Treatise on Military Preparedness, Volume 14

They equipped tall warships, designed to match the height of the Wei bridges, to carry out a strategy of fire attack Huogong (火攻): the classic military art of using fire to destroy enemy formations and supplies. [Xiao Yuan] Rui attacked from the south, while [Cao] Jingzong attacked from the north.

In the third month, the Huai River original: "淮水" suddenly rose by six or seven feet. Rui ordered Feng Daogen and others to board the warships and strike the Wei boats; the army on the upper reaches was completely annihilated.

Separately, they used small boats loaded with grass and doused in oil to set the bridges on fire. As the wind raged, the flames reached their height, and the smoke and dust turned the sky pitch black. Brave warriors original: "死士", literally "death-defying soldiers" or suicide squads pulled up the pilings and hacked at the bridges, and in an instant, the structures were entirely consumed. Daogen and his officers engaged personally in hand-to-hand combat. The soldiers fought with such vigor that their shouts shook heaven and earth; there was not one among them who did not fight with the strength of a hundred men.

The Wei army suffered a catastrophic defeat. [Yuan] Ying fled to save his life, and [Yang] Dayan also burned his camps and departed. The various fortifications crumbled like soil original: "土崩", an idiom for a total and rapid collapse. Those who drowned in the water numbered over a hundred thousand, and those decapitated were just as many.

The pursuit of the retreating Northerners continued as far as the Guo River. Ying entered Liang City alone on horseback. Along the Huai River for over a hundred miles, the corpses lay piled upon one another. Fifty thousand people were captured alive, and the seized grain and military equipment were piled high as mountains.