The Burden of War
The campaign against the State of Ch'u has lasted for three years. Your army of one hundred thousand men sits idle on the border, a massive beast that must be fed.
The daily expenditure amounts to a thousand ounces of silver. At home, the common people are exhausted; on the highways, your supply lines are stretched thin. Seven hundred thousand families are impeded in their labor to support your war effort.
Sun Tzu stands beside your map table, looking at the stalemate. "Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day," he says quietly. "To remain in ignorance of the enemy's condition simply because one grudges the outlay of gold for information is the height of inhumanity."
You must break this deadlock. How will you gain the foreknowledge needed to strike?