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In modern life, if you want to drink tea but haven't boiled the water, and the kettle, teapot, and teacups are all unwashed, and the tea leaves need to be fetched from the main hall—what do you do?
Washing the kettle, teapot, and teacups each takes one minute. Fetching the tea leaves takes another minute. Boiling the water takes ten minutes. So, how much time is needed in total to drink tea?
Most people, without needing explicit instructions, can arrange these tasks efficiently, with little time wasted.
Even without deep mathematical knowledge, life experience is enough to solve such problems.
But—
What if you ask a ten-year-old child with no prior experience to do the same thing? Would they still carry out the tasks in an orderly manner without wasting time or steps?
Or consider a more complex scenario: serving tea to a hundred people. Only twenty stoves are available, meaning only twenty people can boil water at the same time. There are only four stations for collecting kettles, teapots, and teacups, and each person takes half a minute to collect a set. Only two stations provide tea leaves, and each person takes ten seconds to collect a packet.
How much time would it take until the hundredth person gets their tea?
The relocation of the capital is akin to scaling this hundred-person tea-serving problem ten thousand times…
The imperial family, officials, military, and commoners—each group has different needs and involves vast quantities of resources. The complexity is unimaginable.
So, how can the entire process be arranged more efficiently? How can each level of personnel obtain the necessary resources during the migration, make full use of time, and ensure all links operate smoothly?
This involves organizational behavior and the fundamentals of coordination science…
It sounds profound, but it is essentially an advanced application of mathematical theory.
In his previous life, Fei Qian was a seasoned veteran in corporate offices, highly skilled in resource allocation, personnel deployment, and other "robbing Peter to pay Paul" tasks.
Company-wide events like annual meetings, year-end celebrations, and award ceremonies involved hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people. All aspects—venue setup, scheduling, transportation, meals, and accommodations—had to be meticulously planned. A single misstep could lead to major problems…
Thus, the document Fei Qian presented contained a comprehensive plan for the Han imperial court's relocation to the capital.
The distance from Luoyang to Chang'an is approximately eight hundred li. A typical day's march covers about forty to sixty li, meaning the journey from Luoyang to Chang'an would take around fifteen days.
Fei Qian had no precise way of knowing how many palace maids and eunuchs were in the Han court. Such data could only be accurately obtained from the records of the Shaofu (the imperial household administration). Therefore, he used rough estimates for his calculations. After all, introducing concepts like decimal points in the Han Dynasty would only cause confusion and make the document incomprehensible.
Why do ordinary people find moving house so frustrating? Because there are too many items to pack, often disorganized and trivial. Things that are usually orderly suddenly seem to sprout like weeds, becoming an overwhelming nuisance.
What Fei Qian presented to Li Ru was a categorized inventory, divided into two main sections: people and items. The "people" section included the numbers and requirements of various personnel, including the emperor. The "items" section was further subdivided into clothing, food, shelter, and transportation, covering all necessities for the imperial household during the move from Luoyang to Chang'an—from garments and meals to daily everyday needs and ceremonial items…
Of course, due to the limited space on the paper, Fei Qian couldn't provide exhaustive details. He only outlined the broad categories. The most critical part was a flowchart, also called a schedule, which occupied half the page.
This flowchart detailed each day of the journey from Luoyang to Chang'an, noting the locations reached, the personnel and supplies required, and the provisions to be provided by local areas along the way…
The more Li Ru read, the more intrigued he became. Stroking his beard, he finally broke into a smile.
He was neither unfamiliar nor incapable of handling such matters. Every detail of the emperor's relocation was already clear in his mind—each day, each step meticulously considered. However, Li Ru lacked Fei Qian's ability to describe and express these plans clearly, enabling others to understand exactly what needed to be done and to what standard.
It was like a master craftsman who could effortlessly carve a perfectly round disk from wood but would be unable to specify the exact value of pi or the precise area of the disk.
Li Ru was like such a craftsman. Everything was crystal clear in his mind, and he had contingency plans for the entire relocation process. Yet, he struggled to convey these mental blueprints to his subordinates.
As a result, he could only issue instructions one task at a time. Each task would then be reported back to him, after which he would mentally reassess and calculate before assigning the next task.
How could such massive computations not be exhausting?
How could such tedious steps not be agonizing?
It suddenly occurred to Li Ru that this Fei Qian before him was not only a disciple of Cai Yong, who excelled in literature, but also a student of Liu Hong, who had profound achievements in mathematics.
Although Fei Qian hadn't provided exhaustive details, Li Ru grasped the general idea. Especially the schedule chart on the latter half of the paper—it was like opening a window, allowing Li Ru to see a whole new perspective.
So, this was another way to handle such matters!
Each task had a responsible person. Each responsible person had specific daily tasks, with clear deadlines and progress milestones. Then, handovers would occur with other relevant personnel. Thus, everything interlocked and advanced step by step…
What a rare and ingenious method!
For Fei Qian, this document had taken an entire day of repeated deliberation to compile. Of course, it was specifically tailored for Li Ru.
If the same document were shown to Lü Bu, how much would he understand even after a year of studying it?
Therefore, Fei Qian wasn't worried that this method would significantly enhance the combat effectiveness of Dong Zhuo's forces. Without practical experience or foundational theoretical knowledge, this document would be like cryptic scribbles—incomprehensible even if seen, let alone applicable.
This was a method Fei Qian had devised during his journey, after deep contemplation. It could alleviate Li Ru's burden but wouldn't provide much assistance to Dong Zhuo's forces in the long run.
Even if Li Ru understood and mastered this method, so what? It's worth noting that coordination science and organizational studies are interdisciplinary fields even in modern times. They aren't something an ordinary Han Dynasty person could grasp with just a little knowledge of arithmetic.
Thus, this was a bargaining chip—bait placed before Li Ru to exchange for what Fei Qian desired. Of course, the bait was very enticing and had clearly piqued Li Ru's interest.
However, Li Ru had evidently guessed Fei Qian's intentions. With a slight smile, he put down the paper and asked, "Ziyuan, by presenting this method, you must have some requests?"
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