Chapter 399: Chasers are coming
The old nanny had long expected that the queen mother would send someone to summon the little emperor. After finishing the manuscript, she did not panic at all, and followed the court lady to the queen mother's side with steady steps.
Hearing the movement, the queen mother raised her head. The queen mother's face became even uglier when she didn't see the little emperor at a glance. She frowned and asked, "Where's the emperor?"
"Go back to your majesty, your majesty has developed a high fever, and now the imperial doctor Wang is administering acupuncture to your majesty."
Before the old mama finished speaking, the Empress Dowager Da Zhou frowned deeply, "Why did you suddenly have a high fever? Didn't you notice that he was unwell before?"
Although the old nanny wanted to say, didn’t you drive him into the carriage behind because he was unwell?
But as an old court lady whose life and death are in the hands of others, she dare not speak out her true thoughts.
She half-bowed and replied, "Hui Niang Niang, the servants found out about an hour ago, but at that time everyone was busy on their way, and we were afraid that we would fall into the siege of Xie's rebels by stopping the car rashly."
The Empress Dowager's face relaxed when she heard the words, she likes people who know the general situation and take into account the overall situation like this old nanny.
She waved her hand, "Forget it, let him recuperate in the car first."
The other courtiers of the Great Zhou who fled with the queen mother and the little emperor were not as calm as the queen mother. They all expressed that they wanted to visit the little emperor in the carriage behind.
The two elder brothers of the Empress Dowager looked at each other, and then proposed to go with everyone to visit their apparent monarch.
The empress dowager, who knew her brother's intentions, raised her hand, and the two maids in charge of serving her immediately supported her two arms.
The Empress Dowager stood up slowly with the support of the two, and then took the lead towards the carriage in which the little emperor was riding.
She said to the crowd: "Then you go with the Ai family. It happens that the Ai family is also very worried about the emperor's health."
Everyone answered "Yes" in unison.
However, before they got to the carriage that the little emperor was riding in, the officers and soldiers of the Imperial Guard who were in charge of keeping an eye on Xie's movements in the rear rushed to report.
"Report—" The five members of the scouting team got off their horses together, and then knelt down in unison outside the circle of guards not far from the Queen Mother and the courtiers.
The queen mother gave a look, and the old nun who was following her immediately trotted over, and put the bearded scout leader into the tight encirclement formed by the guards.
The scout leader didn't dare to look around. After being brought in, he immediately knelt down on his knees and reported the latest information they found during their investigation loudly and concisely.
"Report to the Empress Dowager, Xie's rebels have already caught up, and they are less than twenty miles away from us."
As soon as he said this, all the people present seemed to have been immobilized. None of them mentioned to visit the little emperor, but all turned their attention to their real backbone—the empress dowager.
The empress dowager made a prompt decision, "Order everyone to set off immediately!"
As for the little emperor, who would take care of him at a time like this!
Even the doctor Wang who gave the little emperor the injection before, after hearing the Queen Mother's order to "depart immediately", he immediately returned to his own carriage with oil on his feet.
After a while of flying around, the fleeing army left behind a number of pots, pans and pans and other miscellaneous daily necessities and set off again.
The same as when they escaped from the capital before, this time they also increased the speed of their cars and horses to the maximum speed.
Running all the way like this, the horses, which had been heavily loaded and accelerated before, naturally began to lose their strength for the first time.
And this includes the carriages that the Queen Mother's confidants ride.
Firstly, there were too many people riding in this carriage, and secondly, the horses used were not as good as those used by the queen mother and court officials.
It took less than a quarter of an hour for the team to run, and the carriage they were riding in, together with other carriages carrying servants from various families, gradually fell to the end of the fleeing army.
What frightened them most was that the imperial guards who were in charge of escorting the fleeing army only protected the empress dowager and high-ranking officials in front of them, and no one slowed down and stayed beside the carriage they were riding in to help them defend against the imminent attack. Those Xie rebels who came after them.
Seeing that Xie's team had already chased them, the crossbowmen were already galloping their horses and shooting a dense rain of arrows towards them, the eunuchs, maids and servants of the government who fell at the back of the team couldn't control it immediately. exclaimed.
Although the crossbowmen's accuracy was poor because of their horses galloping wildly, they couldn't stand the fact that they had too many bows and crossbows.
Xie's crossbowman wanted to shoot the fleeing team's carriage A, but his hand shook, and he shot the fleeing team's carriage B.
Xie's crossbowman Er wanted to shoot the second carriage of the fleeing team, but the horse jerked and he shot the third carriage of the fleeing team.
With such a mess of shots, most of the carriages at the end of the fleeing team were shot at the horses or carts soon.
Those who were unlucky and were shot directly at the horse basically either overturned the car and the horse directly, or the horse suffered pain, and then led the car and passengers behind to go on a rampage.
Those who were shot at the car, at most only killed one or two people sitting beside the car at first, but soon, their carriage was tripped by other horses and carts and overturned together.
There are also those carriages that were lucky enough not to be shot by Liu Ya. In this mess, they still couldn't survive alone.
In the end, the only ones that were not affected by the chaos were the carriages running in the middle and front of the line.
These carriages were protected by the accompanying Great Zhou Imperial Guards, and the few horses that ran out of control and rushed towards the middle of the team were all guarded by the Imperial Guards responsible for protecting these Great Zhou officials before they approached their target carriages. Simply beheaded.
Thanks to the narrow road here, the carriages running in the middle and the front of the fleeing team, because the carriages of the unlucky people behind helped them block the road, they quickly got rid of the Xie Jiajun who was blocked behind. up.
At this time, the empress dowager and all the dignitaries, none of them thought of the poor little emperor who was riding with the empress dowager's confidant maids and eunuchs.
The kid was lucky. Although the carriage he was riding in overturned, he himself was not thrown out of the carriage.
In addition, there were a lot of people around him who used their bodies to passively serve as natural shields for him, and he was not hurt by the edges and corners inside the carriage.
Until their overturned carriage came to a standstill on the side of the road, he was pushed away from them again by the empress dowager's confidantes and eunuchs who looked disgusted.