The next morning, Li Congke led a large army to cross the unguarded natural dangerous Tongguan and arrived in the Yan Township east of Tongguan. The imperial court originally had an army here, but when they saw Li Congke's army, they did not fire a single arrow and the entire army surrendered. An Yanwei, the governor of Hezhong, who was originally involved in the attack on Fengxiang, and An Chongba, the governor of Kuangguo, surrendered without fighting one after another.

Kang Sili, the governor of Baoyi, was originally preparing to defend Shanzhou and wait for Kang Yicheng's army. However, before Kang Yicheng's army arrived, Li Congke's vanguard arrived first, and the defenders went out of the city to surrender, and they could not stop it at all, so Kang Sili had to come out to surrender.

On March 26, the second group of strife led by Kang Yicheng finally set off from Luoyang and headed west. On March 27, Li Congke entered Shanzhou, and his staff suggested: "The king will soon enter the capital. There are rumors that the emperor has fled. It is better to stay in Shanzhou for a while and issue a notice to appease the hearts of the capital." Li Congke immediately understood it.

Li Congke understood that if the army advanced directly into Luoyang and let Li Conghou die in the capital, it would be difficult to deal with the fierce mouths of the world. It would be better to leave some time to let Li Conghou escape by himself. According to the situation at that time, even if Li Conghou escaped from Luoyang, it would be unlikely to turn the tables. He would most likely be killed on the way, so that the responsibilities he bear would be much smaller.

So Li Congke paused his march and issued a notice to Luoyang, claiming that he had entered Beijing, just to eliminate Zhu Hongzhao and Feng Yun, two treacherous ministers who were extremely guilty and despised the king, and other civil and military officials in Beijing, would not pursue the matter. Please rest assured and not worry.

Besides, Kang Yicheng's idea was to lead all the guards' personal troops to surrender and make great contributions. But his subordinates could think of anything he could think of. Isn't it just to go to Fengxiang to receive another reward? Everyone can do this, so why do you have to follow you? As soon as Kang Yicheng led the army to Xin'an, only ninety miles west of Luoyang City, the guards' personal troops began to form gangs, either dozens or more than a hundred people, and broke away from the army in groups, rushed to Shaanxi Province, surrendering to Li Congke and received the reward!

Kang Yicheng's army quickly dissolved and collapsed at an extremely fast speed, and everything was exactly the same as Zhu Hongshi's prediction. When Kang Yicheng walked to the Qianhao east of Shaanxi Province, he met a small cavalry of Li Congke. He quickly untied his sword and surrendered. At this time, he had only dozens of people under his command!

On the evening of March 28, Li Conghou received news that Kang Yicheng and his personal guards had turned against each other. He was shocked and angry, and didn't know what else he could do! He had no idea and had to send an eunuch to summon Zhu Hongzhao to the palace to discuss matters. After receiving the order, Zhu Hongzhao was shocked. The first thing he thought of was that he urgently summoned me to the palace at this time to put the pot on my head and would definitely let me be a scapegoat! Anyway, I couldn't escape, so I chose a more relaxed way to die! So Zhu Hongzhao did not enter the palace, but found a well, turned over and escaped the killing of others.

At this time, An Congjin, the general in charge of public security and defense in Luoyang, had already had contact with Li Congke in private. He suddenly heard that Zhu Hongzhao committed suicide, and suddenly reacted and thought: The time has come. If you don’t do anything, you will miss the opportunity to make great contributions! There are two goals now, one is to seize Li Conghou. But this risk is too great. After all, Li Congke used the banner of "clearing the monarch". He did not say that he wanted to clear the monarch, so he might backfire. Then, to be safe, he chose the second goal.

An Congjin immediately led his troops into Feng Yun's house, killed the Feng family, and sent someone to catch Zhu Hongzhao's body from the well, cut off the heads of Zhu and Feng, and prepared to present them to Li Congke!

Let’s talk about Li Conghou’s summoning Zhu Hongzhao, and then he heard that Zhu Hongzhao and Feng Yun were dead, and An Congjin had two intentions. He was shocked. Obviously, there was no need to wait for Li Congke to arrive, and Luoyang City would be unsafe. Li Conghou urgently asked the chief supervisor Meng Hanqiong to prepare a chariot and horse guard in order to escape. But Meng Hanqiong was gone, and he had already left the city alone and went to the west to welcome Li Congke!

In desperation, Li Conghou had to run into the closest military control of the Hedu overnight for help. At this time, Murong Qian, the commander of the Hedu, was the confidant who had followed Li Conghou for many years. When Emperor Liang Zhu Youzhen encountered a disaster, Huangfu Lin, the commander of the Hedu, was the last loyal minister to accompany him to die. Murong Qian swears to the sky, loyalty and righteousness is touching, and said: "No matter whether you live or die, I will follow the emperor until the last moment!"

Li Conghou felt a little relieved, and finally there was a loyal minister, and said, "I want to go out of the city to Weizhou, gather the power of the Hebei vassal states, and slowly seek the opportunity for revival." So, Li Conghou first left the Xuanwu Gate under the escort of fifty cavalry, waiting for Murong Qian to come out. Unexpectedly, as soon as he left the door, Murong Qian closed the Xuanwu Gate and threw the oath of following the death that he had just made!

Even Murong Qian betrayed him, and Li Conghou was very sad. Fortunately, the fifty cavalry remained loyal to him. He had to escape to the northeast overnight under the protection of these dozens of people.

