After the great battle, Liu Bei's army was busy settling the captives. More than forty thousand people was no small undertaking.
Cao Cao withdrew his army swiftly, no longer caring about the laborers and the like. As long as he could take the supplies with him, that was enough.
In fact, they would have been delighted if Liu Bei had killed all those laborers. That would have sullied Liu Bei's reputation.
Although Cao Cao had suffered a crushing defeat, he brooded over it for only one night. By the next day, he seemed as though nothing had happened. To him, the losses were not too great—just over ten thousand men. Of course it hurt, but it was nowhere near enough to damage him fundamentally.
Nor was there no good news. At the very least, the military forces controlled by the Xuzhou aristocratic clans had been completely wiped out. That was the most far-reaching consequence. First, it ensured the purity of the forces under his command, preventing outside elements from being mixed in. Second, the Xuzhou aristocratic clans would suffer a major loss of influence over future decisions.
Of course, after the battle had turned out this badly, whether the Xuzhou aristocratic clans would harbor ulterior motives was impossible to say.
They certainly still favored Cao Cao. Although Liu Bei would not exterminate the aristocratic clans, he would definitely suppress their power. At the very least, they would lose all their former privileges. This was even more thorough than what Emperor Ling of Han had done.
They had even dared to secretly stir up the Yellow Turban Rebellion to contend with the Han court for power. Now, they definitely would not submit to Liu Bei until they had been driven into a dead end!
Cao Cao believed that as long as