High Martial Arts Three Kingdoms: The Incompetent Strategist

The next day, early in the morning.

Tang Ke squatted in the courtyard early in the morning, pondering the matter of forming a Han Dynasty version of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. He gestured on the ground with a twig for a long time, but still couldn't come up with a solution.

While the organizational structure and operational mechanisms can be directly referenced, the immediate priority is to gather the right people for the key positions. First and foremost, the people must be reliable, and their abilities are secondary. Being able to fully control the situation is more important than anything else.

Most of the Imperial Guards were originally Cao Cao's men, so it was obviously not appropriate to use them directly as the core of the force. It was even more inappropriate to use people from other forces whom they were not familiar with.

The only suitable person I can think of right now is Li Jin, but he's definitely not enough to run such a large organization.

"Brother-in-law, what are you gesturing about so early in the morning?" Ruyan moved gracefully and bent down to take a look.

She saw the marks Tang Ke had drawn on the ground: "Oh my, brother-in-law, you can play chess?"

"Chess?" Tang Ke was taken aback. He glanced at what he had drawn: a square chessboard with several pieces such as "chariot, horse, and cannon" drawn on it.

Out of sheer boredom, he unconsciously drew a huge chessboard.

"You already have chess now?" Tang Ke asked with a hint of curiosity.

"Look at what you're saying. The Chu River and Han Border on chess is over four hundred years old. How novel is that?" Ruyan looked more closely at the chess pieces drawn on the chessboard and frowned unconsciously.

"However, your chessboard is quite different from the chessboard we play. Many pieces are different, and I have never seen it before."

Tang Ke laughed and said, "This is an improved version, of course you haven't seen it before."

A thought suddenly popped into his mind, reminding him of a TV series he watched as a child, in which the emperor used living people as chess pieces to play against others.

Couldn't my own organization learn from this model? I'm too lazy to bother with it. Thinking of this, a smile unconsciously crept onto my face.

"Show-off." Ruyan yawned and went back inside.

Tang Ke immediately took out his brush, ink, paper, and inkstone and began to study the division of labor among the chess pieces.

If I were the general, the two "soldier" would be my personal bodyguards, responsible for protecting my safety and relaying my orders. The two "elephants" would be responsible for investigating officials in the capital region and handling major cases. The two "horses" would be responsible for communication between Luoyang and all the prefectures and counties in the country.

Two "cannons" are responsible for openly investigating and arresting people, while two "chariots" are responsible for secretly investigating and handling difficult cases that should not be made public. Each prefecture and county in the country also has a "pawn" who is responsible for supervising the officials of that prefecture and county.

In addition to allocating manpower under each "pawn" according to the actual situation, each piece is assigned 200 elite soldiers.

He carefully reviewed his thoughts and drafted a detailed plan, which he prepared to submit at the next court session.

"My lord, Qu Mu is responding!"

Someone rushed into the room to report that Tang Ke had almost forgotten about this person, who had been unconscious ever since he was arrested.

Tang Ke locked him up in a secret outpost outside the city and arranged for doctors to try to save him, but to no avail. Considering the limited medical conditions of this era, he had long given up hope, but unexpectedly, he was able to be saved.

He didn't even have time to greet Ruyan before hurriedly following her to the outskirts of the city.

This was a prison camp used exclusively by the Imperial Guards. The ground was made of simple walls and fences constructed of adobe bricks, and soldiers patrolled and guarded it. On the surface, it was just a simple outpost.

The underground world was a different world altogether, like a huge underground palace. The prison passageways were crisscrossed. The underground was oxygen-deficient and torches were not suitable. The lighting was provided by huge luminous pearls, which were very incongruous with the dungeon.

Those imprisoned here are either high-ranking officials or fallen princes and grandsons of emperors. People like Qu Mu were not originally worthy of entering, but Tang Ke, fearing that others would kill him to silence him, specially arranged for him to be sent here.

When Tang Ke arrived at the place of imprisonment, Qu Mu was already foaming at the mouth and his eyes were rolling back. He was clearly only breathing and not exhaling.

Someone cried out urgently, "Doctor, what should we do? Think of something quickly!"

The doctor in charge of the treatment shook his head helplessly: "There's nothing we can do. It was just a brief moment of lucidity before death; he can't be saved."

Tang Ke didn't have high expectations for this fellow. For safety reasons, he was just a folk doctor hired from a village outside the city, so it was understandable that his skills were limited.

He called to his guards, "Quickly, bring some manure!"

"What?" The guard thought he had misheard, wondering if their lord had some kind of special fetish.

Tang Ke urged, "Don't ask any more questions, go quickly!"

"Okay, good." The man hurried off. Fortunately, while other things were hard to find in the dungeon, this was very convenient. He returned with a large bucket in no time.

"Pry his mouth open." Tang Ke directed his men to cooperate while scooping up a spoonful of excrement and pouring it into Qu Mu's mouth.

The latrine was stirred up and became incredibly smelly. Everyone covered their mouths and noses as they watched helplessly as Qu Mu was forced to drink two large spoonfuls of latrine.

"Ugh~" Qu Mu couldn't help but vomit a large amount of filth, including feces and some partially digested residue.

Everyone secretly lamented that even if the reputations of the top experts in Luoyang were ruined and they were saved, what face would they have left?

Seeing that Qu Mu was vomiting more and more, and gradually even vomiting bitter water, his pale face gradually regained a bit of color.

The doctor stared in disbelief, rubbing his eyes hard. He then disregarded the man's filth and grasped his pulse. After a long pause, he exclaimed, "His pulse is weak but deep, yet slippery and strong. He can be saved!"

"Whoa!" Everyone gasped in surprise, their eyes turning to the infamous leader.

Ever since he took office and went to a brothel to bring his lover home, rumors about him among the imperial guards have never stopped. There were even anecdotes about how this official stayed overnight at the theater on his first visit and discovered that the actor was an assassin.

Given his many flaws, it's a miracle he survived. Yet, this man rose through the ranks and quickly climbed to the crucial position of Commander of the Imperial Guard.

So everyone is saying whether His Majesty has developed homosexual tendencies or whether the Empress has taken a liking to him.

The latter spread more widely because rumors circulated that someone saw this official calmly pinching the Empress's buttocks when His Majesty was assassinated.

Of course, these are all just rumors and cannot be verified at all. Slandering the emperor and empress is a capital offense, so people only dare to spread them for fun in private.

In short, everyone's opinion of him was surprisingly consistent: he must have climbed up the ladder through some underhanded means.

It wasn't until the day everyone witnessed him defeat Qu Mu that they began to take his strength seriously. He didn't seem as weak as they had imagined. He was much stronger than Lord Mengde, and no less so than Cao Zilian, who was always making a fuss and was stingy.