On the eighth day of the September 19th, in Pengcheng, Song Dynasty, the prime minister Hui'an brought wine and meat to the military camp outside the city to visit the army.

The current situation of the State of Song is very unfavorable. The Tancheng Defense Zone, which has been in operation for several years, was easily captured by the Qi army. Even Fengyang was also captured by the Qi army. Pengcheng, as the capital of the State of Song, has become the front line of the battlefield.

Two months ago, Pi County in the east fell, and the Qi army immediately attacked Luyi westward. To be fair, the Song ** team retreated to Luyi were actually not many, but unfortunately, these troops were retreated from Tancheng and had no morale. This led to the Qi army only launching a three-day offensive against Luyi, and the county town fell.

Then, the Qi army tried to attack Pengcheng.

It is undeniable that Song Wangyan, who was over 60 years old, was indeed very brave. He led the Pengcheng army to defend the city and repelled the Qi army's attack several times, forcing the Qi army to change its original tactics and prepare to first capture several small counties around Pengcheng, and then isolated Pengcheng and siege Pengcheng.

Following Luyi, a small county in the east of Pengcheng, the Qi army divided into three groups and continued to attack Pengcheng and restrain Pengcheng's army; one of them circled northwest of Pengcheng and attacked Liuyi; the last one circled south of Pengcheng and tried to attack Jiangqiu.

Once Liuyi and Fengqiu fall, Pengcheng will undoubtedly be covered by three sides. If even Xiaocheng on the west side of Pengcheng is occupied by the Qi army in the end, Pengcheng will be completely surrounded by the Qi army. Hui'an will be worried whenever he thinks of this.

"Hui Xiang."

In front, Song general Dai Busheng and several soldiers walked towards this side and greeted Hui Ang from a distance.

Hui Ann bowed his hand and replied to Dai Busheng with a warm voice: "Sima, I brought some meat to motivate the soldiers..."

"It's a good job." Dai Busheng's tired face squeezed out a smile and said, "I believe that these meat can greatly increase the morale of these little boys..."

Hearing this, Hui'an forced a smile.

To be honest, he didn't believe in this argument very much, and even Dai Busheng, who said this, might not really feel it.

After instructing the accompanying personnel to carry the meat, Hui Ann put Dai Busheng on the side and asked, "What's the situation now?"

At this moment, Dai Busheng put away the smile on his face and said sadly: "Not optimistic... The impact of 'that incident' is too great, and the soldiers of the Tancheng Army are almost fighting spirit."

The "that thing" he said was the incident of the prince Dai Wu general and the Sima of Tancheng Army Dai Jing trying to lead the army to force the palace.

The cause of this incident lies in the special situation where the two kings of the Song State are together.

Generally speaking, the monarchs of various countries will be preached to the crown prince before they are about to die, but the only two countries in the world are the State of Zhao and Song.

Just as Meng Zhong remembered, Zhao Zhufu of Zhao and Song Wangyan of Song, these two very warlike and ambitious kings. In the early years, in order to facilitate his conquering Zhongshan Kingdom and eliminated the hidden dangers of Zhao for hundreds of years, Zhao Zhufu passed the throne to his youngest son Zhao He in his prime, which eventually triggered the Sha Dune Palace Incident;

The situation of Song Wangyan was similar. After the three battles of attacking Qi, Chu and Wei, Song Wangyan listened to Hui'an's suggestions and carefully governed the country for more than ten years. More than ten years later, Song Wangyan believed that the development of the country had allowed him to open up territory again, so he passed the throne to the crown prince Dai Wu, and he personally led the army to fight. The defeated Teng Kingdom was the victim of Song Wangyan's second personal army.

But the later battle between Song and Qi changed the situation slightly.

At that time, with the help of Meng Zhong, the State of Song not only repelled the first invasion of the Qi army, but also captured Tancheng in turn. Since then, the Crown Prince Dai Wu personally took charge of Tancheng as the first line of defense to resist the Qi army. During this period, Song Wangyan continued to capture the Huai and Si land with Pengcheng as the center, which made the State of Song become a "two-headed snake". Tancheng is a head and Pengcheng is a person. The former is responsible for resisting the Qi State, and the latter is responsible for opening up the Huai and Si territory. Both sides do not interfere with each other.

