Chang'an is good

Chapter 582: Blood of the Rich
The palace immediately fell into chaos. A minister followed the eunuch and knelt down, saying in a trembling voice: "Your Majesty, please move to the Eastern Capital!"

"Your Majesty, please move!"

The prince also knelt on the ground in panic and kowtowed heavily: "Your Highness, I beg you to move to the Eastern Capital as soon as possible!"

"..."

There have been many disagreements in the court recently on whether to leave Beijing.

Some ministers believed that Chang Suining had evil ambitions and wanted to occupy the eastern capital Luoyang. If they went there now, it would be like a sheep walking into a tiger's mouth. By then, the royal family would lose all its dignity, and the emperor and the crown prince would both become puppets. Their life and death would only depend on their thoughts!
Some people also believed that if the emperor fled without a fight, people's hearts would collapse, which would only accelerate the fall of the capital, and make the situation, which had originally had a chance to turn around, become completely disastrous... Abandoning the capital when the situation is not yet clear is really foolish and cowardly.

Besides, the capital city may not necessarily be unable to be defended!

Bian Chunliang claimed to have an army of 200,000, which was an exaggeration. Even if he really had 200,000 soldiers, they were all a motley crowd that was hastily assembled... No matter how capable Bian Chunliang was, he would never be able to integrate 200,000 people into a disciplined iron army in such a short time!

The capital still has 40,000 well-trained troops defending it, so we may be able to fight back!
Even if they are not sure of victory, they can at least delay the attack for ten days or half a month. Time is opportunity. They have once again sent people to urge the Shannan West Road army to return to the capital, and issued urgent orders to all places, inviting all forces to come to the capital to protect the emperor... If reinforcements can be received within this half month, the capital will be out of danger!

But, but...

They never imagined that an army of 40,000 could only hold off the Bian army for three days!
how could this be...

Why did we lose so quickly? Why?!
This surprised question exploded in everyone's mind and also appeared in the emperor's heart.

Amid the mournful cries urging him to move, the Emperor of the Holy Ceremonial Throne slowly stood up, holding onto the golden dragon relief on the armrest of the dragon throne with one hand.

Wind blew in from outside the hall, blowing the wide dragon robe on her body, making the figure beneath the robe look even thinner and even a little empty.

A flash of lightning flashed across the hall, and in an instant, a layer of deathly pale color covered the entire hall. The brilliance of the dragon throne behind the emperor was also obscured by the paleness, and the firm obsession in her eyes that had never disappeared also turned gray for a moment.

Many times, the Emperor of the Holy Ceremonies could clearly feel the invisible chains bound around him.

Yes, she finally ascended the throne and became the true dragon emperor, but there were still chains on her body. The Li family, the vassal generals, the nobles... these people had been binding her tightly, constantly competing with her, wanting to put her to death and turn her into ashes.

Since ascending the throne, she has been thinking about breaking free and killing them every day...

Over the past ten years, she has been steadfastly walking on this path, killing vassal generals, killing royal family members, killing nobles. She has clearly killed so many enemies...

But it was not until this moment that she clearly felt that those chains with sharp thorns finally broke one by one and scattered one by one...but at the same time, she felt the pain of having her imperial power stripped away.

As the chains fell off, she seemed to have no support and completely lost touch with the dragon throne behind her.

In a trance, she seemed to realize that although imperial power and chains were naturally hostile, they were also interdependent in a sense... and what really brought her disaster was outside the chains that bound her, and even outside her sight.

The empress stared blankly outside the palace.

Under the illumination of the glazed palace lanterns, countless tiny particles of dust were surging in the wind and rain.

The tiny particles of dust that had never been taken seriously gathered together, turning from invisible to visible, and suddenly swarmed towards her in an instant, like invisible threads in a cocoon, entangling her one by one.

The empress felt that she could not move.

She, who never took any problem lightly, subconsciously wanted to deny and avoid it at this moment. She tried to tell herself and the world that "Li Yin set up a trap to plot against me." However, countless voices in her mind surged and clamored, forcing her to face up to her long-standing misconceptions.

The questions about "people's will" one after another, along with the countless fine cocoons formed by dust, seemed to crush her alive.

The dampness of the rain rushed into her nose, and for an instant she seemed to have returned to the days when she lived next to the elephant park many years ago.

Those years were dark and damp, and she was depressed all the time, but at this moment, the first thing that came to her mind was the innocent laughter of children.

When they were young, Ah Xiao and Ah Shang both loved to laugh, especially Ah Shang.

