When Sui Xiong heard the details of that battle, he was genuinely startled.
He was not at all surprised by the casualties during the pursuit after the frontal battle. Since ancient times, most casualties in wars of the cold-weapons era had occurred during the pursuit phase—at least, that was what the chatterbox game designer had told him back when he had helped make games. So whenever they drew war-themed backgrounds, they had to emphasize the miserable atmosphere of corpses strewn everywhere in "Defeat" scenes.
But the fact that both sides had fought so savagely in the frontal clash itself came as a great surprise to him.
On the Noble Faction's side, half the professional soldiers had died, roughly a third of the knights had died, and about a fifth of the militia had died. Those were already extremely high losses. In Sui Xiong's impression, under normal circumstances, once losses reached around a tenth, the disadvantaged side would often consider surrendering. Even if they could not surrender, once losses reached a fifth, they would be unable to endure it any longer and collapse.
Even the militia in the Noble Faction's army had held on until their losses reached a fifth before breaking. They could already be called exceptionally elite.
But as the saying went, "a gap only shows when compared." Next to the Merchant Faction's new army, the Noble Faction's "elite" was really nothing much.
One had to know that the Merchant Faction's new army had continued fighting despite nearly all its officers being wiped out and its losses approaching sixty percent, then won the final decisive battle!
That morale, that resolve—it was simply heaven-defying! In Sui Xiong's impression, in this world, perhaps only church knight orders subordinate to the churches, composed entirely of devout believers or even fanatics, could possess