Ye Feng was even more puzzled by what he heard. It seemed that something unexpected had happened while he was away.
Orochimaru then explained to Ye Feng what had happened during that time.
After Ye Feng left, the battle plan had proceeded smoothly.
Sunagakure's ninja army had split into two forces and invaded the Land of Fire. Orochimaru had not stopped them, letting both forces in.
Then, as planned, they had cut off the enemy's retreat and waged a guerrilla campaign against both forces, wearing down their fighting strength.
But the force led by Pakura had realized something was wrong during Konoha's very first guerrilla attack and had actually turned straight back the way they came.
The Konoha ninja had wanted to stop them, but Orochimaru had felt the cost would be too high. In the end, he had let Pakura retreat, and her force had suffered very few losses.
The other force, however, had not been so lucky. They had advanced deep into the Land of Fire, where Konoha had steadily worn down their fighting strength, and their supplies had failed to keep up.
Only then had Rasa and Ebizo realized things were going badly and tried to retrace their steps. But Orochimaru would hardly let them leave so easily. He had immediately deployed all his troops along the Sunagakure force's retreat route.
Moreover, thanks to the Wood Spirit Talisman Ye Feng had left behind, Tsunade had developed an all-purpose temporary antidote. Even when poisoned, the Konoha ninja had retained enough strength to fight and could even hold on until they returned to the Konoha camp for treatment.
This had greatly diminished Sunagakure's advantage once again. With Konoha also enjoying an overwhelming numerical advantage this time, they had killed quite a few Sunagakure ninja. Unfortunately, they had ultimately failed