Motives

Li Zhuang was as tired as he had ever been. The fatigue weighed heavily on him, and something was wrong with his left glute—it didn't seem to move as freely as it ought. Despite this, he managed to get his leg over his horse's broad back and rode forward under his own banner. Behind him, his cousin's men were arrayed—two hundred warriors in total. The cost of this day had been high; fully a hundred warriors lay dead or wounded in the woods and meadows along the road. It was an absurdly steep price to pay for his cousin's reckless desire to be the man who broke the ambush his cousin's master had warned them awaited the king's army.