Around noon the next day, Meng Zhong went to the inn in the city as agreed to visit Le Yi.

When the two met, when they heard Le Yi's name "Yanchengjun", Meng Zhong became aware of it. He looked at the next room in the direction of Le Yi's mouth. If nothing unexpected happened, the next door was probably where Qi Jiangtian Chu stayed.

Seeing this, Meng Zhongxin sneered secretly.

However, what made Meng Zhong even more ridiculous was that when he and Le Yi sat down and just started drinking, Tian Chu, who had heard the news, ran over and intervened in the private gathering between Meng Zhong and Le Yi with shamelessness. The guilty performance made Meng Zhong even more sure that Qi must have had some idea this time.

But unfortunately, because Tian Chu was present, Meng Zhong couldn't ask Le Yi directly, so Meng Zhong simply put it aside for the time being and simply drank and chatted with Le Yi. After all, he and Le Yi had not met for a while.

I have to say that Meng Zhong, Le Yi, and Tian Chu sat together to drink, and the atmosphere at the beginning was really strange.

After all, Meng Zhong and Tian Chu are not very friends, but Tian Chu is now having a close personal relationship with Le Yi...at least on the surface.

Perhaps seeing the atmosphere in the room was a little cold at the beginning, Le Yi took the lead in bringing up a topic, that is, his wife is pregnant.

When he heard this, Meng Zhong was stunned. Even Tian Chu was surprised and turned to Le Yi and asked, "When did it happen?"

"Last year." Le Yi explained with a smile: "Last autumn and winter, didn't I go back to Yan State? That's what happened at that time."

Tian Chu and Meng Zhong nodded suddenly, and then bowed to congratulate him.

"Have you thought about what your name is?" Meng Zhong asked.

Le Yi smiled slightly and said, "I thought about it a little about it when winter came last year. If it was a baby boy, it would be called... Lejian. If it was a baby girl, it has not been considered yet."

"between?"

Meng Zhong was stunned for a moment, then looked at Tian Chu who was smiling and congratulating Le Yi, and felt enlightened in his heart.

He said quietly: "The clan is probably not very suitable for the eldest son..."

But beside him, Tian Chu smiled and said, "I think it's not bad, Lejian, Lejian..." As he said, he smiled at Leyi and said, "When my nephew is born, don't forget to notify me, I will give you a generous gift."

Le Yi nodded with a smile, then asked Meng Zhong, "Where is Mr. Yancheng? You and I have worked together for many years, and your son must call him uncle, right?"

"It's natural, but you're afraid you have to wait a few more years." Meng Zhong said with a smile.

Beside, Tian Chu also teased Meng Zhong and said, "When Le Yi's son is born, shouldn't you also express it?"

"That's natural. I should prepare a generous gift when I look back." Meng Zhong nodded repeatedly.

Hearing this, Tian Chu smiled and said to Le Yi: "Don't refuse. Mr. Yancheng now has three fiefs in his hand, and he is rich and powerful..."

"Of course I won't refuse." Le Yi said with a smile.

The three of them chatted and ate wine, and the atmosphere between them gradually became harmonious.

I have to say that wine is indeed a good thing that can win over each other's relationships between men. After a few bowls of hot soup, even Meng Zhong and Tian Chu became much closer.

After a few bowls of hot wine, Tian Chu panted and said to Meng Zhong: "Yanchengjun... Brother Meng, do you remember the first time I was defeated by my brother? At that time, I was dissatisfied with my brother..."

Meng Zhong thought about it and realized that the battle of Zhuke County, which was directed by Tian Chu, was the time when he led 500 Xinwei troops to attack Tian Chu's tens of thousands of Qi army camps at night.

"... Even when Zhang Zi went to Zhao State later and returned to China, I and Tian Da were still dissatisfied with me and Tian Da, but then I was completely convinced by my brother..." He put one hand on Meng Zhong's shoulder, Tian Chu held the wine bowl with the other hand and recalled: "That time, our army had a total of 80,000 people, and Zhang Zi was there, but in the end he could not conquer the brother's guard. It was obvious that the Song army under his brother's command was only 20,000 to 30,000... I was convinced, brother, I was convinced."

"Brother Tian is over-reputable."

Meng Zhong shook his head humbly and said, "At that time, I only took advantage of my righteous brother who didn't know the ultimate advantage of his charity. The military strategy said, know yourself and your enemy, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles. At that time, Brother Tian Zhang didn't know it was me, but I knew that Brother Tian Zhang was in charge of the army on the other side, and he took a huge advantage invisibly."

Hearing Meng Zhong's humble explanation, Tian Chu nodded with satisfaction. After all, he respected Tian Zhang very much.

