Carl Clausewitz - The Strategy of Warfare – Boxed Set

Persons rearing cocks and pigs shall surrender to the Government half of their stock of animals. Those that rear inferior animals shall give one-sixth. Those that keep cows, buffaloes, mules, asses, and camels shall give one-tenth (of their live-stock). Those who maintain prostitutes (bandhakiposhaka), shall, with the help of women noted for their beauty and youth in the service of the king, collect revenue. So much about demands on herdsmen.

Such demands shall be made only once and never twice. When such demands are not made, the collector general shall seek subscriptions from citizens and country people alike under false pretences of carrying this or that kind of business. Persons taken in concert shall publicly pay handsome donations and with this example, the king may demand of others among his subjects. Spies posing as citizens shall revile those who pay less. Wealthy persons may be requested to give as much of their gold as they can. Those who, of their own accord or with the intention of doing good, offer their wealth to the king shall be honoured with a rank in the court, an umbrella, or a turban or some ornaments in return for their gold.

Spies, under the guise of sorcerers, shall, under the pretence of ensuring safety, carry away the money, not only of the society of heretics and of temples, but also of a dead man and of a man whose house is burnt, provided that it is not enjoyable by Bráhmans.

The Superintendent of Religious Institutions may collect in one place the various kinds of property of the gods of fortified cities and country parts and carry away the property (to the king's treasury).

Or having on some night set up a god or an altar, or having opened a sacred place of ascetics or having pointed out an evil omen, the king may collect subsistence under the pretence of holding processions and congregations (to avert calamities).

Or else he shall proclaim the arrival of gods, by pointing out to the people any of the sacred trees in the king's garden which has produced untimely flowers and fruits.

Or by causing a false panic owing to the arrival of an evil spirit on a tree in the city, wherein a man is hidden making all sorts of devilish noises, the king's spies, under the guise of ascetics, may collect money (with a view to propitiate the evil spirit and send it back).

Or spies may call upon spectators to see a serpent with numberless heads in a well connected with a subterranean passage and collect fees from them for the sight. Or they may place in a borehole made in the body of an image of a serpent, or in a hole in the corner of a temple, or in the hollow of an ant-hill, a cobra, which is, by diet, rendered unconscious, and call upon credulous spectators to see it (on payment of a certain amount of fee). As to persons who are not by nature credulous, spies may sprinkle over or give a drink of, such sacred water as is mixed with anasthetic ingredients and attribute their insensibility to the curse of gods. Or by causing an outcast person (âbhityáktá) to be bitten by a cobra, spies may collect revenue under the pretext of undertaking remedial measures against ominous phenomena.

Or one of the king's spies in the garb of a merchant, may become a partner of a rich merchant and carry on trade in concert with him. As soon as a considerable amount of money has been gathered as sale-proceeds, deposits and loans, he may cause himself to be robbed of the amount.

This will explain what the examiner of coins and the state-goldsmith may also do.

Or else a spy, in the garb of a rich merchant, or a real rich merchant famous for his vast commerce, may borrow or take on pledge vast quantities of gold, silver, and other commodities, or borrow from corporations bar gold, or coined gold for various kinds of merchandise to be procured from abroad. After having done this he may allow himself to be robbed of it the same night.

Prostitute spies under the garb of chaste women, may cause themselves to be enamoured of persons who are seditious. No sooner are the seditious persons seen within the abode of the female spies than they shall be seized and their property confiscated to the Government. Or whenever a quarrel arises between any two seditious parties of the same family, poisoners, previously engaged for the purpose, may administer poison to one party; and the other party may be accused of the offence and deprived of their. property.

An outcast, under the guise of a high-born man, may claim from a seditious person a large amount of money professed to have been placed in the latter's custody by the claimant, or a large debt outstanding against the seditious person, or a share of parental property. (An outcast) may pretend to be the slave of a seditious person; and he may represent the wife, daughter, or daughter-in-law of the seditious person as a slave-woman or as his own wife; and when the outcast is lying at the door of the seditious person's house at night or is living elsewhere, a fiery spy may murder him and declare:--"The claimant (of his own property or wife) has been thus killed." And for this offence others (i.e., the seditious person and his followers) shall be deprived of their property.

Or a spy, under the garb of an ascetic, may offer inducements to a seditious person to acquire more wealth by taking in aid the art of witchcraft, and say:--"I am proficient in such witchcraft as brings inexhaustible wealth, or entitles a man to get admission into the king's palace, or can win the love of any woman, or can put an end to the life of one's enemy, or can lengthen the duration of one's life, or can give a son to any one, if desired." If the seditious person shows his desire to carry on the process of witchcraft securing wealth, the spy may make rich offerings, consisting of flesh, wine, and scent to the deity near an altar in a burial-ground wherein a dead body of a man or of a child with a little quantity of money has been previously hidden. After the performance of worship is over, the hidden treasure may be dug out and the seditious person, may be told that as the offerings fell short, the treasure is proportionately small; that the richest of offerings should be made to acquire vast amount of treasure, and that he may purchase with the newly-acquired wealth rich offerings. Then he may be caught in the very act of purchasing commodities for offering.

A female spy, under the garb of a bereaved mother, may (in connection with the above case) raise an alarm, crying that her child was murdered (for the purposes of witchcraft).

When a seditious person is engaged in sorcery at night or in a sacrificial performance in a forest, or in sports in a park, fiery spies may murder him and carry away the corpse as that of an outcast.

Or a spy, under the garb of a servant of a seditious person, may mix counterfeit coins with the wages (he has received from his master), and pave the way for his arrest.

Or a spy, under the garb of a goldsmith, may undertake to do some work in the house of a seditious person, and gather in his employer's house such instruments as are necessary to manufacture counterfeit coins.

A spy, under the garb of a physician, may declare a healthy person of seditious character to be unhealthy (and administer poison). Or a spy, attending as a servant upon a seditious person may not only call for an explanation from another fraudulent spy as to how certain articles necessary for the installation of a king and also the letters of an enemy came into the possession of his master, but also volunteer an explanation himself.

Measures such as the above shall be taken only against the seditious and the wicked and never against others.

Just as fruits are gathered from a garden as often as they become ripe, so revenue shall be collected as often as it becomes ripe. Collection of revenue or of fruits, when unripe, shall never be carried on, lest their source may be injured, causing immense trouble.