After lunch, the heavy rain suddenly stopped.
Xiang Yu's army had learned of it first and moved first, yet just as they were about to set out, they received word from a scout.
"You're saying that a force of around ten thousand is camped a hundred li north of here?" Xiang Yu fixed the scout with a tiger-eyed glare and asked sternly.
"General, it's absolutely true! How would this lowly one dare speak falsely?" The scout knelt on one knee, his face anxious as he looked urgently at Xiang Yu. "That army is flying Chu banners, just a little south of Zhan County!"
Xiang Yu breathed heavily several times, his teeth grinding with an audible crack.
"It's that bastard Qin Jia!" Xiang An clenched his fists.
"Han, my trusted adviser! What do you think?" Xiang Yu turned to look at the thoughtful Han Xin beside him and called out.
"I ask you: what was the appearance of that camp like? Were the tents set up in orderly formation, or were they scattered in a mess?" Rather than immediately answering Xiang Yu's question, Han Xin questioned the scout.
No matter where an army came from, as long as it had reached a certain scale, the arrangement of its tents would generally follow some pattern and order. The orderliness of a camp concerned its army's operational efficiency. Whether an army was strong or capable in battle could, in fact, be glimpsed merely from how neatly its tents were arranged.
"Reporting to Adviser Han, that false Chu army's tents... weren't very orderly. They seemed to be pitched in complete disarray." The scout thought back before reporting to Han Xin.
"So that's how it is." Han Xin narrowed his eyes, then looked at Xiang Yu. "General, my recommendation is to send out the troops