At this time, Meng Zhong also took the opportunity to ask Tian Chu and said, "After that, I don't know what Brother Tian Zhang is doing now? As far as I know, Brother Tian Zhang is not in good condition, but for some reasons, it is not easy for me to visit him..."

"The main thing is heart disease."

Tian Chu hiccupped and said to Meng Zhong: "These words should not be revealed to outsiders, but it should be okay to say them with Brother Meng... Zhang Zi is old and will naturally suffer from hidden diseases in his life. This is inevitable, but in the final analysis, it is because Zhang Zi and the king are incompatible..."

Speaking of this, he looked at Meng Zhong and Le Yi, then lowered his voice and said, "I don't know if you heard that, the current monarch of my Great Qi... How to say it, compared to King Wei and King Xuan, he is quite strict with others..."

As he said that, he began to tell some secrets of Qi, most of which were licentious things about the King of Qi’s fields and his strict treatment of his ministers.

For example, King Tiandi of Qi ordered the confiscation of the fiefs of the nobles of the office.

To be honest, the royal family ordered the confiscation of the office and the nobles' fiefs, which is actually nothing new in the contemporary era. For example, in Wei, the Wei State has confiscated many nobles' fiefs over the years because these noble families have not contributed to the country. Therefore, the Wei State confiscated the fiefs of these people and rewarded them to those who have made meritorious services. This is itself a link in the reform.

But Qi State is different. The King of Qi confiscated his land and the nobles' fiefs were because the King of Qi had no money.

Speaking of this, Tian Chu couldn't help but curse: "That damn Su Qin, relying on his once famous reputation, was regarded as a guest of honor by the king. Using filial piety as an excuse to instigate the king to build a large-scale construction for the dead... No, I mean building palaces and pavilions for the previous king... Zhang Zi questioned Su Qin in person several times, but was scolded by the king..."

『…』

Meng Zhong looked at Le Yi calmly, but saw that the latter looked calm.

Su Qin was the inner responder of Yan State in Qi. Meng Zhong learned all this from Le Yi very early, and today it was confirmed from Tian Chu's mouth that Su Qin did a good job in Qi. Of course, it refers to the useless aspects that made Qi spend most of the money.

"Brother Meng, do you know why the king wants to attack Song State?" Tian Chu turned his head and looked at Meng Zhong.

Meng Zhong shook his head slightly.

Seeing this, Tian Chu burped and said in a low voice: "Just because of the domestic offices, the nobles united to resist the royal family... To be honest, Zhang Zi is still alive now, and the nobles in the domestic family dare not act rashly. If one day Zhang Zi is gone, haha..."

Looking at Tian Chu's sarcastic look, Meng Zhongxin was also a little surprised.

He had never thought about it, but today after hearing what Tian Chu said, he realized that there were actually big problems in Qi.

And this internal problem is mainly one word, money.

In view of Su Qin's instigation, King Qi Tiandi wanted to show his filial piety and built a large-scale construction in Qi State to build a palace for the deceased King Xuan of Qi as a palace. However, as the construction was made, the treasury could not hold on, so King Qi Tiandi had the idea of ​​confiscating some of the princes and nobles' fiefs.

This incident caused a strong backlash from the domestic public and nobles. The Tian Jiajie King who broke out in the past few years was because of this incident that caused the intensification of contradictions.

Although Tian Jia was later executed, the conflict between the royal family and the nobles was not eliminated. However, Tian Zhang, who was fighting abroad, led his army back to the country in time, which did not cause a larger civil strife.

Of course, those nobles feared Tian Zhang on the one hand, and on the other hand, it was also because of Tian Zhang's comfort.

Tian Zhang has always been opposed to confiscation of domestic public tribes and noble fiefs, and even questioned Su Qin in person for this, suspected that Su Qin wanted to use this incident to provoke disagreements within Qi. Unfortunately, King Tian Di, King of Qi, did not think that he was deceived by Su Qin and used Su Qin's filial piety to refute Tian Zhang, which made the relationship between King of Qi and Tian Zhang very stiff.

After the Battle of Fengyang, Qi State was forced to cease war with Song State, and Tian Zhang, as the commander of the Qi army, was inevitably scolded by King Tian Di of Qi.

So Tian Zhang resigned from his position as Grand Sima in anger and returned to Kuangyi to recuperate. It was after this that Tian Chu replaced Tian Zhang as a general of Qi.

"That damn Su Qin, he is definitely a spy sent by another country." Tian Chu said confidently: "Not only Zhang Zi thinks this way, but in fact, all the ministers and ministers in the court think this way. If the king had not protected Su Qin, then Su Qin would have died more than ten times..."

