After the empress dowager's men were cleared out of the secret passage, only her people were left. Xiao Changfeng entered the secret passage, and when he came out he was no longer "Xiao Changfeng".
Xiao Changfeng's command flag will fall into Lu Bing's hands. Having fought against Xiao Changgeng together with Xiao Changfeng for so long, Lu Bing can remember and control most of the commands with the command flag. When the two armies faced off and the fighting was deafening, the troops were mobilized not by oral orders, but only by command flags.
After getting the command flag, Lu Bing brought "Xiao Changfeng" out and could use the command flag to command the brave army to stay on the spot.
"Good!" Emperor Youning praised loudly and forcefully, as if he was half angry and half laughing, and then he started coughing violently.
The gradually pale face coughed up a thin layer of red, making it look even more terrifying.
"Your Majesty, thank you for giving way." Shen Xihe's last move fell.
The black pieces on the chessboard were divided into three parts, and each piece was surrounded by white pieces, leaving no way to escape.
Since he was powerless to change the situation, Emperor Youning stopped struggling in vain and threw away the chess pieces that were a little unstable in his hand, but he didn't say anything, as if he was still unwilling to give up until the last moment.
Shen Xihe didn't care, and she wasn't anxious. She looked at the sky outside the window and said, "There's still half an hour left, and it will be past the fifth watch."
After the fifth watch, the sky becomes bright.
The battle situation in the northwest, however, was not as easy to be controlled by Shen Xihe as that in the imperial city. With the command flag of "Xiao Changfeng", the Shenyong Army stayed on standby as ordered. Xiao Changgeng and Xie Yunhuai led a large army to confront them head-on. The two sides were only three or five steps apart.
The war finally came to a temporary halt.
In the Northwest Royal City, halfway through the second watch, Shen Yun'an ordered his troops to leave and rush to the rescue to suppress the chaos in Tubo.
At three o'clock in the morning, with the help of Xue Heng, Wang Zheng easily entered the Northwest Royal City with the army given to him by Emperor Youning.
The people of the royal city kept their doors closed, and Wang Zheng led his troops and headed straight for the Northwest Palace. However, he was intercepted by several groups of troops halfway, and his huge team was also cut down by the troops that rushed out of the alley.
At this point, the two armies began to fight.
Everyone knows that this is a battle of life and death, and everyone is fighting hard.
The northwest is too far away from Kyoto, and even if Emperor Youning wanted to order a halt immediately, it was too late. The brave army that he had spent so much effort to train lived up to his expectations and was brave and agile. If the Northwest Army had not been experienced in many battles and slightly better than the brave army in actual combat, the chances of winning against such an army would be very slim.
The ink-like night gradually faded away, and the thick bloody smell hovered in the sky above the Northwestern Royal City like wisps of colorful clouds at dawn.
The siege lasted for four hours from the third watch to the fifth watch. Of the more than 20,000 soldiers of the Divine Army, only a hundred or so were left. The Northwest Army also lost thousands of people, and the whole city was littered with corpses. It had been a long time since the Northwest Royal City had seen such a large-scale massacre.
It was not until the trumpet of victory was sounded that the people hiding in their homes came out cheering. Living in this land, they were accustomed to war. Even though there were corpses everywhere, they did not feel afraid, and even accompanied the government to deal with the corpses.
"My Lord, where do these enemies come from?"
Shen Yueshan's battle robe was covered in blood. He faced the elders of the Northwest Great Clan. His eyes fell on the fallen brave soldiers: "Perhaps it is the tribe that is seeking revenge on the little king."
The deputy general beside Shen Yueshan wanted to say something but hesitated, and finally did not dare to say more.