Early in the morning of March 29, all officials went to court as usual, and only then did they learn that two Privy Councilors died last night and escaped with one emperor! Obviously, the sky has changed. Among the three prime ministers, Feng Dao and Liu Xu planned to go home and wait, while another prime minister Li Yu opposed: "Although the emperor ran away, the empress dowager is still in the palace. If such a big thing happened, we should go to the palace to ask the empress dowager for the decision and let the empress dowager make a decision. This is the duty of the minister."

While several people were arguing, An Congjin sent someone to inform them: "His Highness Lu is stepping up to come east and is coming soon. Please prepare and go to welcome him." Feng Dao found the Secretariat's servant Director Lu and said: "The most urgent task now is to reduce the documents to persuade him to enter. Please start writing quickly."

But Director Lu said, "It is natural for King Lu to enter the court, and all officials to welcome him. As for the dethrone and establishment of the monarch, only the empress dowager has this authority. How can we be ministers and we should persuade us to go forward without authorization?" Feng Dao replied, "Although what you said is in line with the great way, the most important thing in doing things is to be pragmatic!" Director Lu said angrily, "Where is the reason why the emperor just ran away, his ministers were anxious to persuade others to be emperors? If King Lu insisted on his ministers' integrity and blamed us for righteousness, how can we answer?"

Director Lu was only half right. At this point, Li Congke could no longer stick to his ministers' integrity, but it did not prevent him from using righteousness to blame the treacherous people. Kang Yicheng, who led dozens of people to surrender, was scolded by Li Congke: "When the late emperor passed away, it was up to you to choose my brother to succeed the throne. During the mourning period of the emperor, all military and national affairs are left to you to deal with. You have established a new king and held great power. Why don't you know that there should be a beginning and an end? You cannot help but use your own heart, but will use your own hearts to harm my brother to this situation now!"

Kang Yicheng was so scared that he knelt on the ground, kowtowed desperately, and claimed to be a death sentence. Li Congke

I had no good feelings for Kang Yicheng, but now I see him as ugly, I feel even more disgusted. But considering that I have not entered Luoyang and have been too early to surrender, I decided to let him live a few more days.

Meng Hanqiong, another important figure who went to surrender, met Li Congke's army in Mianchi on April 1. Compared with Kang Yicheng, Meng Hanqiong felt that his surrender was more confident. After all, when Li Congke was persecuted by An Conghui, he obeyed the orders and tried a lot of efforts to rescue Li Congke. Li Congke should still remember these things.

So, when he saw Li Congke, Meng Hanqiong burst into tears, intending to make up for his feelings first and then reminisce about the past. Unexpectedly, Li Congke stopped him and said, "No need to say more about everything, I know very well." Then he left. Meng Hanqiong didn't react at once. What did Li Congke mean?

Since they were all their own people, Meng Hanqiong, who was calm in his heart, consciously joined the ranks of Congfengxiang's heroic officials who went east and moved forward together. Meng Hanqiong didn't know that if Li Congke was grateful, he would only be a shy person who saved people but did not harm others. In Li Congke's manifesto, Li Congrong's death had long been defined as being harmed by a treacherous minister. One of the purposes of his uprising was to seek justice for Li Congrong. When killing Li Congrong, Meng Hanqiong was the one who made the most efforts and acted the most actively. How could he be let go?

When Li Congke turned around, he found that Meng Hanqiong was so unaware of himself, and he couldn't help but be furious. He originally planned to go to Luoyang to clean up again. If you can't wait, then set off in advance! Li Congke ordered Meng Hanqiong to be pulled out of the crowd and beheaded beside the road!

At this time, the other generals who participated in the siege of Fengxiang also had their whereabouts. Wang Congjian, Wang Jingkan was arrested by his subordinates during his escape, and Xian and Li Congke. Zhang Qianzhao, the governor of Shannan West Road, who was the most responsible for the failure of the siege, successfully fled back to his garrison Xingyuan. Thinking about the fact that once Li Congke became emperor, he would probably not have any good results. Zhang Qianzhao acted with Sun Hanshao, the governor of Wuding who was also ordered to participate in the siege of Fengxiang, and offered the six prefectures under the jurisdiction of Shannan West Road and Wuding towns, and the prefectures were requested to surrender to the Later Shu Emperor Meng Zhixiang.

Meng Zhixiang, who had long said that he would wait to see Li Conghou's joke, got the good news that the pie fell from the sky. Of course, he would not be polite. He immediately ordered the general Li Zhao and Zhang Ye to lead the army north to surrender and take over the land of Shannan. Among the two towns, the governor of Xingzhou Liu Suiqing was the son of Liu Xiu and the brother of the deputy left-behind Liu Suiyong of Xijing, so he naturally did not want to surrender to Shu with Zhang Qianzhao. However, he had no ability to resist the Shu army, so he had to give up Xingzhou and cross the Qinling Mountains north with his troops and rush back to the territory of Later Tang. At this point, Later Shu unified Sanchuan and had a complete northern defense line.

In the early morning of the day when Meng Hanqiong was beheaded, Li Conghou ran in a hurry and fled to the outskirts of Weizhou. He happened to meet his brother-in-law Shi Jingtang, who was ordered to come south to meet. Shi Jingtang was the only person in the Later Tang Dynasty who had a reputation in the army that could match Li Congke.

Li Conghou seemed to have caught a straw before drowning. He was overjoyed and finally turned his luck: whether the country handed down by Emperor Mingzong can be preserved, and whether his own life can be saved. All of this depends on his brother-in-law's strategy and loyalty! Shi Jingtang was also quite surprised to see the emperor in this place.

If you want to know what happens next, please listen to the next breakdown!
Chapter completed!