Just as the soldiers on both sides clashed at the front, the catapults in Wang Yue's army suddenly launched a great many stones.
The stones rained down in waves, instantly splitting the 50,000 troops led by Yue Jin and Li Dian in two and leaving the front and rear unable to support each other.
When an army of 50,000 fought one of 100,000, of course they couldn't all charge in at once. Only a few thousand at the front were locked in combat, while the men behind kept moving up to reinforce them.
Now that the soldiers at the front of Li Dian's army had been cut off, the more than 10,000 men in the vanguard could barely hold their line. The army behind them was of no help at all.
Besides, the catapults had targeted the archers. Without their support, the casualties mounted even faster.
So, before the great battle had lasted even an hour, Li Dian's 50,000 troops had been reduced to fewer than 40,000. The Yangzhou army, meanwhile, had lost fewer than 5,000 men—and most of those losses came from the forces of Sun Quan and Zhang Zhao!
Li Dian couldn't accept such a casualty ratio, so he quietly got in touch with Zhang Liao. Zhang Liao then launched his attack ahead of schedule.
Thus, while the two sides were locked in a stalemate, a thousand men suddenly emerged from the Wei ranks during a lull in the catapults' bombardment and cut straight through the Yangzhou soldiers' defenses.
The Yangzhou soldiers' weapons couldn't hurt them at all, yet they killed the Yangzhou soldiers with ease.
Zhou Tai and the other former Eastern Wu generals stood with Wang Yue on the high platform. When they saw the heavy infantry that had routed them once before appear again, the