 Subsequently, he was also attacked and defeated by the Sui general Lai Zheng (), and he barely escaped due to the efforts of Wang and one Lady Wang, the wife of his subordinate Ximen Junyi ().Du's forces collapsed, but he was soon able to regroup.Around this time as well, Du selected 30-odd particularly fierce warriors among his soldiers, and he adopted them as sons, even though he himself was only 17 years old at this point and therefore could not have been much, if at all, older than they were—the first recorded instance in Chinese history of such actions to create familial relations among military men.