When he was very young, Ashang had an extremely distinct personality. He was lively, active, and extremely stubborn.

When punished to kneel, Ah Shang would never admit his mistakes easily. A child as young as him would rather kneel for an hour than admit he did anything wrong. But when he saw his mother coughing and feeling chest tightness due to anger, he would immediately stand up nervously, saying he was wrong and asking her what was wrong.

From that time on, she saw through the child's heart and soul.

At that time, she didn't like Ah Shang's excessive activity. Whenever he did that, she would always think of the sick Ah Xiao, and then think of the unsatisfactory but powerless situation...

As if it was destined by fate, this stagnant situation was unexpectedly broken by A Shang who was disguised as A Xiao.

From then on, she became more and more strict in asking Ah Shang to control his temper.

Ah Shang did a very good job indeed. He studied for Ah Xiao, went to the battlefield, and became the crown prince... Every time he came to pay his respects to her, he was quieter and calmer than the last time.

Until that last time we knelt down to say goodbye, it was quiet.

This calmness was probably the result of her mother's teaching, and she naturally recognized and appreciated it.

But at this moment, as a bystander, she suddenly triggered these old memories and suddenly realized that this process from liveliness to silence was actually a kind of alienation and separation...

This memory appeared very abruptly in the empress's mind. This was definitely not the right time to recall the past. Its sudden appearance was probably due to the changes in the mother-daughter relationship, which had something in common with the gradual divergence between the emperor and the people without him realizing it.

At this moment, the empress was almost confused.

Human hearts are invisible and changeable, and human nature is evil and greedy. Without deterrence and discipline, it is impossible to control it... She clearly had not been careless, so why did she get so out of control?

What went wrong? If she could start over again, what changes should she make to avoid what happened now?

The empress tried to think about it, but found that she had no answer.

As a king, she stood at the highest point, looking down on all living beings and knowing everything about the world... But in the face of such a huge mistake, she had no answer!
This answer without an answer made the empress feel lost and unable to reflect on herself. Under the loss was the fear brought by the loss of control.

The thing she hated most in her life was losing control.

Out-of-control things, out-of-control people, out-of-control life... She wanted to escape from all this out-of-control, gain the power to be in control and no longer be influenced by anyone or anything. This was exactly her original intention of climbing up step by step.

But at this moment, she was surrounded by a feeling of being out of control that was a hundred times stronger than before, and was about to be swallowed up by it.

The golden bricks under my feet seemed to be breaking, and the whole hall was falling rapidly. The sky was spinning, and everything was shifting...

The empress subconsciously reached out and tried to grab something.

A gust of cold wind whistled into the hall, and the two candles on the bronze candlestick flickered and went out. The empress's thin figure also swayed and fell to the ground like a candle flame extinguished in the wind.

The emperor's crown fell, and the jade beads scattered, splashing and rolling down the steps.

"saint!"

"His Majesty!"

"..."

The wind has not stopped, but the rain has eased a little.

On the agitated streets, in a speeding carriage, an old man sitting upright sighed, "Success is unintentional, and failure is also unintentional."

A man in his early forties asked anxiously, "Father... where are we going?"

The old man was annoyed by the question: "How should I know?"

The man's eyes widened: "You... don't know where you're going? How dare you follow me?"

"The fire has already reached your eyebrows, what are you waiting for if you don't leave?" Master Chu said unhappily, "It's fine if you can just leave!"

The man raised his hand and pointed at the driver: "Well... you should know who these people are!"

Master Chu: "Nonsense."

The man holding the bag finally breathed a sigh of relief and stopped asking further questions. He just lifted a corner of the car curtain and looked back, saying anxiously, "I don't know if they have caught up..."

Upon hearing this, Master Chu felt upset - if he had fewer children, it wouldn't have come to this critical moment. Just loading all those descendants would have taken ten full carts, which was a waste of horses, manpower, and time. It was so annoying!
Ten fully loaded carriages carrying the Chu family members galloped towards Dengtai Tower.

There is a secret passage in Dengtai Tower that has existed for many years and can be used to leave the city. Last year, under the instruction of Chang Suining, Meng Lie had the passage reopened and put into use again.

When Master Chu and his entourage arrived at Dengtai Tower, they could faintly hear the sound of Bian Jun's horses' hooves.

Chang Ren and others did not dare to delay for a moment and went to various places according to the plan.

It would have been reasonable to arrange for the people on the list to leave the city as early as possible, rather than waiting until Bian's army entered the city. However, the imperial court ordered to defend the capital, had already closed all city gates, and strictly prohibited powerful officials from escaping privately, and the supervision measures were very strict.

