The conqueror may dismiss a confidential chief of a corporation. The chief may go over to the enemy as a friend and offer to supply him with recruits and other help collected from the conqueror's territory or followed by a band of spies — and please the enemy by destroying a disloyal village or a regiment or an ally of the conqueror — and by sending as a present the elephants, horses, and disaffected persons of the conqueror's army or of the latter's ally (…)
And when he has gained their confidence, he may send them down to the conqueror to be routed down on the occasion of a farcical attempt to capture elephants or wild tribes.
—Kautilya, in the Arthaśāstra, 13.3:1-6
