Battle Royale of the Sinners

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.

Once Tong had done placing his ally armies, he picked three red color dolls and three 10,000-troops-chips on Ganling City. They were Sun Jian, Huang Gai, Cheng Pu, and their 30,000 soldiers.

Tong stopped after placing the dolls of Sun Jian Army. He left the strategic map and walked to Lu Zhi's former residential areas as he wanted to obtain more information from Lu Zhi's spy organization.

Seeing that Tong had finished playing on the map, Hua Shi and Dong Bai also returned to Tong's courtyard to rest. They also send a messenger to Zou Shi to invite her for a hang out as well.

With everyone had gone, Jia Xu was left alone again. Despite staying here alone for a long time, no one had noticed him.

Jia Xu walked down the spectator stand and arrived on the side of the map. He recollected all intel he had obtained from both Sima Fang's spies and Zhang Jiao's spies.

After he recalled all of the information he had, he replaced all Tong Army yellow dolls in Jinyang with red color dolls. All flags around Jinyang were replaced with different color flags as well.

'That brat Zhang Tong is good on most of the fields, but he sucks at intelligence management.'

'Putting the dolls here in the open is like telling the enemy spies that they have allies.'

'But thanks to him, my initial plans will work flawlessly.'

Finished replacing the dolls, Jia Xu called a servant to deliver Tong a message.

"Please tell young master Zhang, do not tamper anything on the strategic map unless I'm around. The map is not completed yet. Secondly, if young master Zhang wants to mobilize an army or deploy troops, please consult me first."

Done with the message, Jia Xu left the table and walked to the direction of Sima Fang's Department of Justice building. He smiled while he peered at several groups of garrison soldiers who were looking at him in a distance.

'One or more of them should be the Capital's spies.'

'Now I've leaked an intel for you. It's time for you to take the bait.'

'Dance for me, bitches!'

…

An hour later, Tong received the message from Jia Xu.

"He saw me using the map?"

Tong was surprised. He was too single-minded at the time, and he did not pay attention to his surroundings.

'Don't tamper with the map? Is he planning something?'

'Alright, I like what he is doing so far. Let's see what his master plan is.'

"Go and tell Jia Xu. Come see me tomorrow. I want to have a word with him."

…

…

11 PM. The same day.

Ten soldiers in the palace guard uniform snuck to the strategic map. They jumped on the large map and huddled together, hiding the light of a small torch.

At the center of their huddle, it was the location the cities where Tong put the dolls and square chips on.

"One plate is ten thousand troops. Sixty thousand in Julu and ten thousand in Changshan."

"Our guys in the army also confirms this information."

"Good. But what about the other dolls they put on Jinyang and Ganling?"

The spies put their torches near the map of Jinyang and Ganling. Their sights focused on the flags and the color of the dolls.

"They're in a different color. Julu Army is yellow. Ganling and Jinyang are red."

"Can we confirm that Jinyang and Ganling are their enemies?"

"We don't need to. Our job is to collect the info. Those will be our commander's jobs."

"Right. We learn what we need. Let's scram."

Done with their jobs, the spies put down their torches and used the night as cover to escape from the scene. All of them ran, kept their head down, and proceeded to the exit gate of the inner government building walls.

They laughed in their heart. This city's security was a joke to them. All they had to do was to create a fake identity and register their names to the city hall. Once it was done, voila, a token of the citizenship of Julu.

"Let buy a few souvenirs before we return to the Capital." One of the spies laughed.

"Yeah, let's."

As they took a step crossing the gate, a terrifying scene revealed to them. Hundreds of garrison policemen had surrounded them. Their hundred torches illuminated the dark night into a day, and their crossbows also pointed at the ten spies.

"FBI, You're surrounded! Surrender now!" The surrounding polices shouted.