By May or early June, Zhuge Ke and his army had reached south of the Huai River, and started attacking the Wei fortress Xincheng (新城; literally "new city/fortress") at Hefei in the following month.
[3] The Wei forces defending Xincheng, numbering only 3,000, managed to hold off Zhuge Ke's army for more than a month while inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy.
That night, Zhang Te ordered his men to tear down houses and fences, and use the wood to reinforce damaged parts of the fortress walls.
Later, the Wei general Sima Fu led 200,000 troops to reinforce Zhang Te at Xincheng and defeated the exhausted Wu army.
As Zhuge Ke and the Wu army withdrew from Xincheng, many of the sick and wounded soldiers died along the way or were taken prisoner by Sima Fu and his reinforcements.
However, neither side saw any significant action, and the campaign ended after Ding Feng exchanged some letters with the Jin general Shi Bao, who was guarding Hefei.