After the curfew, patrols in the city were particularly strict and no one was allowed to go out. Once discovered, they would be killed on the spot.

The court was unwilling to abandon the city, and in order to stabilize the situation and people's hearts, it made various decisions, which greatly increased the difficulty of Chang Ren and others' actions. During these days, they could only deploy in secret and make preliminary preparations. Until this moment, when the Bian army entered the city, the city defense was broken, and the imperial army was unable to take care of itself, the final rescue plan was put into action in public.

The imperial court, which had held out until this moment, was not unprepared.

The passage to the city gate at the rear has been opened, and there are still elite soldiers resisting in front of the palace gate. The five thousand imperial guards used to escort the emperor and the crown prince out of the city are on standby at all times - although the emperor's persistence is stubborn, he has never been blind and waited for death.

In other words, the court left time and room for escape.

However, the emperor can only take a limited number of important officials with him, and ordinary nobles and common people who have no escort can only rely on their own luck.

The discipline of the Bian army was not strict. After Bian Chunliang led his troops into the city, he went straight to the palace. However, the soldiers following behind were so excited when they saw the prosperous capital that many of them left the team, followed the evil thoughts and greed in their hearts, and looted indiscriminately with their knives.

Many families knew they could not afford to risk leaving the city, so they decided to stay indoors and wait out the storm, but were violently forced open by the knife-wielding Bian Jun.

On this first night, the fate of the powerful and wealthy is destined to be more difficult and eventful than that of ordinary people.

The Bian troops specifically targeted the wealthy families to rob. One after another, their beautiful red doors were broken down and there were cries of grief and wailing everywhere.

An old man in a brocade gown denounced the "villain as having no morals" and was dragged out by Bian Jun, who mocked and laughed at him. They stripped him of his clothes, killed him with a knife, and left his body on the long street to be trampled by the panicked crowd.

The blood dyed the rain red, and it flowed along the grooves into the moat.

"Sister-in-law, hurry up!"

At the back door of the Wu family's house, Wu Chunbai picked up his young nephew, hurriedly stuffed him into the carriage, and helped his elderly grandfather onto the carriage.

Two of the three carriages were soon full. When Wu Chunbai was about to get on the carriage, suddenly a sharp arrow flew over and almost brushed her nose!

When Wu Chunbai barely managed to dodge, he fell backwards to the ground, ignoring the pain, and shouted in fear, "Hurry up! The Bian army is here, hurry up and go to the agreed place! Someone will pick us up!"

Several drivers were horrified and immediately whipped their horses without caring about anything else.

The accident happened in an instant. Almost at the same moment, a group of Bian troops on horseback surrounded them. They shot arrows at the galloping carriage, and when they failed to stop it, they cursed.

When Wu Chunbai got up from the ground, he was surrounded by the Bian army.

She vaguely heard the cries of her family members coming from the direction where the carriage left. The cries gradually faded away, which made her feel a little relieved. However, she had to start focusing on her own dire situation.

What's worse is that in addition to a group of servants who followed closely, she found that her brother Wu Zhaobai was not able to escape either.

Before those people started to attack, Wu Chunbai said, "Generals, we just want to save our lives. Our property is at home, just go and get it!"

Hearing his sister's words of surrender, Wu Zhaobai's face changed and he clenched his fists, enduring in silence.

Some of the people in the group spoke in southern dialects, but the leader spoke with a very distinguishable Shannan accent: "Of course we have to take the property!"

As he spoke, a malicious smile flashed in his eyes: "Young lady, come with us too!"

As soon as he finished speaking, he suddenly drove his horse forward and swung the lasso.

The rough lasso fell on Wu Chunbai, and the man tightened the rope and exerted force with his hands. Wu Chunbai was immediately pulled to the ground by this great force. The man on the horse laughed viciously, drove the horse around in circles and dragged Wu Chunbai, which attracted more unbridled laughter and cheers.

As Wu Chunbai, covered in mud, struggled, a figure suddenly rushed forward and threw himself beside her. He grabbed the rope in front of her tightly with one hand, and with the other hand he took out a dagger that he had prepared at some point, gritted his teeth and quickly cut the rope.

His movements were clumsy and flustered, and he cut his fingers and made them bleed, but he didn't care about anything else and quickly pulled his sister up: "Chunbai! Let's go!"

However, before the brother and sister could fully stand up, their way was blocked by the group of people again.

This time, the leader's face no longer showed a teasing expression, but a sinister anger.

See you tomorrow~