Amid the forests of the Southern Wasteland, after a period of rest and reorganization, the soldiers under Zhao Cheng had recovered some of their spirit.
Fortunately, they were all veterans, long accustomed to wars of this intensity. Had they been recruits, after a battle with a casualty rate as high as fifty percent, their morale would likely have collapsed long ago.
Only veterans, accustomed to life and death, and promoted after receiving rewards for their merits, could retain a measure of combat strength.
But if they went through another bloodbath of this intensity in a short time, that would not do.
In this age, once casualties in a major battle exceeded ten percent, an army would generally collapse. Even overseers could do nothing about it.
For elite troops, it could reach fifteen percent.
As for troops like the Tiger Leopard Cavalry, elites among elites, they could endure up to thirty percent.
That was already the limit. The human mind had limits to what it could bear, and there was also herd mentality. On the battlefield, even a warrior with an iron will would instinctively follow when he saw the comrades around him begin to retreat.
Once that momentum formed, it became what they called a military defeat collapsing like a mountain.
Even that seemingly lowest figure of ten percent referred to fierce, battle-hardened forces, most often found in the early days of a newly established dynasty, or among the armies of powerful magnates in troubled times. As for the imperial court's armies, once prosperous times arrived, they would begin to decline. By the final years of a dynasty, ninety percent of the troops would either have neglected training or simply drawn pay for nonexistent soldiers.
Such armies were often filled with the offspring of nobles padding the ranks. They could