Given that many ministers of Zhao State were present, King He of Zhao almost didn't say a few words to Meng Zhong, and the conversations between them were inseparable from the current situation, which was obviously because of the many people here.

After the meeting with the monarch was over, King He of Zhao ordered the Fengyang Jun Li Dui to invite Tian Wen and Meng Zhong and his group to the banquet hall. The ministers of Zhao State who were in the palace of the king were all accompanied by this banquet. It can be seen that the Zhao State still gave enough face to Tian Wen and Meng Zhong.

In the banquet hall, Meng Zhong was arranged in the second seat on the east side, second only to Xue Gongtianwen.

Given that King He of Zhao was still changing his clothes and the banquet hall had not yet appeared, Xue Gong Tian Wen began to show his talent in negotiations. He was surrounded by Fengyang Lord Li Dui and his son Li Ji and many ministers of Zhao State, chatting and laughing with everyone calmly, causing many laughter and joy to echo in the hall.

Suddenly, a tall man stepped into the hall and walked towards Li Dui, Li Ji and his son.

Seeing this person, Li Dui smiled and said, "Lian Po, come and greet Mr. Xue... Mr. Xue, this is a powerful general in my Zhao State, Lian Po."

Hearing this, Tian Wen looked at Lian Po for a few times, then praised him with a slight praise: "Haha, General Lian is indeed majestic."

"Mr. Xue is over-reputable."

Lian Po bowed his gratitude in a muffled voice, raised his head and looked at the seat on the east side, and even more so Meng Zhong's eyes met.

Obviously, Meng Zhong, who was watching around because he was idle, obviously noticed Lian Po.

After hesitating for a moment, Lian Po suddenly strode towards Meng Zhong.

Seeing this, Li Ji, who had been paying attention, immediately stepped forward and grabbed Lian Po's sleeve, frowned and shook his head at Lian Po, and lowered his voice and said, "Liang Po, don't cause trouble."

Lian Po shook his head and explained calmly: "I just want to say hello to him."

“…”

Li Ji looked at Lian Po with some suspicion. Seeing that Lian Po's expression was not abnormal, he slowly said, "It's okay. I'll go with you and remember what you said."

Of course, Tian Wen noticed the conversation between Li Ji and Lian Po, and glanced at Meng Zhong's direction, but didn't care.

He didn't think that Li Ji and Lian Po would cause any trouble. After all, Meng Zhong is now considered a person from Tian Wen's side. At this time, he would not give him Tian Wen's face. Even if Li Dui and his son had a grudge against Meng Zhong, he would have to give him Tian Wen's face now. What's more, according to what he saw, Li Dui did not have much hostility towards Meng Zhong, but Meng Zhong seemed to be a little hostile to Li Du.

While Tian Wen and Li Dui continued to have a joke in public, Li Ji brought Lian Po to Meng Zhong and greeted with a smile: "Yenchengjun, I am under Li Ji, can you still have an impression of Yanchengjun?"

At this time, Meng Zhong had already stood up slowly, bowed and said with a smile, "How can you forget the eldest son of Li?" After that, he glanced at Lian Po, who was a little taller than him, and greeted with a smile, "Lian Sima, long time no see."

Hearing Meng Zhong's words, Lian Po opened his mouth and didn't know what to say.

Maybe even he himself didn't understand why he came here. Maybe he had lost many times in Meng Zhong's hands so far and was unwilling to accept it.

Especially when he was in Taoyi a few months ago, he had clearly successfully attacked the Qin and Wei coalition forces, but was easily reversed by the Qin and Wei coalition forces, which caused Zhao Xi and Xu Jun to sacrifice many soldiers before he rescued him who was deeply trapped in the siege.

Afterwards, Zhao Xi said that the Qin and Wei coalition forces were likely commanded by Meng Zhong, which made Lian Po even more unwilling.

Looking at Meng Zhong, Lian Po said in a deep voice: "That time in Taoyi... Zhao Xi and Sima revealed to me later that it was Meng Sima who was commanding the Qin and Wei coalition forces at that time..."

"Cough." Li Ji coughed beside him and reminded: "Meng Sima has been regarded as the Lord of Yancheng by the King of Wei. You should call him the Lord of Yancheng, and you will not be rude."

Meng Zhong didn't care much about what others called him, and smiled slightly and said to Lian Po, "Zhao Xi? I didn't see him this time. Is he in Handan?"

Hearing this, Li Ji quickly explained: "Zhao Xi Sima is in Wu'an City, but he will also come for today's banquet. Then Yan Chengjun will see him."

Wu'an City, the capital of Handan, is located about forty miles northwest of Handan. The city almost concentrated most of the Zhao army workshops, such as weapon forging, armor manufacturing, iron smelting workshops, etc., almost all of them are in Wu'an City.

Meng Zhong had no chance to witness the situation in Wu'an City with his own eyes, but he still knew about the general situation.

