Chapter 153 Fake Intel (1/2)

Chapter 153 – Fake Intel

Jia Xu had been sitting alone on the spectator seats since he heard that an emissary from the Capital was here.

At first, he wanted to attend the assembly and wanted to see what the eunuch was here for. However, the moment he noticed the attitude of the eunuch, he chose not to attend the meeting and had been waiting for the situation to resolve.

Then, he saw Tong and his wives rushed into the hall, and heard the ruckus along with the battle sounds. He figured that the Capital emissary did not come here for a talk. Thus, he continued to stay behind and watch.

With the chaotic voice and sound inside the government hall, it was not hard for Jia Xu to guess that Zhang Jiao and Zhang Tong would definitely rebel against Emperor Ping.

Jia Xu massaged his temples and sighed. This rebel army was troublesome, but they had a good foundation. A little polish could make them shine, but it might take a lot of efforts.

'My gold, my retirement fund …'

'MAH HEAVENLY BREAKFAST!'

'MAH ENDLESS STEAK LUNCH!'

'MAH DREAM-LIKE DINNER!'

'Don't you shit around too much! I can't clean up your mess forever!'

He kept watching until Tong walked to his strategic map and started putting dolls and square chips on the board.

The line-up of the dolls and the chips represented Tong's commanding generals and his troops. Jia Xu focused all of his attention on the map and analyzed Julu's military power. Combined with his initial knowledge and the spy records from Sima Fang and Zhang Jiao, he understood the general status of the overall military prowess of Julu now.

The next thing he wanted to know was the quality of the generals and the sergeants.

…

The battle policies were usually decided by the grand commanders, strategists, or the bigwigs in the army. However, the true battle results were always decided by the decisions of the generals, sergeants, and the lesser commanders as they had to improvise their own tactics during the flow of the battles.

Even if the generals were the best tacticians in the world, they could not win a war without subordinates that could execute their commands and complete their objectives.

At the same time, best sergeants could not utilize their abilities to the fullest if the commanders were inept.

This relationship had to go hand-in-hand in a war, or else, no matter how much the army had prepared their homework and planning, they would still fail 100% of the times.

There was also the famous quote of Sun Tzu.

”Know thy enemy and know thy self, find naught to fear in 100 battles.”

”Know not thy enemy, but know thy self, win once, lose once.”

”Know not thy enemy and not know thy self, find defeat in every battle.”

Jia Xu also learned about this quote. However, he had another idea which was a derived version from Sun Tzu's teaching.

”Know thy self, half thy victory secured.”

”Not know thy self, defeat is guaranteed.”

Without the self-evaluation and self-awareness, jumping into a battle with only the enemy's information was the same as a suicide.

In a situation when someone goes into a battle with only the knowledge of the enemy's weak points, but he does not know his own capability if he could exploit it or not. Then he would become a pushover who challenges against a giant as he would be relying 100% on his luck that his enemy has to be either stupid or weak so he could achieve his victory.

This motto was with Jia Xu since the day he passed the imperial examination and became an official. As long as he could understand his own limits and his abilities, he would have nothing to fear against all trickeries by his enemies as he would have already seized 50% chance of the victory. In the situation where he could predict that he would not have enough hidden trump cards to play against his foes, he would simply retreat from the conflicts.

Having 50% chance of victory by having all controllable factors in his hands was better than betting his luck purely on his enemies' unpredictable actions.

Thus, he managed to survive against all odds until this day.

Now, he had jumped on board of this rebel ship. He had to understand every bit of power that Tong and his men had.

…

'4 … 5 … 6 … So it's 60,000 soldiers in Julu.'

'10,000 on Changshan and … 50,000 in Jinyang!?'

'Since when has he taken over Jinyang!?'

'I see flag marks in Anping and other two counties. So he owned those as well.'

'4 …. 5, five dolls at Jinyang. So he has many trustworthy subordinates there.'

'I see several dolls in Julu and Changshan. But are they capable?'

'Is it a vain trust or are they capable enough to earn his trust?'

'I'll need more intel about our generals. I'll ask that grumpy Sima again.'

Jia Xu maintained his focus on the map to obtain more hidden information.