However, this process will be somewhat prolonged. The 5 days and 7 days mentioned by Li Jun are actually just some "expectations" in this regard.
On the one hand, he hoped that his troops could hold on for a while, and on the other hand, he also hoped that the Tang army would be wary of casualties, or might use rat weapons to slow down the advance.
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 threw it to the ground.
Li Jun was silent. Zhang Ming was still immersed in the horror of the city's destruction just now. He 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 Datang Group.
It’s just that at that time, it was impossible for Zheng Tong to agree to cede half of the Zheng Kingdom 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 could tolerate the loss of one overseas island, or even the loss of all islands, but he could never tolerate the easy loss of inland territory.
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 have stopped fighting during the Battle of Copper City.
Even if the State of Zheng was willing to surrender and pay tribute, and cede half of the country, the Tang Dynasty would not be able to stop fighting and make peace. Because the Tang Dynasty was already ready to devour the State of Zheng, 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 was still unable to come up with the 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 going crazy, smashed all the cups on the table and broke out of the room, he lowered his voice and continued to ask: "Is it true that I can't hold on anymore? 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 wouldn't I give it a try? Now, whatever I do is just 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 looked at 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, the facts proved 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 army echoed again. This time, there were artillery from the Tang army on all sides of the royal city, and the number of artillery seemed to be twice as many as 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 beyond his control.
Everything deviated from the original plan. Li Jun took people to go around personally 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 still 300 people left, which was considered good.
The soldiers were all 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 put up white flags and didn't even enter the city, but 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 got the battle report of the day: On this day, the Tang Army accepted the surrender of a total of Zheng Army soldiers and killed more than 700 people who resisted.
Just looking at these cold numbers, Tiger knew that Zheng Jun had completely collapsed: Yesterday, Zheng Jun fought fiercely for a day, lost 3,000, and surrendered more than 9,000. This ratio shows that Zheng Jun was still resisting in an organized manner, but the next day
The data shows that Zheng Jun has collapsed.
The only thing that made him feel a little regretful was that it was already late today, and 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 take the lives of precious soldiers as a joke.
What Tiger didn't know was that the Zheng Kingdom was now in chaos. For Zheng'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 close troops around him, and as soon as the gunshots were fired, the people on both sides immediately broke into a fight. Even though Zheng Jun's combat effectiveness against the enemy was not very good, he was 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 defeated troops who had surrendered. As a result, gunfire rang out in the distance!
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! 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 through 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 in one go and slaughtered all 17 or 18 of Zheng Tong's sons and daughters, he thought of Zhang Ming again.
So, he led his troops to look for 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, so Li Jun searched all night.
Zhang Ming's family was not found.
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 fast 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 the unwilling Prime Minister Zhang Ming, 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 as he looked 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 didn't care about anything. He led people to find me. He raised his hand and shot 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 would have died!"
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 that everything Li Jun said was true. He believed it just by looking at those eyes...
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 War 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 Zheng.
Now, a new problem facing the rulers of various countries in 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.
In the past, they could put their ports or territories in the hands of the Datang Group, which did not involve sovereignty issues. But now, these places are all rich and have legal territorial disputes...
Who can remain calm at all?
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Well, I finally resumed my second update today. I will let Long Ling recuperate first, and then I will start paying off the debt in a few days... Sigh... The number of outstanding updates is increasing, and it makes everyone sad and crying.