"So that's it." Meng Zhong nodded, then smiled and said to Lian Po: "That time... Tao Yi... asked to attack our coalition at dawn, I'm afraid it was Lian Sima? Haha, that time, I was deceived by Lian Sima... I didn't expect that your side would launch a surprise attack at dawn..."

"It's just a pick-up of people's wisdom, not to mention that we didn't win in the end..." Lian Po looked at Meng Zhong with a blank expression, and then asked again: "Is it that time that Mr. Yan Cheng was commanding?"

"Yes." Meng Zhong did not hide it and said truthfully.

Hearing this, Lian Po suddenly remained silent for a moment and turned his head away without saying a word.

Seeing this, Li Ji quickly accused Meng Zhong and said, "Liang Po is very rude. He will definitely punish him well next time. Please don't take it to heart by Lord Yancheng."

Meng Zhong waved his hand and said with a smile: "The prince is so serious, Lian Po is loyal and righteous. He has always respected such a person..."

Li Ji also roughly understood Meng Zhong's personality. When Meng Zhong said that he didn't care, he knew that Meng Zhong really didn't care. After reassurance, he did not leave, but stayed with Meng Zhong to talk to him. After all, Meng Zhong's identity is no longer the same as before, and has become a partner to make friends.

After a while, more and more people in the hall gradually increased. The ministers of Zhao had not appeared in the King's Hall before, and they also came to this palace of banquets.

For example, Zhao Ben, whom Meng Zhong met at the city gate.

Unlike the vast majority of Zhao ministers, they would walk to Li Du and Tian Wen as soon as they entered the palace and talked to these two people for a while. Zhao Ben did not turn away from Tian Wen at all. Li Du and the others walked straight through the crowd where they were. Under the guidance of the eunuchs in the palace, they sat on their own seat.

This incident caused many Zhao ministers around Li Dui to discuss privately. I think that at this moment, many people cursed Zhao Ben as a rude bastard.

Meng Zhong glanced at Tian Wen.

As expected, Tian Wen's face was not very good-looking - this pampered Mr. Xue, the most unbearable man, could not stand being ignored by others.

Now, after noticing Zhao Ben's rude behavior, a follower of Tian Wen was furious when he saw this and was about to walk towards Zhao Ben, but Tian Wen grabbed his wrist.

Obviously, given that Qin Qi's threat was ahead of the front, Tian Wen was also restrained and did not want to cause any trouble in Zhao State.

Seeing this scene, Meng Zhong suddenly felt a very strange feeling.

Because a few years ago, when he welcomed Tian Wen to Zhao State to envoy Zhao State, he sat in the seat on the west side, at the lower head of Prince Zhao Zhang, at that time he and Li Dui, Li Ji, Xue Gong Tian Wen, and the late Anping Jun Zhao Cheng were opposed to each other, and at that banquet, he was like Zhao Ben - although far less than Zhao Ben's way like today, completely ignored Tian Wen and Li Du.

But this time, as Tian Wen's deputy envoy, neither Tian Wen nor Li Dui came to cause trouble for him. In fact, Li Du's son Li Ji was still standing by his side at this moment, intending to make him good.

His position twice was completely reversed. If you think about it carefully, it was indeed a strange feeling.

"Yanchengjun, what's wrong?" Li Ji noticed Meng Zhong's expression and asked in confusion.

Meng Zhong shook his head slightly and said with a little emotion: "I just feel... there is a feeling of something changing... I was there at that time, now, I am here..." He pointed to the seat where Zhao Ben was sitting, and then pointed at his feet.

Li Ji thought about it after hearing this, and raised his words and sighed obscurely: "In that turmoil, my State of Zhao really lost too much..."

It has to be said that even Li Ji must admit that the civil strife in Zhao State really caused heavy losses to them.

The soldiers who died due to civil strife and fighting with each other were second. The key is that Zhao State lost too many talents.

For example, Zhao Zhufu, Lou Fan, Fu Ding and other ministers sent to various countries, let alone Fei Yi, the prime minister who was killed by Prince Zhao Zhang and Tian Buluo, was not allowed to discuss. The young talents Zhao Zhufu recruited and recruited at that time, such as Pang Yan, Ju Xin, Meng Zhong, Le Yi, Zhao She and others, all fled everywhere.

Look at the achievements of these people today, Ju Xin, Le Yi and Zhao She all defected to Yan State. Among them, Ju Xin was the prime minister of Yan State, and served as the Grand Situ and Grand Siyuan. Almost all the internal affairs of Yan State were under Ju Xin; while Le Yi served as the Grand Sima in Yan State, holding almost half of the army in the country; while Zhao She was the guard of Shanggu, and also had an army under her command.

The Yancheng Jun Meng Zhong, who was in front of him, defeated the powerful Qin army twice, causing Sima Cuo, Xiang Shou, Bai Qi and others from Qin to become his defeated generals.

Li Ji knew the best of Bai Qi's strength. After all, a few months ago, his 50,000 troops and Han Xu were killed by Bai Qi.