"Stop the anger." Meng Zhong smiled and poured wine for Tian Chu, then spoke to comfort him.

But in his heart, he secretly admired Su Qin.

Su Qin was a figure of the same era as Zhang Yi, but his achievements were no more than Zhang Yi. The most talked about was that he helped Zhao Suhou to promote the alliance between the countries to attack Qin. Su Qin was regarded as a guest of honor by Zhao Suhou and as the Lord of Wu'an.

But then, Gongsun Yan, who had not been replaced by Zhang Yi, used the diplomatic relations between Qin and other countries to destroy Su Qin's strategy of uniting and attacking Qin. Su Qin faded out of the world. Since then, the Central Plains became the era of Zhang Yi and Gongsun Yan, and finally ended with Zhang Yi's victory, although Zhang Yi's final outcome was also bleak.

Therefore, in the eyes of the world, Su Qin's achievements are far inferior to Zhang Yi, at least Meng Zhong believes so.

But now in the matter of covering Qi, Su Qin, as a spy of Yan State, has done a great job, successfully making a powerful Qi State internally incompatible and riddled with holes.

"……etc!"

Suddenly, Meng Zhong was stunned.

Just now, Tian Chu explained to Meng Zhong the reason why King Qi Tiandi conquered Song State, that is, King Qi Tiandi lacked money to his deceased father, that is, the late King Xuan of Qi built a luxurious palace and wanted to confiscate the domestic princes, but the nobles' fiefdom was strongly resisted by those princes and nobles. In other words, the reason why Qi attacked Song State was because King Qi Tiandi fell in love with Yin Fu of Song State.

Then the question is, is Su Qin instigated him from the side in this matter?

Su Qin is a spy from Yan State, but he has been seriously suspicious of the ministers of Qi State such as Zhang Zi, so it is unlikely that he would have done too much. For example, when the nobles and nobles in Qi State strongly resist the royal family, he instigated the King of Qi to confiscate the fiefs of those people with more tough measures. This should be unlikely. After all, it is too much. A discerning person can see at a glance that Su Qin is destroying the foundation of the stability of Qi State. Even if Su Qin uses so-called filial piety to cover up, it may not be possible to make the ministers of Qi State accused him.

In this case, it is not impossible for Su Qin to instigate the King of Qi to attack Song State and use Song State to weaken Qi State. After all, Su Qin is a spy of Yan State, so he probably wouldn't care what kind of experience the Song State suffered.

If Su Qin had indeed instigated the King of Qi to attack the State of Song, then Le Yi, who was entrusted by the King of Yan, was he aware of the whole matter?

Think about it carefully, although Le Yi once told Meng Zhong that Yan State had already had a specific strategy for the demise of Qi. Out of trust in Le Yi, Meng Zhong did not ask about the specific strategy.

But today after hearing Tian Chu's words after drinking, Meng Zhong suddenly suspected that Su Qin, no, it should be said that Yan State's plan to overcome Qi, which is likely to involve Song State.

After glanced at Le Yi, Meng Zhong suddenly asked Tian Chu: "Thuzi, according to what you said, is your country's attack on Song State actually Su Qin instigating it behind the scenes?"

『…』

Le Yi was stunned when he heard this, and subconsciously looked up at Meng Zhong.

He seemed to think of something, and his color changed slightly.

How could Tian Chu know the profound meaning behind Meng Zhong's question? He smiled and said, "I want to admit this and instigate you, Song State to send an assassin to kill Su Qin, and by the way, eliminate this disaster for our Qi State... But I really don't know about this."

Meng Zhong nodded slightly, then asked Le Yi, "Sima Le, what do you think?"

『…』

Looking at the smile on Meng Zhong's face, Le Yi couldn't help but feel inexplicably nervous.

He knew that Meng Zhong obviously had doubts about Su Qin because of Tian Chu's words after drinking, and then he also had doubts about him and Yan State.

With his lips slightly moved, Le Yi shook his head and said, "I'm not afraid to assert."

“…”

Meng Zhong stared at Le Yi for a moment, nodded slightly in meaning, and then smiled and said, "Okay, it's getting late, so I'll say goodbye."

“Huh?”

Tian Chu was stunned when he heard this. Although he was half drunk and had complained to Meng Zhong about Tian Di, the king of Qi, he did not forget the heavy responsibility he shouldered, such as keeping a close eye on Meng Zhong and Le Yi, so as not to reveal some important information about Qi to Meng Zhong.

Because he was still aware of it, Tian Chu thought that Meng Zhong would stay for a while and tried to get along with Le Yi alone in order to ask about the situation. Unexpectedly, Meng Zhong proposed goodbye.

To be honest, this made Tian Chu feel a little regretful.
To be continued...