To capture an enemy commander at any time is a feat of legendary proportions. That young upstart, with nothing but forty thousand men at his back, had chased the Grand Marshal for hundreds of miles, pursuing him for a day and a night. Of course, his own army suffered over a hundred thousand casualties in the process, but the sheer momentum of their pursuit was impressive.
The opposing Marshal, likely a man of advanced age, had seen his troops dwindle steadily throughout that day and night of pursuit. In the end, he executed a "golden cicada shedding its shell" ruse, discarding his armor and his command banner. Dressed as a simple peasant, he escaped back to his own city to reorganize his forces for resistance.
The troops that managed to return were quite elite. In just half a day, he had reassembled over four hundred thousand men. As more stragglers trickled in over the next three or four days, he built a force of two to three million. The only problem was the lack of armor; these elite soldiers had mostly stripped off their gear to make their escape. It was all too easy. In truth, it wasn't as fierce as the fighting against the armies of the great kingdoms in the beginning, where men truly fought to the death—either dying in battle or collapsing from exhaustion on the field.
Chapter 193