Gordon's task was made easier by innovative military ideas Ward had implemented in the Ever Victorious Army. Gordon was quite critical of the way Chinese generals fought the war, observing that the Chinese were willing to inflict and accept gargantuan losses in battle, an approach Gordon disapproved of. Gordon wrote: "The great thing...is to cut off their retreat, and the chances are they will go without trouble; but attack them in the front, and leave their rear open, and they fight most desperately". Gordon always preferred to outflank the Taiping lines rather to take them on frontally, an approach that caused much tension with his counterparts in the Chinese Imperial Army who did not share Gordon's horror at the huge numbers of casualties caused by frontal assaults.