Ashoka, ruler of the Maurya Empire, had received word of Great Qin's invasion a month earlier. He personally led four hundred thousand slave soldiers, ten thousand elephant troops, and one hundred thousand cavalry to the border to confront the Qin army.
The two armies, numbering over a million men in total, faced off in Nepal.
From the center of the army, Bai Qi frowned at the enemy's ten thousand elephant troops, then relaxed. He ordered the Qin soldiers to prepare their siege crossbows and coat their bolts with flammable oil. Fifty thousand cavalry were stationed at the very front of the Qin army, with formations of ten thousand siege crossbows and forty thousand archers and crossbowmen in the center. Seventy-five thousand Qin cavalry occupied each flank, while two hundred thousand auxiliary troops stood out in front.
The entire formation stretched more than a dozen li from front to rear.
On the Maurya side, ten thousand elephant troops stood at the front, followed by one hundred thousand cavalry, with four hundred thousand slave soldiers bringing up the rear.
Their tactics were simple and brutal: the elephants charged first, then the cavalry, and finally the infantry moved in to harvest heads.
An ordinary army would collapse under the elephants' charge, turning the battle into a rout. But they had no idea that the army they faced was anything but ordinary.
At Ashoka's command, ten thousand elephant troops began their charge. The auxiliary troops turned and fled in terror at the sight.
After spotting the flag signals from the Qin soldiers behind them, they fled toward both flanks in an orderly fashion.
The elephant troops pursued relentlessly. Seeing this, Ashoka told his subordinates, "The enemy looks like a rabble too. They can't even withstand my elephant troops, yet they dare invade my territory.