Battle of Kunyang The Battle of Kunyang ( 昆陽之戰 ) was fought between June – July in 23AD , between the resurgent Han and Xin forces . The Han forces ( Lülin ) were led by Liu Xiu , while the far more numerous Xin were led by Wang Yi and Wang Xun ( 王尋 ) . Wang Xun was killed during a foolish attack on Liu ' s force with a small contingent of his force , and the Han 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 Wang Mang for the years of his incompetent rule . Calls for the reestablishment of the Han Dynasty , which Wang Mang overthrew , were on the rise . Heeding these voices , the leaders of the rebellions supported Liu Xuan to be the emperor of the new Han Dynasty . Xin Emperor Wang Mang decided that he must 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 Han forces . The Han forces were split in two — one led by Wang Feng , Wang Chang , and Liu Xiu ; while the other , the majority of which was led by Liu Yan . Wang Feng , Wang Chang , and Liu Xiu soon took the castles of Kunyang ( 昆陽 ) , Dingling ( 定陵 ) , and Yanxian ( 郾縣 ) . Liu Xiu ' s forces had started attacking Yangguan ( 陽關 ) , 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 it . He advocated that they guard Kunyang securely , since a scattered army would be easy prey . Liu Xiu promised to gather all other available troops in surrounding areas and attack the Xin forces from the outside . 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 rally for reinforcements from Dingling and Yanxian . The Xin commander , Wang Yi , confident of his overwhelming numbers , stated that his army would " annihilate all in his path , massacre the town , and dance in its blood " , and laid siege to the town . Faced with siege tower s and tunnels dug under its castle walls , Kunyang ' s defenses held on until Liu Xiu returned with 10 , 000 footmen and cavalry on July 7 . By then , the Xin forces ' morale was dropping while the Han forces ' morale was booming with Liu ' s return . Liu Xiu took this chance to lead 1 , 000 men to engage the Xin forces , while another brigade of 3 , 000 marched around to the rear of the Xin army and attacked the Xin ' s main camp . Wang Yi , still underestimating the Han forces , led 10 , 000 men with Wang Xun to meet the enemy , while ordering the rest of his troops to stand their ground unless he ordered them to attack . Once they engaged in battle , however , after minor losses , the other units were hesitant to assist them , and Liu Xiu killed Wang Xun in battle . Once that happened , the Han forces inside Kunyang burst out of the city and attacked the other Xin units , and the much larger Xin forces suffered a total collapse . Adding to the misery of the Xin forces was a sudden rainstorm which caused a flash flood , drowning many of the fleeing men . Aftermath . Unable to gather most of his men , Wang Yi had to withdraw with the remaining several thousand men back to Luoyang . Once the news about the battle of Kunyang spread throughout the empire , the people rose everywhere else simultaneously , often killing the local government officials and claiming to be officials under the new Han regime . Within a month , almost the entire empire slipped out of Xin control . Eventually , Liu Xiu brought China back into Han rule .