Only Pang Qing's whereabouts are still unknown. There are only rumors that he lived in seclusion in Chu State and followed his teacher, Yu Guanzi, to study academic research.

Thinking of this, even Li Ji couldn't help but sigh with regret.

If that Sand Dune Palace Incident could be avoided, like Pang Yan, Meng Zhong, Ju Xin, Le Yi, Zhao She and others were all in Zhao State, I really couldn't imagine how strong Zhao State would be.

You know, Meng Zhong alone blocked Qin's invasion twice for Wei State - that was Qin State! The powerful Qin State in Xique, which was feared by all the countries in the Central Plains!

After hearing Li Ji's emotion, Meng Zhong frowned slightly and said indifferently: "Without that turmoil, how could Fengyang Jun control the national affairs of Zhao State?... Sorry, I'm losing my composure."

If someone else said this, Li Ji would probably be furious and left, but the person who said this was Meng Zhong, one of the parties involved at that time. Li Ji was not angry. He smiled bitterly and said to Meng Zhong, "June Yicheng, do you really think that my father and son are controlling the country's affairs just for selfish desires?"

Before Meng Zhong could speak, he shook his head, lowered his voice and said, "No, my father and son are also protecting themselves."

“…”

Meng Zhong glanced at Li Ji, but he was not very suspicious of the latter's statement.

At first he didn't think so, but since King He of Zhao used the hands of Anping Jun Zhao Cheng and Fengyang Jun Li Dui to force Zhao Zhufu to death, he realized that the seemingly cowardly new king of Zhao was actually a person who was very scheming and even killed him when necessary.

At first, he ignored the father of Zhao in the Shadui Palace and allowed Zhao Cheng and Li Dui to lead his army to besiege the father of Shadui Palace. After Zhao's father died in Lingqiu, the prince cried loudly in front of everyone and took the lead in mourning the whole country. It is no wonder that even Li Dui and Li Ji and his son felt afraid of this.

And this time, everyone thought that under the pressure of Qin and Wei, Fengyang Lord Li Dui would inevitably lose his position as Prime Minister of Zhao. However, King He of Zhao supported Li Du, a powerful minister who secretly undermined his rights, on the one hand prevented the infiltration of Qin and Wei countries into Zhao, on the other hand, let Li Dui come forward to resist Qin and Wei countries, and even used this matter to gain the reputation of being a virtuous king in China.

I have to say that the skills of King He of Zhao are far inferior to those of Prince Zhao Zhang.

Perhaps because he noticed that Meng Zhong's expression was gloomy and realized that he seemed to have revealed something extraordinary. Li Ji immediately exposed the matter and said: "Speaking of this, my father once asked me to make friends with Yanchengjun, but Yanchengjun was close to Prince Zhang at that time, which made each other have no choice but to be with you and me... This time, Li Ji hopes to get along with Yanchengjun."

"The prince's words are serious."

Seeing that Li Ji released his kindness, Meng Zhong also responded with a smile. After all, there was indeed no direct conflict between him and Li Ji.

A moment later, King He of Zhao changed his robe and brought Fei You to the palace for banquets. Tian Wen, Li Dui, who gathered in the hall to talk to him, and many ministers of Zhao State returned to their respective seats after saluting King He of Zhao.

Then there was the banquet, which was similar to other countries. First, the Zhao Nu in the palace performed a dance.

This really made Meng Hu so greedy that he stared at the gentle girl Zhao. He looked like he wanted to tie one, no, tie a few to go home.

Meng Zhong thought of someone and was not interested in the gentle girl Zhao at all.

It was not his wife Le Yan, but Zhao Zhufu.

Once upon a time, Master Zhao invited guests in this hall. The reason why Meng Hu was obsessed with Miss Zhao was that Master Zhao was all the same.

Zhao Zhufu, Fei Yi, Yang Wenjun Zhao Bao, Gongzi Zhao Zhang, Tian Busui...

These people buried deep in their memory have appeared one by one in Meng Zhong's mind at this moment, making him feel extremely heavy.

When Meng Zhong came to his senses, the guests in the hall had already begun to walk around.

The most conspicuous ones are Tian Wen and Li Dui. Accompanied by Li Dui, Tian Wen met with the kings and ministers of Zhao in the hall, urging them to drink and talk. It has to be said that Tian Wen is indeed very good at this matter.

"Yingchengjun."

Just as Meng Zhong was secretly sighing, he suddenly heard someone calling him.

When I turned around, I realized that it was Tian Wen’s aide Feng Xu.

Feng Xi walked to Meng Zhong with a wine bottle and smiled, lowered his voice and said in a low voice: "Mr. Xue hopes that the Lord of Yancheng will toast King Zhao."

Hearing this, Meng Zhong took the opportunity to look at Tian Wen, and found that Tian Wen was looking at him from a distance and nodded slightly.
To be continued...