄉間 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 鄉間 in [§ 22].