On the sixth day of the 10th month, the third day when Hui'an and Meng Zhong returned to the army, the Song army launched an attack on Tengcheng's Zicheng.

In front of the Song army's well railing car, Tengcheng's Zicheng had no resistance and fell after only half an hour. Teng Hao, the current monarch of Teng Kingdom, died in battle on Zicheng's wall at the age of eighteen.

At this point, the State of Song finally completed its strategic operation on the State of Teng.

After the war, King Yan of Song ordered the reward of the army, and all soldiers involved in the war were promoted to the first level. Meng Zhong was promoted to two levels in a row because of his merits in offering the carriage at the well, and was awarded the position of "senior leader".

According to the Zhou system, a hundred people were one soldier, and the chief of the soldiers was the general who commanded one hundred soldiers. His subordinates could appoint four "two Simas" - that is, the general who commanded twenty-five soldiers.

This is the organization belonging to the Song King's Division.

However, since Meng Zhong did not intend to participate in the next war between Song State against Xueyi and Sihuai, this position was of no use to him.

But even so, it is truly a great thing for him to get such a position at the age of fourteen.

On the morning of the seventh day of the lunar month, the day after the capture of Tengcheng, Meng Zhong stood on the wall of Tengcheng and looked inside the city.

"what's on your mind?"

Beside him, the righteous brother Hui'an's inquiry came.

Meng Zhong said in a low voice: "I was wondering, if I had not suggested the Jingzhang Car to Sima Jingjun, would Teng Guo not have ended like this?"

Hui Ang heard this and asked, "Do you think so?"

Meng Zhong hesitated for a moment, then shook his head.

"That's it." Hui Ann comforted: "Teng's national strength is not as strong as our Song Dynasty. As long as the king does not change his mind, this country will sooner or later be destroyed by our Song Dynasty. You offer a cart on the well railing, which seems to have promoted the destruction of Teng State, but in fact, it has accelerated the end of this war and enabled more Teng and Song Dynasty people to survive."

After a pause, Hui Ang said again: "A Zhong, there are some things in this world that cannot be changed by manpower. Teng State is unwilling to surrender to our State of Song, but he cannot invite reinforcements from Qi State. This is destined to be destroyed... At least, you have done what you should do."

After saying that, he pointed to the seemingly peaceful city at this moment.

It has to be said that Song Wangyan was still trustworthy. Song Wangyan, who once angrily said that he wanted to "slaughter all the Teng clans" after breaking the city, specially ordered a ban on further massacre after breaking the city, which made some of the Teng people lucky enough to escape after breaking the city, but were not chased by the Song army.

The other Teng people who were unwilling to leave their hometown were able to continue to survive on this land.

Even the only remaining descendant of the Teng royal family, Teng Xu, Teng Hu's only son, and Song Wang Yan, allowed him to continue to retain the title of "Teng Hou" and still regarded Teng City's son as the fief of the Teng family.

Meng Zhong nodded slightly.

As Hui Ang said, Teng Kingdom was destined to be destroyed, which has nothing to do with him, Meng Zhongxian not offering the carriage. If Meng Zhong insisted on taking the responsibility for this battle on himself, it would be too arrogant. Without the carriage he offered, would the Song army be destined to be unable to conquer Teng City?

No!

The moment Teng Hu was captured and killed by Sima Mengqing, the former family of the Meng family, the Teng Kingdom was doomed to be destroyed.

Perhaps it was even earlier, for example, when Song State decided to attack Teng State, and Teng State was neither willing to surrender to Song State nor could he invite reinforcements from Qi State.

And he Meng Zhong, at best, only witnessed the war with his own eyes, and was not a key figure at all.

Around mid-October, the Song army entered the city walls of Tengcheng, trying to build the city into a bridgehead for the Song Dynasty to attack Xueyi.

During this period, Hui Ang came forward to appease the Teng people in the place of Song Wang Yan, hoping to downplay the hatred between Song and Teng. As for Meng Zhong, who had been promoted to "Ship Commander", all he had to do every day was to ride a chariot and read the "Mencius" given to him by Mencius, while taking the Wang soldiers led by the king to patrol outside the city.

While he was patrolling, he had met many Teng people who tried to escape. They always brought their families with their families. Meng Zhong always turned a blind eye to this and let them escape.

"A bloodthirsty monarch is destined to be unable to gain the trust of civilians."

Seeing the fear and hatred of the Song army by the civilians of Teng Kingdom with their own eyes, Meng Zhong felt more and more correct in Mencius's "benevolent government" proposition.

He felt that Mencius was right: at a time when all monarchs in the world were addicted to killing, if there was a monarch who was not interested in killing, he would naturally gain the trust and support of the common people.

This can be extended a strategy that can be called "benevolent warfare": if the enemy treats the people cruelly, the more merciful we treat the people; if the enemy treats the people, the more rude we treat the people, the more tolerant we treat the people.

