The army's defeat came like a mountainside collapsing; they had nearly failed to halt the rout.
Fortunately, Lu Xiong was a seasoned veteran of the battlefield. Under King Zhou's hints, he had grasped how the slaves thought, and these soldiers had already learned the cruelty of war early on and grown accustomed to it.
Soon, under Lu Xiong's orderly direction, the Western Expedition Army gradually halted its retreat. Though every face was weary and morale had sunk to rock bottom, they neither collapsed nor fled, but stood stubbornly outside Sishui Pass.
Nangong Shi was startled that an army formed from slaves could manage even this much, but only slightly. He merely revised his opinion of Lu Xiong upward a little. However stubborn and tenacious these troops might be, they could not change the outcome of their defeat.
He led his troops in pursuit for a while, driving the Shang Army back ten miles before returning to Sishui Pass.
Lu Xiong began gathering the defeated troops and tallying their losses. Casualties totaled more than thirty thousand.
In fact, relatively few soldiers had actually died in combat. More had been injured amid the chaos as the army rushed to break out, taking any path they could in their panic. After all, they all carried blades and spears, and when packed together, it was easy to wound one another by accident. The wounded then failed to keep pace with the main force and were left behind inside Sishui Pass, unable to escape.
Had they not practiced forced marches and been driven onward even when they were sleeping, leaving them well prepared to cope with such chaos, the casualties would probably have been even worse.
How could that not break one's heart?
Before long, the losses had been tallied, and there was little else