The military units are not very well organized, they don't have clear and stringent command, control and communications.
They understood a regional commander to be fleeing, units fell back.
This is kind of stuff is absolutely as old as time, and it's #1 rule in conflict aka deception.
The parallel would be reproducing a General's order to withdraw - meaning the command would have legitimacy among troops and junior officers, believing their own commanders were just out of the loop.
And yes - their command structure will be de facto organized along social lines, but it's more descriptive.
I've only very recently become interested in ancient history, so I'm still very ignorant about this.
Are there any particular examples of this tactic you'd suggest studying?
I'm case it's helpful to anyone, here's one review of it: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2vxts5/comme...
Seems like a tough area of history to be certain about.
"18. All warfare is based on deception. "
AoW is one of the most important historical treatises, it's not just 'something that was written in history', maybe the oldest true 'textbooks' of objective knowledge, and also realpolitik. Also there's hints of metaphysics in there, in a way. It absolutely stands up today.
The very first work of the Western Cannon: Trojan Horse.
Information / espionage and deception has made most of history; Hannibal, Caesar, Alexander etc.
A fun exercise would be to look at battles of history from the lens of information warfare and deception, and contemplate the outcome without it.