As the saying goes, there is no day, and there is no two kings in the country. The civil strife in Zhao has proved that the "two-headed snake" model of governing the country is not feasible, and the hidden dangers are very great, and the Song State was naturally affected.

There is nothing to say about Song Wangyan. As a heroic monarch, his prestige is unmatched in the Song State. But the problem is that Song Wangyan is old and over 60 years old. In this era when sixty years is still a year old, he is really a long life. Even if Song Wangyan dies tomorrow, no one will be surprised.

This led to the same problem in the State of Song State as in Zhao State: With the old king still alive, the center of power of the state gradually shifted the new king.

This is not a strange thing. Compared with the 60s Song Wangyan, the crown prince Dai Wu was only about forty years old and was in his prime. He was a legitimate throne obtained by abdicating the throne. The subjects of the Song State were loyal to Dai Wu. There was no problem in itself, but just like Zhao Zhufu, Song Wangyan had an idea in his heart.

After the Second Song-Qi War, with the help of the Wei and Han Allied Forces, the Qi army was even worse than last time. They simply were defeated before even breaking Tancheng. As a hero who guarded the country's borders and protected the people, the reputation of the crown prince Dai Wu was increasing day by day. Therefore, some disharmonious voices inevitably appeared in the army under Dai Wu's command.

Didn’t Lao Wang pass it on to Prince Yu? Why did he still issue orders in Pengcheng?

The one who said that according to etiquette and law, Dai Wu was already a legitimate king of Song State, and there was no need to ask Pengcheng for instructions in everything.

Even in the end, some people even made some bad ideas, urging the prince Dai Wu to use Tancheng as the new capital of Song State, and what this would better reflect Song State's confidence in resisting Qi State.

These disharmonious arguments were heard by Wang Yan of Song, and Wang Yan of Song could not accept them.

Therefore, Song Wangyan severely scolded the prince Dai Wu, but this incident was considered to be a deliberate suppression by the prince Dai Wu's subordinates.

In fact, to be fair, although Song Wangyan's actions can be called suppressing the prince Dai Wu, after all, they are just calling the prince Dai Wu to be more low-key. After all, he is not dead yet, but unfortunately, this suppression move has caused Tan Cheng to be dissatisfied with Peng Cheng.

Just like Meng Zhong’s impression, the prince Dai Wu did not dare to have any serious rebellious thoughts about Song Wangyan. After all, Hui Ang and Xue Juzhou taught Dai Wu the most, Confucianism thoughts, and Confucianism valued the most. How could Dai Wu, who was deeply influenced by Confucianism, have a serious rebellious thoughts about Song Wangyan?

Every time he was scolded by Song Wangyan, the Crown Prince Dai Wu was always timid and did not dare to talk back. Therefore, Song Wangyan had no hatred for Prince Dai Wu himself.

The bad thing is that the group of people who followed the prince Dai Wu could not accept it. They believed that although Song Wangyan had made contributions to the State of Song, he was already old after all. Moreover, he was said to be in Dai Wu, so he could no longer judge the prince Dai Wu in a vein or reason.

It was this dissatisfaction with Song Wangyan that triggered the civil strife in which Dai Jing, a general of Tancheng Army, led his army to force the palace. On the day when Song Wangyan recalled Prince Dai Wu to Pengcheng, Dai Jing, the general in charge of escorting the prince Dai Wu, launched a mutiny with several other people, leading the army to kill the palace, trying to force Song Wangyan to give up his power.

Not to mention that Wang Yan of Song would not agree to such a thing, the ministers of Pengcheng, led by the Prime Minister Hui'an, would not allow it. So under the resistance of the Pengcheng army, Dai Jing, who tried to mutiny, failed and protected the prince Dai Wu to flee back to Tancheng.

As a result, a civil war between Pengcheng and Tancheng broke out in the Song State. Wang Yan, who was furious about the Dai Jing's mutiny, ordered Dai Busheng to lead troops to conquer Tancheng. The Song army in Tancheng and the Song army in Tancheng turned against each other and fought against each other.

Afterwards, because the prince Dai Wu did not want to see civil strife in the country and was deeply influenced by Confucianism, he did not want to disobey his father, so he ran to Dai's unsuccessful army to surrender.

The prince Dai Wu surrendered voluntarily, and the morale of the Tancheng army naturally dropped to freezing point. Dai Busheng tried his best to quell the so-called rebellion, and brought the prince Dai Wu and some Tancheng army generals headed by Dai Jing back to Pengcheng.

