Lu Fan had never imagined that an army of nearly fifty thousand would be beaten so miserably by five thousand Trap-Breaking Army soldiers. Such a lopsided casualty ratio was perhaps even more humiliating than the battle of Xiaoyao Ford.
Death, surrender, and flight became the day's main refrain, while the soldiers who survived were the core personal troops of their commanding generals.
After just one small probing attack, let alone assaulting Yichun City, even taking a detour had become a vain hope. The officers and men were exhausted, hungry, shocked, and afraid; their morale plunged straight to freezing point.
Lu Fan made a swift decision to slaughter horses and boil the meat. Even if they could not escape this prison of heaven and earth, he thought, he would at least let the soldiers die with full bellies.
The soldiers had gone hungry for two days, and though horsemeat now filled their stomachs, it tasted like wax in their mouths. They could not taste its fragrance at all. Many, thinking of the family members back home, secretly hid in dark corners and wept softly.
The next morning, moonlight fell across the riverbank, forcing the Eastern Wu troops sleeping in the open to open their eyes.
When they counted their numbers again, nearly another five thousand men had vanished overnight. They had likely slipped away to surrender at Yichun.
"Father, what do we do?" Lu Ju hurried over to ask for advice.
"With things as they are, even if Zhang Liang were alive, he could not turn the tide." Lu Fan no longer had the slightest confidence.
As father and son sighed, Zhu Huan, Quan Cong, and the other generals gathered around them. Cheng Zi clasped his hands, his face full of urgency. "General Ziheng, Lan Tian has led troops out of