Fan. Dean suddenly found that he had a problem: since the battle was over, he should report the results to Qin Lang immediately, but now, he didn't know how to report - not because the soldiers were not good enough, but because they were doing too well, better than other times, to exceed Qin Lang's requirements. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Qin Lang simply asked him to crush the Chinese army and drive it back to Beijing, but Fruhoff and his soldiers completely eliminated their target, except for the dead and the escaped, the remaining Chinese soldiers became prisoners of the legion, leaving the commander feeling overwhelmed.

He did not expect this result at all, and, of course, neither did Fruhav and his soldiers. According to the commander's initial estimates, as soon as the mercenaries began a hand-to-hand assault as planned, the target would immediately collapse, and the battered and demoralized soldiers would flee in all directions, and then, after a period of confusion, regroup and return to Beijing to report the defeat to their generals......

That's how it should be.

Unfortunately, the situation did not develop exactly as he had anticipated. When Commander Fruhauff and his men charged, the objective did quickly crumble, but the vast majority of the Chinese soldiers did not flee the battlefield - not that they couldn't, they didn't, they had no intention of doing so - but surrendered to the mercenaries outright, and only a handful of them took the "right" action.

That is, Fruhaov, albeit not with his original intentions, captured more than a thousand prisoners.

Other times, it would have been good news, but now it was terrible: even without taking into account the order, it would be a huge hassle to just deal with these captives, and it would be impossible to either kill them or let them go, but if they were to follow the troops, only God would know what new problems would arise.

It's terrible.

Fan. Dean walked back and forth outside Qin Lang's headquarters with a sad face, not knowing how to report the good things Fruhauff had done to his boss. For a moment, he tried to shift the blame to the battalion commander or the Chinese soldiers who had no fighting spirit, but according to Qin Lang's habit, he would not accept these meaningless explanations, and if there was anyone who needed to take responsibility for the current situation, it would only be the commander himself.

The Commander's eyebrows were almost twisted at the thought of that unfortunate result, and it seemed to him that the thin wooden door of the Provisional Command that could be kicked open with a single kick had also become a steel gate to the entrance to hell, and it would take all his strength to push it open, and at the same time, he was afraid to push it open.

Unfortunately, no matter how difficult it was, he always had to report the results of the battle to Qin Lang. Soon, the door to the command opened, and an agent from the Secret Service came out and told Fan. Dean, Qin Lang is waiting for him. So the commander had no choice but to bite the bullet and go into the room to finish his report.

"Commander Fruhauff has eliminated all of his targets, boss."

"Fruhauff? You shouldn't let him do this task, Fan. Commander Dean. Qin Lang's reaction was not much different from the commander's guess, and his voice suddenly became stern. Wipe them all out! So, can I assume that not a single enemy fled? ”

"Not entirely, boss." The commander hurriedly replied - probably, this was the only chance to reduce the punishment. "It can be confirmed that at least two hundred soldiers still escaped."

"Really?"

"I can guarantee it, boss."

"In that case, I can stop pursuing this matter, Commander." Qin Lang let his tone soften, "But next time, you'd better find someone more suitable to perform this kind of task." ”

"I understand, boss." Fan. Dean assured solemnly.

"Of course," Qin Lang continued, "this force is also more vulnerable than I expected. Although the Armed Guards were undoubtedly the worst of the five armies of the Armed Guards, Commander Fruhoff's record still makes me wonder if our opponent is really that army......"

"I can interrogate the captives right away, boss." The commander was eagerly demanding. It was an opportunity to get out of trouble once and for all, and he couldn't let it go.

But Qin Lang shook his head slowly. "There's no need, Commander, whether it's really the Martial Guard Rear Army or not, my purpose has been achieved."

"Purpose?"

"I've said 'hello' to Beijing."

"But what does that mean?" Fan. Dean asked, confused.

Qin Lang withdrew his gaze from the commander and turned his gaze back in another direction—the direction of Beijing. This meant that the Manchu government had to react to a looming threat. It means ......" He paused deliberately for a moment, and then sighed contentedly: "A panicked escape." ”

Definitely.