In the end, Song Wang Yan made a verdict, exiled the prince Dai Wu and executed all the generals headed by Dai Jing and participated in the rebellion. As for Tancheng, Dai Busheng was stationed at this point.

It was this judgment that made the subjects who followed the crown prince Dai Wu lose hope, especially in the Tancheng area. The invasion of Qi was also caused by learning about the civil strife in the Song State.

To be honest, compared with the civil strife in Zhao, the civil strife in Song was actually not a big loss due to the voluntary surrender of the prince Dai Wu, but the bad one was that there was no foreign enemy invasion at that time, but Song had a Qi State that was eyeing it.

So, under the invasion of Qi ** team, the Tancheng area, which lost its crown prince Dai Wu and its backbone, soon fell under the offensive of the Qi army. The Song State had been operating here for several years, but was defeated by the Qi army without any effect.

However, this is not the worst result.

The worst thing is that Wang Yan of Song knew that the front line fell quickly was because he exiled the prince Dai Wu, but he was stubborn and refused to recall the prince Dai Wu to resist the invasion of Qi, and still wanted to repel the invasion of Qi by himself.

Even Hui Ann, the most trusted minister of Song Wangyan, could not convince Song Wangyan in this matter, let alone other Song ministers.

"About 'that thing', I will find a way to persuade the king again."

After thinking about it, Hui'an said helplessly.

No matter how outsiders criticize Song Wangyan, Hui'an was loyal to Song Wangyan. He knew that Song Wangyan actually did not hate Prince Dai Wu. After all, Prince Dai Wu did not make any mistakes. The problem was that Song Wangyan could not clear his face.

The old man in his sixties was as stubborn and stubborn as a child in this regard. It was no wonder that Song Wangyan was very strong since childhood. It can be seen from the fact that he couldn't stand his brother Song Tichengjun, begging for mercy to Qi, seized his brother's throne, and took the initiative to attack Qi. This monarch was extremely strong.

"I hope Huixiang can persuade the king as soon as possible."

Dai Busheng sighed and said, "I have seen it with my own eyes that the Tancheng army was defeated by the Qi army almost without fighting spirit. The exile of the prince caused a great blow to these soldiers. The invasion of the Qi army is not as fierce as the first time... You also know that although Qi State claims to be Kuang Zhang's army this time, I have not even seen Kuang Zhang's people yet. I suspect that it is actually just a lie used by Qi State to scare me from Song State."

Hui Ann nodded slightly.

As Dai Busheng said, putting aside the second battle between Qi and Song, which is mostly farce, the most dangerous battle between Qi and Song was actually the first battle between Qi and Song, because that time was indeed commander Tian Zhang, the famous general of Qi. However, Qi only dispatched 150,000 troops that time, and Song State had Meng Zhong commanded the army at that time. First, they forced Yang to restrain Tian Zhang, and then shockedly counterattacked the hinterland of Qi, which forced the Qi army to retreat.

Although Qi sent out 300,000 troops, the Song State has not yet figured out whether Tian Zhang led the army. On the one hand, Tian Zhang has not shown up yet. On the other hand, the Qi army has been attacking step by step so far, and basically no amazing strategy has been seen. Even so, the Song ** team was defeated by the Qi army this time. In less than a few months, almost all the land that is hundreds of miles east of Sishui was captured.

To be honest, this ending should not be the level that the Song team should have. You should know that the size of Song State is not small, which is as strong as half of Qi State, and is stronger than that of South Korea and Yan State. If the crown prince Dai Wu is still there, it would be no problem to resist for one or two years without the famous Qi State general Tian Zhang personally. After all, Qi State is also a lean camel. Apart from Tian Zhang, he cannot come up with any general who is good at fighting.

"If the king refuses to welcome the prince back..."

Dai Busheng looked at Hui'an with a silence, and then suddenly asked, "By the way, is there any new progress in asking for help from Wei State?"

Hearing this, Hui'an shook his head sadly.

This year's Battle of Qi and Song, after Tancheng fell, Hui Ang sent people to ask for help from Wei, but unfortunately, Wei was trapped in the Battle of Xihe with Qin, and was eager to draw troops from all over the country to support Hedong and strongly support Meng Zhong to fight the Battle of Xihe. How could he have spare energy to help Song?

"Didn't that boy Meng Zhong have any response yet?" Dai Busheng complained with some dissatisfaction.

