Chapter 277: Choice
Prince Alan still had some means, and he successfully subdued the 30,000 prisoners of war handed over to him by the Han army.
Among them, in addition to his own 5,000 subordinates, more than 20,000 were subordinates from his father.
Prince Alain first made a promise to them as his heir to the throne, guaranteeing them their future glory and wealth.
Later, he revealed to them the conspiracy of the eldest prince and the Huns, and finally emphasized the fact that they were ruthlessly abandoned by their father when they were defeated.
Speaking of abandonment, it was undoubtedly the 8,000 captured hoplites who felt the deepest.
All the hoplites were ruthlessly abandoned at the last moment by King Kangju, who ordered them to resist to the death to cover the escape of the king's elite and favorite longbow cavalry.
It is the saddest thing for the warriors to be abandoned by their loyal commanders and become outcasts, so these 8,000 hoplites have lost their trust in King Kangju.
Before that, they had heard that Prince Alain would rather live and die with the city of Samarkand than surrender and escape alone.
People are very likely to make impulsive choices when they have strong contrasts.
When Prince Alain came to persuade them to surrender in person, they did not hesitate to join Prince Alain's command, and Prince Alain loudly promised his oath of inseparability with their subordinates.
All the prisoners of war were also infected, and they demanded allegiance to Prince Alain, and followed him in the war, and those who died as confidants died, I am afraid that this is the case.
In the end, Prince Alain regained an army of more than 60,000 men, including 8,000 of the most elite hoplites, and the Han army returned their weapons and equipment.
Prince Alan left more than 10,000 men to guard the city of Samarkand, and he himself led an army of 50,000 to march to the city of Tashkent with the army of the Han army.
Fa Zheng also left 10,000 Wusun troops to assist in defending the city, and he took all the remaining troops to accompany Prince Alan into Beijing.
The armies of the various provinces along the way made way for Prince Alain, and many even swore allegiance to Prince Alain halfway and joined the team heading north.
Of course, many of these armies were controlled by the two major families, so even when they went outside the territory of the southern provinces and entered the control of the royal city of Tashkent, this phenomenon continued to occur.
Along the way, only a handful of generals who were loyal to the king refused to allow Prince Alain to pass, and they were all easily eliminated by Prince Alain.
And the army loyal to the eldest prince did not see a single one, and did not know where to run.
When they were about to reach Tashkent, the coalition forces suddenly turned northeast and rushed to the fiefdom of the Great Prince, whose army had expanded to nearly 100,000 men.
The entire northeastern province was the fief of the Great Prince, next to the territory of the Huns.
However, at this time, the border of the eldest prince's fief was waiting for a large army.
The eldest prince shrunk all the troops loyal to him back to the northeastern provinces, and together with the militia he desperately recruited in the provinces, he also raised 80,000 troops.
However, half of them were newly recruited soldiers, who lacked training, equipment, and morale.
The eldest prince's maternal family, the Huns, also sent 50,000 reinforcements, this time it was the Northern Xiongnu Shan Yu Yu Yu personally marched.
Of course, Shan Yu wanted the eldest prince who was close to the Huns to ascend to the throne, not the second prince of Kangju's pureblood.
In fact, they have also been actively arranging Kangju in recent years, wanting to get rid of the competitor of the second prince Alain.
But he never expected that the second prince would suddenly attack, come up with so much forged evidence at once, and dump the reasons for the failure of the two wars on the head of the eldest prince.
Prince Alan and Fazheng's coalition army combined, as many as more than 200,000 people, is much more than the eldest prince's side.
Prince Alan and Fa Zheng agreed that when the war began, Prince Alan would face the army of the eldest prince, and the Han army would be responsible for dealing with the Huns.
In order to avoid long nights and dreams, Prince Alan did not rest much, and almost at the same time as he reached the border of the Northeast Province, he directly launched an attack on the eldest prince.
Prince Alan personally commanded his subordinates to take the initiative to attack the eldest prince's army, and the eldest prince could only fight hard.
The Han army that accompanied the prince to study did not even use the Western Regions Coalition Army, and the five divisions of the Central Army themselves broke their heads in order to be the main attacking force.
In the end, the three units of the Special Operations Division, the Third Cavalry Division, and the First Cavalry Division grabbed the qualification for the main attack.
Prince Alain's 100,000 troops are all battle-hardened standing troops, while the eldest prince's subordinates have only 40,000 veterans, and the rest are newcomers.
When the hoplites on Prince Alain's side made a grand appearance, they deeply shocked the eldest prince, and with the presence of these 8,000 hoplites, Prince Alain had already determined the basis for invincibility.
The eldest prince didn't know that these hoplites were former prisoners, but thought that they were sent by his father to support the second child, and he was abandoned by his father like this, and he lost his fighting spirit.
Therefore, as soon as the two sides fought, the eldest prince had lost all his fighting spirit and fled in panic, and only the thousands of people who were most loyal to him fled with him.
The rest of the army, seeing that their commanders have run away, what else is there to say, raise your hands and surrender!
Shan Yu of the Northern Xiongnu was even more straightforward, and did not fight the Han army at all, so he led the army of the Huns and withdrew to the territory of the Huns.
The eldest prince was still very shrewd, and he also fled to the territory of the Huns, and did not even dare to return to his own fiefdom and city.
The eldest prince's single escape chilled the hearts of many of the eldest prince's subordinates.
Therefore, many people waited for Prince Alain to arrive, and they enthusiastically joined Prince Alain's army.
It was not until the capital of the Northeast Province was taken that the entire territory of the Northeast Province was subdued.
When attacking the capital, because of the absence of the eldest prince, where did the defending army have the determination to resist the siege of the city.
Before the Han sappers piled up as much explosives as they could under the city, a white flag was raised on the top of the city, demanding surrender.
After completely occupying the entire northeastern province, Prince Alan sent Kunbu to garrison it with his army, and he himself led his army back to Tashkent with the Han army.
Seven or eight out of ten of the cities around Tashkent have also surrendered to Prince Alan and taken refuge under the command of Prince Alain, and those who have been loyal and stubborn have become dead souls under the sword.
In the end, the combined forces of Prince Alan and the Han Chinese besieged the city of Tashkent, and the army shouted the slogan "Qing Jun's side", which was deafening.
There were only 20,000 remaining troops loyal to the king in the city, while there were still more than 200,000 coalition troops outside the city.
By this time, King Kangju could understand that Prince Alan was really coming to Qingjun.
If he refuses to abdicate, he may end up with only a dead end, and the elders who stand on the side of the second eldest in the family account for the majority.
They all advised themselves to hand over the prime minister's family, step down from the throne, and let Prince Alain inherit the throne so that he could spend the rest of his life safely.
King Kangju finally accepted the terms of the royal elders, and he ordered his loyal troops to arrest all the people of the prime minister's clan and the prince's court.
He himself surrendered the king's sword and seal, and then ordered the palace guards and longbow cavalry loyal to him to surrender to Prince Alain.
He left Tashkent with a few concubines and servants in a desolate evening and went to the southern provinces, where Prince Alain had prepared for him to spend his old age in peace, but he had a good death.