If Riboku dies or gets out of commission (due to injury) than its a loss for Zhao. That's how it works. Get main commander in chief out of the picture. Lol
Yes, Riboku's death would be a loss for Zhao but unless Kanki can secure the North then his current campaign is a failure.
We have seen this scenario before at the Battle of Dalkan Plains. The campaign objective for Duke Hyou was to capture a major Wei city. The campaign objective for Gokei was to repel the Qin invasion force and prevent the fall of the city. Hyou managed to kill Gokei but his own army was completely brutalised to the point that it was impossible for Hyou to complete the campaign objective of capturing the aforementioned Wei city.
Thus, Hyou failed in his campaign objective while Gokei succeeded in his own objective.
During Sanyou, Renpa lost because HakuKiSai dies not because there army got annihilated. Same goes for Shukai plains, Riboku lost because he has to flee not because his army got annihilated there.
Renpa admitted defeat precisely because his army was on the brink of being annihilated. He says as much himself. With Renpa's surrender, the campaign objective of securing the Sanyou region was achieved.
I am going to strongly disagree on this one. Renpa gave a detailed and logical explanation as to why he surrendered.
The only way Renpa could have avoided the scenario he described was by negotiating with the Supreme Commander of the Qin Army i.e. Mougou.
If Renpa had killed Mougou then he would have to negotiate with Ousen and Kanki separately as neither had any seniority over the other in rank. Neither Ousen nor Kanki are the negotiating type, Kanki especially since without Mougou to keep him in check, Kanki would just run wild.
As for Riboku, he retreated from Shukai Plains in an attempt to prevent Qin from achieving their campaign objective of securing Gyou city.
Also, both armies in those examples got cobbled. Renpa lost 1/2 of his deputies and the Commander in Chief while Riboku lost every General on his left wing bar Bananji as well as a Great Heaven.
Meanwhile in this battle, Zhao hasn't even lost a single General yet nor have they lost a significant number of troops.
By comparison, Kanki has completely lost the Heki Army and the Fuu Han Army along with any of his own men that linked up with Heki. Shuma is dead too.
As for the next question, if Riboku dies here, than there's no one capable enough to command such large army in the north, so even if Kanki escapes later on, it's Ousen who would be starting to make his move to capture north. It was a campaign that should be led by these two commanders but Kanki moved first so Ousen definitely going to get things started at some point. Lol
Isn't there anybody? For the Northern regions, the Generals of Ganmon and Gian are already there along with Riboku's deputies. For an overall Commander in Chief, Riboku has brought Shibashou back into gear while the Zhao Court has Chou Kotsu available.
Is Ousen really going to do that though? His own army is still recovering, one portion of the backup army isn't coming, the other portion of the backup army is completely wiped out and Kanki's own numbers are greatly diminished. Is Ousen really going to challenge a numerically untouched Northern Zhao Army of hundreds of thousands by himself even without Riboku commanding it? I doubt it from Mr. No-Risks.
Than Kanki lost to Kochou as well. He lost a huge amount of soldiers against Kochou as well.
Kinda confused here since you are quoting the bit where I talked about Kanki losing his troops
and failing to kill Riboku.
Yeah, if Kanki had failed to kill Kochou, that would have been a colossal L on his part considering how decimated his army was.
Apart from that, the campaign objective there actually was to eliminate Kochou and the Kochou Army since they were blocking the way to besiege Kantan. The campaign objective here is to capture Northern Zhao to prevent it from being used as a new base of power for the Zhao royal family. Killing Riboku would be a nice compensation prize but unless Northern Zhao is captured then this particular campaign is a failure that makes capturing Kantan less of a decisive victory.