"..." Hui Ang was silent for a moment, expelling his brother: "A Zhong is now serving in Wei State and is highly valued by the King of Wei. He should be the first to Wei and then Song..."

Hearing this, Dai Busheng realized his mistake and said embarrassedly: "I just said it casually... Speaking of which, this kid is becoming more and more capable now. Because the King of Wei appointed him as the Hedong Guard, Qin forced the King of Wei to force the King of Wei to take back his life in a way that would kill him... Tsk tsk tsk, amazing."

Hui'an smiled and said nothing.

I remember that when I learned about this, he was also very proud of this brother. After all, not everyone can make Qin as if it is so great to face an enemy.

"If that kid Meng Zhong comes back, Qi Ren will be in trouble." Dai Busheng said with a sneer.

"It's almost done."

Hui Ann nodded and said, "A while ago, the envoy sent to Wei State to send back the news, saying that it was said by the Grand Marshal Zhai Zhang of Wei State. At this moment, Wei State had forced Qin State to compromise and win the victory of that battle. Interestingly, according to Wei State, Qin State seemed to be in order to retaliate against Qi State, and in turn called on other countries to attack Qi State. At present, the five countries of Qin, Wei, Han, Zhao, and Yan are planning to jointly attack Qi..."

Dai Busheng laughed and said, "Ha, this is the best news I have heard this year... When will this joint army of all countries gather?"

Hui'an said with some regret: "Li Dui, the Fengyang king of Zhao, worked hard for half a year before the five countries attacked Qin. This time, I'm afraid it will take about the same time... I guess next year will be the fastest."

"Next year..." Dai Busheng showed a melancholy look similar to Hui'an when he heard this.

It's no wonder. After all, it's only late September. According to the current situation, Pengcheng may not be able to stop the Qi army's offensive before the end of this year.

Considering that the main goal of the joint army of all countries was to attack the land of Qi, the war on the Song State side would mainly depend on the Song people themselves.

Of course, even so, it is always a good thing to have reinforcements, which can at least distract Qi.

Just when Hui Ang and Dai Busheng were chatting in the military camp, at the west gate of Pengcheng, Meng Zhong and more than a hundred Fangcheng cavalry accompanied him arrived at the city.

When ordinary Wei cavalry came to Pengcheng, the Song army in Pengcheng naturally had to interrogate strictly, but Meng Zhong was the exception, because he carried one of the six sharp swords given to him by Song Wangyan when he got married, and it was engraved with the year and name of the sword that Song Wangyan supervised. This sword was equivalent to a pass-through order. How dare the ordinary Song army stop it?

After entering Pengcheng, Meng Zhongma went straight to the palace. When he arrived at the palace gate, he took out the sword he carried with him again and said to the guards guarding the palace gate: "I am Meng Zhong from Mengyi, from Daliang, Wei State. If you have important matters to see King Song, please inform me immediately!"

The guards at the palace gate saw the engravings on the sharp sword and did not dare to neglect them. They immediately entered the palace with the sword in hand and reported to Song Wangyan.

At this time, in the schoolyard in the palace, Song Wangyan was riding a chariot, wearing military uniforms, and carrying a group of guards to charge. It seemed that he was restoring his old martial arts and preparing to personally go out to fight the Qi army.

At this moment, a guard hurried in and told, "King, there is a man who claims to be Meng Zhong, holding this sword in the palace to seek a meeting."

"Meng Zhong?"

Song Wangyan, who was already a little angry because of the disturbance, was stunned when he heard this and said in surprise: "Didn't he fight the Qin army in Xihe? Did he win?"

After saying that, he walked off the chariot, walked to the guard, took the sword, pulled out the blade and saw that it was indeed the one he gave to Meng Zhong back then, and said happily: "Good boy! It seems that he really defeated Qin State... Invite him in."

After a while, Meng Zhong arrived at the school ground under the guidance of two guards.

After not seeing each other for a few years, Meng Zhong was stronger, but Song Wangyan could still recognize the former in a year. When he was about to come forward to talk to Meng Zhong with a few inexplicable smiles, he saw Meng Zhong walking over quickly with expressionless face, and never stopped saluting. In front of everyone else present, he grabbed the part of the armor on Song Wangyan's armor with his left hand.

"You, who are you? Dare to do this?! Guardian! Guardian!"
To be continued...