In mid-June, the southern Rebel Army and the Imperial Court's main forces fought outside Pingjiao City for three days. Pingjiao City became a veritable millstone of flesh and blood.
The Imperial Court's army launched relentless assaults on the rebels within the city. They even deployed two fierce generals temporarily elevated to the Grandmaster Realm through battle formations, yet still failed to take it, while suffering grievous losses themselves.
However, several riots broke out within the southern Rebel Army's camps, and twenty percent of their logistical grain supplies were burned. Imperial Court spies were suspected of secretly causing havoc and sabotaging the rear, ultimately leading to the southern Rebel Army's defeat in this battle, with nearly thirty thousand dead and wounded.
Seizing this opportunity, the Imperial Court's commanding general deliberately stretched the battle line to Aoqiu outside Pingjiao City, intending to completely trap the rebels inside the city. Should reinforcements from other rebel forces arrive, they could also be struck midway.
From a strategic and tactical standpoint, there was nothing wrong with this decision. The Imperial Court's commanding general was also a seasoned and capable commander, no mediocre man.
Driven into such desperate straits, the southern Rebel Army made a decisive move at the end of June. Taking advantage of the flood season of unceasing torrential rain, they breached the Banyan Lake dam and unleashed roaring floodwaters. Not only did they inundate all ten thousand mu of fertile fields at Aoqiu, they also utterly crushed the painstakingly established Imperial Court defenses and dealt the Imperial Court's army a devastating blow.
Of the Imperial Court's one hundred and twenty thousand troops, forty thousand were directly scattered by the floodwaters, while the dead and wounded were beyond count.
Of course, to wound the enemy by a thousand was to injure oneself by eight