The Battle of Kunyang () was fought during June and July in 23 AD, between the Lulin and Xin forces. The Lulin forces were led by Liu Xiu, who later became Emperor Guangwu of Han, while the far more numerous Xin were led by Wang Yi and Wang Xun (). Wang Xun was killed during a foolhardy attack on Liu's force with a small contingent of his force, and the Lulin forces disrupted the remainder of the Xin army, forcing Wang Yi to retreat. This was the decisive battle that led to the fall of the Xin Dynasty. Background By the end of the Xin Dynasty, peasants all over the country rebelled against Xin Emperor Wang Mang in response to what they saw as years of incompetent rule. Calls for the re-establishment of the Han Dynasty, which Wang Mang overthrew, were on the rise. Heeding these voices, the leaders of the Lulin rebellions supported Liu Xuan to be the emperor of the new Han Dynasty. Wang Mang decided that he had to crush the newly constituted Han regime before it gained momentum, and sent his cousin Wang Yi and his prime minister Wang Xun, with what he considered to be an overwhelming force of several hundred thousand men, to attack the Lulin forces. The Lulin forces were split in two — one force was led by Wang Feng, Wang Chang and Liu Xiu, while the other force was led by Liu Yan. Wang Feng, Wang Chang, and Liu Xiu soon took the castles of Kunyang (), Dingling (), and Yanxian (). Liu Xiu's forces had started attacking Yangguan (), but after hearing of the arrival of the main Xin forces, he decided to retreat to Kunyang. The 9,000 rebels in Kunyang, vastly outnumbered by the Xin force, initially wanted to scatter and retreat to Jingzhou, but Liu Xiu opposed this idea. He advocated that they guard Kunyang securely, since a scattered army would be easy prey. Liu Xiu promised to gather all available troops in the area and attack the Xin forces from behind. After initially rejecting Liu Xiu's idea, the rebels eventually agreed. The battle With the Xin forces approaching Kunyang from the north, Liu Xiu led 13 horsemen out of Kunyang at night to find reinforcements from Dingling and Yanxian. The Xin commander, Wang Yi, confident of his overwhelming numbers, stated that his army would "annihilate all in