At this time, the news of Qiu Zhen's defeat had spread back to the capital, and everyone was shocked.
Emperor Li Qing and his ministers were still arguing with the people in Cang Qingshan for several days about who should be responsible, who should be punished, and what punishment.
The main reason is that the Sixth Princess insists on protecting Chu Chengwen. To be honest, this makes Emperor Li Qing a little annoyed. In Li Qing's view, of course Chu Chengwen can be sacrificed, and he is not his person, so what can't he do?
given up.
But his daughter just refused, and now Li Qing is a bit reluctant to step down.
If the people on Cang Qingshan's side had acted more forcefully, for example, if they had insisted on dealing with this Chu Chengwen, Li Qing would have been able to agree to it.
However, Qi Feng and others from Cang Qing Mountain were really not that strong. The Sixth Princess said that she wanted to guarantor, so they said that guarantor was also acceptable, and then put forward another condition and so on.
Anyway, it was really just nonsense, and Li Qing was already disgusted. This matter could not be ended, and his daughter seemed to have been poisoned, which gave him a headache.
Just when things were going up and down, shocking news came. No one expected such a thing. After all, it was just one night, and an army of more than 400,000 people would be defeated. It was just one night. Who could
You can think of it.
When Li Qing heard the news, he even confirmed it several times. He really couldn't believe that something like this would happen. He even didn't know what happened in the entire battle because the battle reports coming back so far were quite confusing.
Many people have sent battle reports to the capital, but so many battle reports don't seem to be talking about the same thing.
Some people reported that Shu Guogong Zhang Chun rebelled and attacked the coalition forces.
Some people reported that Li Ying's troops made a surprise attack on the coalition forces.
Some people reported that it was Zhang Chun and Li Yingli who collaborated with each other.
There were so many theories that the emperor didn't even know which one to believe.
Of course, the battle report that should have been believed the most was Marshal Li Jinglong's battle report, but the problem was that Li Jinglong's battle report had not yet arrived.
The main reason was that Li Jinglong was seriously injured and he was in a coma for two days without waking up.
Yes, Li Jinglong was shot with two arrows by Xu Jing. Although neither of them were fatal injuries, the inflammation and infection of the wounds caused him to fall into coma and cause a high fever that would not go away.
His guards led him to flee all the way, and finally escaped back to Qifang City at the rear. Li Jinglong woke up once during the process, and then gave him the only order he had been unconscious for these few days, which was to continue running away.
So Li Jinglong continued to run with part of the troops who had fled to Qifang City, and then ran to the city behind. After running for two consecutive days, he finally survived.
Only when he woke up did he remember to send someone to deliver a message to the capital, so Li Jinglong's battle report was the last one to arrive.
However, his battle report was useless at this time, because just when he had just sent out his side's battle report, the emperor's envoy had already fallen to his side. Emperor Li Qing ordered Li Jinglong to directly gather the troops
, quickly returned to the capital.
Yes, Li Qing was completely panicked at this time. Although he still doesn't understand what is going on, the news of the defeat has been confirmed.
It is currently unclear why Li Ying's troops appeared near Qiu Town, nor how many people Li Ying brought here. The problem he has to face now is the urgent problem of the capital.
Previously, the army was assembled near Qiu Town, and most of the troops originally stationed around the capital were also sent to station near Qiu Town. There were only a few thousand Imperial City Guards left in the entire capital.
It must have nothing to do with it originally. After all, the coalition forces in Qiu Town will quickly eliminate the rebel troops. Although there are not many soldiers in the imperial city, there is definitely no danger.
Who would have thought that Li Ying's troops would appear near the imperial city so quickly, and who would have thought that the 400,000-strong army would be defeated overnight.
Can Li Qing not panic? Qiu Town is not very far from the capital, which means that Li Ying's troops will soon arrive near the capital. I don't know how many people there are on the other side, but they can defeat an army of 400,000 people. Li Qing thinks
There should be quite a few, at least hundreds of thousands.
At this time, there were only a few thousand troops in the capital. If the other side attacked, they would obviously not be able to stop it. So Li Qing, who was panicked, immediately ordered that the troops around the capital be quickly transferred back to garrison the capital together.
At present, the largest force near the capital is naturally the force led by Li Jinglong. Although the imperial coalition forces were severely defeated at this time, they were not completely destroyed.
Although tens of thousands of people were killed in that battle and tens of thousands were captured, the total number was only around 100,000. In fact, more troops escaped, with more than 200,000 troops actually escaping alive.
After all, Li Ying only had more than 10,000 cavalry, and their lethality was just that. It was impossible to pursue many of them. Being able to kill tens of thousands and capture tens of thousands was already a quite exaggerated record.
But of course it is impossible for all of the more than 200,000 people who escaped to return to the team. These people were completely scattered, running around, and no one organized them, because most of the senior officers were captured by Linton's mistakes, and
Marshal Li Jinglong even ran away and disappeared.
This caused most of the soldiers to run away like headless flies, and a large number of broken soldiers fled to nearby cities, villages and towns.
Many soldiers fled and never came back. Although the rest fled into nearby cities, some still couldn't find the organization and had no idea how to assemble.
Qifangcheng, where Li Jinglong stayed, was the city with the largest concentration of deserters. Because it was close to Qiu Town, the first reaction of most soldiers was to flee to Qifangcheng. Then they heard that Li Jinglong had also fled here, so many soldiers
Soldiers found an organization here and returned to their ranks.
However, Li Jinglong quickly ran away again, taking only about 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers with him. He didn't care about the remaining soldiers who were still running away but had not returned.
When the emperor's order came to Li Jinglong, the troops he had gathered together were only about 50,000 people. The other soldiers didn't know where they were, and they were probably scattered in the surrounding towns.
After receiving the order, Li Jinglong naturally had no choice but to take the soldiers and prepare to return to Beijing immediately. He obviously had no control over the remaining broken troops that had not yet been collected.
And the soldiers he gave up soon had a place to go. Because at the same time that Li Jinglong received the order to return to the capital, King Cheng Li Ying came to Qifang City and started calling the door.
To be honest, Li Ying just wanted to give it a try. After all, the square city was still quite difficult to attack. The city wall was quite thick and it would definitely not be possible to capture it in a short time.
However, after shouting a few words, the city gate really opened.
This chapter has been completed!