Qin Lang believed that after receiving his greetings, his army would prompt Cixi, as well as the nobles and ministers of the Manchu government, to make this choice. An imminent and indelible threat, they would have looked at the mercenaries in this way, and became alarmed, not in the slightest regard for the fact that the army was only 10,500 men, and that there were no reinforcements - of course, they could not have obtained this information - and then these men fled from Beijing in a hurry, as he knew.

Soon, Cixi had to leave her palace and take the Guangxu Emperor and the noble ministers to Xi'an, handing over an unsuspecting city to him.

Soon......

※※※

As Qin Lang had predicted, hysterical panic was spreading rapidly among the nobles and ministers in Beijing, and it was brought back two pieces of information from Li Bingheng, who was stationed in Tongzhou and was in charge of the defense of the Gyeonggi region: a devastating blow to one of his 3,000-strong troops—apparently Major Shepard's intelligence was incorrect—and the surviving soldiers brought back news that a coalition force of tens of thousands was advancing toward Beijing.

There is no doubt that the information concocted by this surviving soldier in order to clear himself of responsibility was completely wrong and exaggerated the size of the mercenary, but there is no doubt that it was the key to making Qin Lang's prediction come true.

Moreover, as if to emphasize the urgency of this information, Li Bingheng sent three telegrams in succession to remind the Military Aircraft Department to pay attention.

The problem has become serious.

Tens of thousands of coalition troops! None of the nobles or ministers were able to remain calm when they saw or heard the news. As these people are well aware, the British-French coalition of thirty-eight years ago was much smaller than the current one, but it was obvious what a threat a coalition of tens of thousands of men would be, having captured Beijing and burned the Old Summer Palace.

The army stationed in Beijing will definitely not be able to resist this coalition army, and it will only take one day, at most two days, and the city will once again fall into the hands of Western countries - as for the Boxers, although there are more than 100,000 boxers in Beijing, and although Zaiyi, Fortitude, and Zaixun always boast of how miraculous the boxers are and can wipe out all the Western devils in an instant, in fact, not a single nobleman or minister really believes that these people can play any role.

The boxers were just cannon fodder, and they could only rely on their huge numerical superiority to exchange countless sacrifices for a small, insignificant victory, and the nobles and ministers thought so. Moreover, even this little thing they still did not do well enough, neither destroying the expeditionary force of the British, nor defeating the American army in the Tianjin concession.

But at that time they still had a numerical advantage, and now, in front of tens of thousands of coalition troops, these mobs can't even act as cannon fodder.

The nobility and ministers were desperate at the state of the war and the safety of Peking, and even the most determined warmen became panicked and depressed when they received the news. The only reason these people didn't immediately abandon the city and flee to a safer place was that they couldn't confirm the veracity of Lee's report.

Of course, it is almost certain that Li Bingheng did not lie, there was no need to deliberately create panic in Beijing, and there was no need to send three warning telegrams in a row, but his report contradicted the war report sent by Nie Shicheng: since the former army of Wuwei had blocked the coalition forces near Tianjin and dealt two heavy blows to the Japanese army in succession, where did the tens of thousands of coalition troops who were advancing towards Beijing come from?

It obviously could not have come from Tientsin, otherwise the former army of Wuwei would have been completely wiped out, and Tientsin had also fallen - but it was not; But it can't come from other directions, because if it comes from other directions, it will definitely not be Li Bingheng who sends back the news first.

It was impossible for an army of this size to advance silently to the vicinity of Tongzhou.

Of course, it is also impossible for Nie Shicheng to lie - although from a historical point of view, this possibility is far higher than any other, but except for a handful of overly conservative guys, no one is willing to admit that it is true, but unanimously believes that the army trained by American advisers should have a stronger fighting capacity than the old army.

More importantly, Yulu, who served as a front-line commander in Tianjin, could confirm the authenticity of Nie Shicheng's report, and he did, so although Nie Shicheng must have added water to his report, it is still worth believing and can be used as a basis.

So the question goes back to square one: what about the tens of thousands of coalition troops reported by Li Bingheng?

The military ministers who stood at the pinnacle of power felt that their brains were hurting.

"So be it." In the end, Rong Lu made a suggestion, "Let Li Bingheng organize a counterattack, so that we can know the answer." (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )