The prerequisite for all this is that the prince's position must be stable and continue to be stable. Since he cannot be a traitor, he can only be determined to be a loyal minister.
So he must make the prince cheer up.
"Your Highness, Dachen's strength remains! Your Highness's only concerns are Qinghe and the Second Prince. As long as General Liu holds his ground here, and Your Highness has given General Liu all the manpower and resources of the entire southwest, I believe that even if he cannot attack, he should be able to defend himself more than enough."
The real threat remains within Jiankang City. Your Highness has been away from the center for a long time. Although you have a sense of justice, the unfavorable situation in the war is indeed damaging to your reputation. If the Second Prince attacks at this time, Your Highness will be unable to stop him...
Therefore, I believe that only if Your Highness personally leads the army back to the capital and clears up the problem, can we deter these scoundrels."
With only the emperor and his minister present, Wei Chun didn't care about any taboos and told the truth directly.
"If my father were still alive, I would be afraid..."
The prince looked quite hesitant.
"Your Highness! Please forgive me for speaking frankly. If Your Highness achieves a complete victory this time and annihilates Qinghe, with such a great achievement in hand, you will naturally be fearless of all conspiracies and intrigues. Even if... even if Your Majesty can hold out for a few more years, Your Highness will only have to wait a few more years. But the problem is, we lost the battle!
Your Highness, the weaker we are, the more we need to be strong. We must not let anyone see our weakness, otherwise the rats lurking in the dark corners will rush over and devour us! We must show our strength!"
Wei Chun said sternly: "Your Highness, this is our only chance!"
"But what if Liu Yong can't stop the Qinghe people?"
"My Lord!"
Wei Chuan was about to cry. Is this the time to think about these things?
"The people of Qinghe are nothing but a minor nuisance. The Great Chen Dynasty has vast territories. If they want the southwest, if that doesn't work, just cede it to them! After all, our core area is in the southeast. As long as the southeast is preserved, the Great Chen Dynasty still has hope. The reason why I asked Liu Yong to plunder so desperately is simply because I thought, if the situation is hopeless, what would happen if we just leave this corrupt southwest to Qinghe? With such a mess to drag on, the people of Qinghe will not be able to continue their offensive for ten years.
And we only need ten years. Under your leadership, with the national strength of Dachen, we will definitely be able to prepare a more powerful army. Then we can take back what we lost!
The real problem now is that even if we hold on to the southwest, if anything happens in Jiankang, Your Highness will be making things easier for others! Without you, what good is it for us to have the Great Chen Dynasty? "
Wei Chun's words struck a chord with Crown Prince Chen Yu. It was the first time he looked at his subject so seriously, as if he had just met him for the first time.
It is always said that the country needs loyal ministers in times of crisis. He could no longer judge whether Wei Chun was a loyal minister, but he could still see that Wei Chun was doing this for his own good.
Just as he was deciding to say something, the guard's crying voice came from the tent door:
Your Highness, an urgent military report from eight hundred miles away.
The messenger who had fainted from exhaustion lay on the ground in the camp and no one paid any attention to him. The emperor and his ministers of the Chen Dynasty, who had already circulated the military newspaper, looked at each other in silence. Even Wei Chun's lips were trembling and he couldn't speak. If we forced the Lord Wei who had just been so passionate to say something at this time, he would definitely say: The sky has fallen.
Yes, the sky is falling.
According to the military newspaper, half a month ago, a coalition force composed of the Qinghe Army and the Liang Army suddenly appeared on the central battlefield and launched an "unprecedented scale" attack on the Chen Dynasty's defense line.
Under the cover of Qinghe's incendiary weapons and powerful crossbows, the armored infantry and cavalry of Liang State broke through the defense line that the Chen Dynasty had built for many years like a tide. The three ruling departments stationed behind the defense line, serving as the general reserve force of the entire central battlefield, launched a counterattack under the leadership of the ruling officer Wang Jian.
However, the Qinghe catapult unleashed a weapon never before seen. Instead of exploding violently upon landing, it emitted a sound similar to a fart. Immediately, a new and indispellable "smoke" enveloped the entire battlefield. The armies of the three ruling factions panicked under this blow, and the soldiers fled in all directions...
General Wang Jian committed suicide at the last line of defense, and the central battlefield, which had been held for four hundred years, was completely defeated.
The allied forces of the two countries captured the three counties of Ruyin, Nanqiao and Nanxu within three days and marched straight to Jiankang.
Meanwhile, on the border between Xinyuetu and the Chen Dynasty, the Xinyuetu army, which had been on the defensive, suddenly disappeared, replaced by elite Qinghe soldiers. From the moment they appeared, these Qinghe soldiers launched an attack on the Chen Dynasty's already thin defenses, and divided their forces to cut off the rear from the Chen Dynasty's front camp. This is why these battle reports have only just arrived...
At present, the defenders of the four counties in the central part of the Chen Dynasty, namely Anle, Ancheng, Xiangdong and Linchuan, have been defeated, and all the cities where the government was located have also fallen. However, the Qinghe army did not attack in all directions, but advanced from south to north along the Laishui line, intending to cut the territory of the Chen Dynasty in half.
Well, it sounds complicated, but there is actually only one way - to block the retreat of the Chen Dynasty army on the southwest front.
Until now, all three armies of Qinghe have appeared.
It was only now that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince finally had to admit that he had been fighting with an army group from Qinghe with the entire country's troops, and that he had lost.
"Your Highness, how about we just withdraw?"
Wei Chuan looked around at his colleagues whose faces were pale, and was the first to stand up.
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