However, this process will be somewhat prolonged. The five days and seven days mentioned by Li Jun are actually just some "expectations" in this regard.
On the one hand, he hopes that his troops can hold on for a while, and on the other hand, he also hopes that the Tang army will slow down its advance by worrying about casualties or using rat weapons.
Hearing Li Jun's explanation, Zheng Tong's fragile and sensitive expression began to twitch again. He suddenly grabbed the cup in front of him and dropped it to the ground.
Li Jun was silent. Zhang Ming, who was still immersed in the horror of the city's destruction just now, suddenly heard the sound of a cup breaking and was frightened.
He looked at Zheng Tong, who was throwing the cup, and found that the king, who had become a bit talkative in the past two days, wanted to say something but didn't know where to start.
In fact, before the Battle of Tongcheng broke out, he had thought about the possibility of ceding all the land east of Tongcheng and seeking peace with the Tang Dynasty Group.
It's just that at that time, it was impossible for Zheng Tong to agree to cede half of Zheng State in exchange for the time to survive. At that time, all Zheng Tong could think about was counterattack and regaining the lost territory!
Zheng Tong can tolerate the loss of one overseas island, or even the loss of all islands, but he absolutely cannot tolerate the easy loss of inland land.
Of course, if it was just a little bit, he might still be able to tolerate it, but the area east of Copper City was probably half of the country of Zheng!
Now that things have happened, Zhang Ming has finally seen clearly that if he were the decision-maker of the Tang Dynasty, he would not stop fighting during the Battle of Copper City.
Even if Zheng was willing to surrender and pay tribute, and cede half of the country, it was impossible for the Tang Dynasty to stop fighting and make peace. Because the Tang Dynasty was already ready to devour Zheng Guo, how could there be any reason to eat half of the meat in front of the mouth?
Now, at this moment, Zheng Guo only has one royal city left, and it is even more impossible for Datang to let Zheng Guo negotiate terms.
Therefore, although Zhang Ming opened his mouth, he still could not express his suggestion to talk to Datang.
However, he was a little unwilling to accept that things ended so suddenly...
Zhang Ming looked at Li Jun next to him. After Zheng Tong, who was like crazy, smashed all the cups on the table and broke out of the room, he lowered his voice and continued to ask: "Really can't hold on? How many times?" Wan Dajun... can no longer..."
Li Jun glanced at Zhang Ming and shook his head: "If there is any other way, why don't I give it a try? Now, no matter what I do, it will just be a desperate struggle."
"Alas..." Zhang Ming sighed.
Almost at the same time, Li Jun also sighed: "Alas..."
"Can't you... hold on for a few more days?" Zhang Ming, who was still unwilling to give up, asked again, as if he was a resentful woman who was unwilling to break up.
"I...let's try...how many days can I hold on? Just a few days." Li Jun saw his old rival talking to him in such a tone. He suddenly felt a little better and seemed to have a little more strength. , so he said.
Unfortunately, it turned out that Li Jun was wrong about both the combat power of his troops and the determination of the enemy troops.
It was a quiet night. Some people were worried and others could not sleep all night. There was no sound of cannons or gunshots. It seemed that everyone was waiting for the dawn of the next day.
Sure enough, as soon as the sun rose the next day, the sound of artillery fire from the Tang Dynasty troops echoed again. This time, there were artillery from the Tang Army on all sides of the royal city. The number of artillery seemed to be twice that of yesterday!
Dozens of city walls were blown down, and then the Zheng army began to formally surrender... Li Jun had previously imagined that his troops could withdraw into the city and start street battles with the Tang army.
But in fact, at noon the next day, about 5,000 Zheng troops deployed inside and outside the city wall surrendered, and the situation was not under his control at all.
Everything deviated from the original plan. Li Jun took people to go around in person and found that almost all the troops began to appear in chaos.
Some troops were withdrawing into the city, but because of the chaos, a thousand people retreated. When they arrived at the retreat place, they saw that there were only 300 people left, which was considered good.
The soldiers were taking advantage of the chaos to escape, finding a corner to take off their clothes, and they were almost out of trouble.
This kind of army is considered good, but the worse one is that hundreds of people just raised the white flag and didn't even enter the city. They went directly to the back of the Datang Group's troops to eat steaming meals.
In the afternoon, the 1st Infantry Division of the Tang Dynasty had entered the city and controlled the southeast corner of the city, almost a quarter of the city.
After dinner, when the sky was getting dark, Tiger received the day's combat report: On this day, the Tang Army accepted the surrender of a total of 11,000 Zheng Army soldiers, and killed more than 700 people who resisted.
Just looking at these cold numbers, Tiger knew that the Zheng Army had completely collapsed: Yesterday, the Zheng Army fought fiercely for a day, losing 3,000, and surrendered more than 9,000. This ratio shows that Zheng Jun is still resisting in an organized manner, but the data on the next day shows that Zheng Jun has collapsed.
The only thing that made him feel a little regretful was that it was already late today. No matter how good his troops were at fighting, they would not be able to attack while the iron was hot at night.
He could only wait until daybreak before continuing to capture the royal city of Zheng - no matter how impatient he was, he was not willing to make fun of the lives of his precious soldiers.
What Tiger didn't know was that the Zheng Kingdom was now in chaos. For Zheng Guo’s top brass, this night was destined to be anything but peaceful.
Zheng Tong is crazy!
The king of Zheng State, with his cronies, found Li Jun among the rebellious army, and then shot Li Jun without any hesitation.
Li Jun naturally had trusted troops around him, and as soon as the gunfire rang out, the people on both sides immediately broke into a fight. Even though Zheng Jun's combat effectiveness against the enemy is not very good, he is still very effective when fighting among his own people.
At this time, the Tang Army stationed in the city was using the last bit of light to receive the civilians who had taken refuge in the city and the surrendered troops. As a result, gunfire rang out in the distance!
Before Tang Jun could figure out the situation, Zheng Jun had already decided the winner!
Zheng Tong and his cronies were killed on the spot by Li Jun's soldiers, and then Li Jun, who was slightly injured, led his troops to kill Zheng Tong's palace without stopping.
The rebel army directly defeated the imperial army guarding the palace, and a fierce melee broke out between the two sides. Li Jun, who was furious, finally broke into the palace and chopped up Zheng Tong's wife and children.
After Li Jun, who was already equally crazy, killed 33 of Zheng Tong's concubines and all 17 or 18 of Zheng Tong's sons and daughters, he thought of Zhang Ming again.
So, he led his troops to find Zhang Ming for another night! As a result, because of the riots in the city, Zhang Ming was so frightened that he abandoned his house and ran away with his family overnight. Therefore, Li Jun searched all night but could not find Zhang Ming's family.
It was indeed impossible to find him - Zhang Ming was desperate and surrendered to Datang Group in the early morning.
After killing all night, Li Jun finally remembered that there was still a large army outside the city besieging the city. So he gathered the troops he could, sent people to deliver the message, and simply surrendered to the Datang Group.
In order to make himself more valuable, the general of Zheng also brought Zheng Tong's body with him. All this happened so quickly and suddenly that Tiger was not prepared.
He really didn't expect that this war that engulfed the Zheng Kingdom would end in such a ridiculous ending.
Li Jun, who had always tried hard to play the role of a loyal minister, and Prime Minister Zhang Ming, who was unwilling to accept it, met awkwardly at the headquarters of the Datang Group.
Li Jun, who still had a bandage on his shoulder, looked at Zhang Ming, who was wearing civilian clothes and had a shaved beard, and felt dumbfounded for a moment.
"You said five days, seven days... but it turned out to be only two days?" Zhang Ming didn't know that Zheng Tong was dead yet, and asked with a sneer at the embarrassed Li Jun.
"If I don't argue with you, you are lucky. If you hadn't run fast enough, I would have killed you tonight!" Li Jun snorted, regretting that he could not kill this old rival in the end.
Zhang Ming was startled and heard something from this word. He stared at Li Jun and said, "You! Do you dare to kill the king?"
"Zheng Tong doesn't care about anything. He leads people to find me. He raises his hand and shoots me!" Li Jun glared at Zhang Ming with red eyes, like a wild beast: "If my son hadn't stopped him, I would have died! I My son died because he saved me, so it’s not too much for me to kill his whole family, right?”
After hearing Li Jun's words, Zhang Ming staggered back until he reached the table. He stretched out his hand to hold the edge of the table, and then managed to stand still.
He wanted to say something, but he really couldn't - he believed everything Li Jun said was true. Just looking at those eyes, he believed it...
So he hung his head dejectedly, and finally sighed and stopped talking.
Tiger sent a telegram to Longdao that night, reporting the good news to Tang Mo that the Battle of Zheng had ended.
Early the next morning, troops from the Tang Kingdom began to enter the city, and the Zheng Kingdom was destroyed. Dragon flags were hung on the remaining walls of the Zheng Kingdom.
Without much resistance, the common people of Zheng State naturally accepted the rule of the Tang Kingdom. They also naturally accepted their new identity as Tang people, because they did not have a good impression of Zheng State.
Before countries around the world had time to digest the sudden emergence of the Tang Kingdom, they heard the shocking news that the Tang Kingdom had annexed the Zheng State.
Now, a new problem facing the rulers of the Trade Alliance is how to deal with their relationship with the Tang Kingdom!
Granting territory and ports to the nobles of the country, or leasing them to a consortium, is one concept, but giving one's port territory to a kingdom for free is another matter.
Previously, they could put their ports or territories in the hands of Datang Group, which did not involve sovereignty issues. But now, all of these places are extremely wealthy and have legal territorial disputes...
Who can remain calm at all?
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Well, I finally resumed two updates today. I will let Long Ling recuperate first, and then I will start paying off my debts in a few days... Sigh... The number of these debts is increasing. It makes the listeners sad and the listeners shed tears.