If this continues, when the innocent civilians are compared, a large number of civilians will come to join us, even if they are from the enemy country.

Meng Zhong wrote his experience on a piece of cloth and ordered people to go to Zou State to deliver it to Mencius, hoping that the latter could comment and give it to him.

On October 11, Meng Hu, who served as the "Two Simas" under Meng Zhong, secretly told Meng Zhong about something that several Teng people were executed yesterday for attacking the soldiers of the Song army. Moreover, the bodies of these "inmates" were paraded in the streets. Any Teng people who were caught were executed by the Song army.

After hearing this, Meng Zhong sighed.

He believed that this was the consequence of the unjust war of King Yan of Song: even though he captured Teng Kingdom, he could not conquer the hearts of the Teng people. Unless the Teng people were all cowardly, such revenge could not be eliminated in a short period of time.

Meng Zhong, who felt something, wrote down what he saw and heard on the cloth again and ordered people to send it to Mencius of Zou Kingdom.

From October 15th to 18th, Mencius wrote two reply letters to Meng Zhong.

The first reply letter was to express the idea of ​​"benevolence and war" that Meng Zhong felt. Mencius praised it very much. In the letter, Mencius wrote that in the past, Shang Tang destroyed Xia and Zhou Wu destroyed Shang. Both of them were "challenging the strong with weak", but why could they win in the end? It lies in the support of the people of the world - this is Mencius' idea of ​​"the truth is more supportive, but few supportive" is lost.

Moreover, Mencius also told Meng Zhong in his letter that the reason why Teng State failed was not because of other reasons, but because Teng State was a young man. If Teng State could be as powerful as Song State, could Song State destroy Teng State? This is absolutely impossible!

Meng Zhong thought about it carefully and felt that Mencius's words were very correct.

Because he remembered that two years ago, when his brother Meng Bo's soldiers died in the Teng Kingdom, the tribesmen in his family had already had a strong resistance to this battle. On the other hand, the Teng people, led by Teng Hong, Teng Hu, Teng Qi, and Teng Hao, had always insisted on resisting the Song army. The Teng people's losses were only much greater than the Song army's losses, but even so, there were still Teng people willing to die for the country and for their monarch.

Isn’t this what “benevolence and righteousness” brings to the monarch?

In Mencius' second reply, he explained the difference between "charity war" and "not-charity war".

Is there no righteous battle in the Spring and Autumn Period?

In fact, there are some, not to mention the distance, just say "Charactering the king and expelling the king of Song and establishing himself as king." In Mencius's view, this is benevolence and righteous.

Unlike the Confucianism of Confucius' era, Mencius insisted on his concept of "the people are the most important, the country is the next, and the king is the least". He believed that the fundamental of the country lies in the people. Although the people should support the monarch, if the monarch is indifferent, he can also overthrow him and make another wise monarch.

Seeing this, Meng Zhong finally understood why Mencius's thoughts were not accepted by Qi and Wei.

It has to be said that Mencius is indeed an alternative in Confucian heritage.

At the end of the letter, Mencius told Meng Zhong that the current conflict between Song and Teng can only be gradually eliminated by benevolence and righteousness. In a specific way, that is, to treat the Teng people preferentially and give the latter more favors, and never kill them again. In this way, after several years, the Teng people will gradually forget their hatred for the Song State; on the contrary, if Song Wang Yan treats the people of Song and Teng differently, and the old hatred of the Teng people will add new hatred, sooner or later, disaster will break out.

Meng Zhongshen agreed, so he took Mencius's letter to meet his righteous brother Hui'an.

Unexpectedly, before leaving the military tent, Meng Hu hurried over and told him a major event panting: Song Wangyan ordered the soldiers of the Wang army to slaughter more than a hundred Teng people.

After inquiring, Meng Zhong then realized that it was half a day ago, Tang Yang, a minister of the Song State, personally escorted a batch of food and supplies to reward the army on the front line. As a result, several Teng people who pretended to be obedient burned a warehouse of food and grass while transporting food for Song County.

Song Wangyan was furious and immediately sent people to arrest the relatives and friends of about twenty Teng people in the city. Finally, men, women, young and old, and more than a hundred people were arrested in total, and all of them were executed. The bodies were hung on wooden stakes erected in the city to warn the Teng people in the city.

"Do you know this if you don't know about your righteous brother?"

Meng Zhong thought to himself.

Later, I learned that after this incident, Hui Ang sat in a chariot and returned to the city wall from the Zicheng of Tengcheng with a gloomy face. It turned out that Hui Ang had just heard of this, so he hurried to the Song Army commander's tent in the city wall and persuaded Song Wangyan to take back the king's order - the more than a hundred Teng people had been killed and could not be saved, but hanging his body on the wooden pillars in the city was too cruel.

Later, Meng Zhong heard that because of this incident, Song Wangyan and Hui'an had a very unhappy fight.

Around November, "Dai Busheng", who served as the army's sarcasm in the Song State, and "Dai Yingzhi" were recruited by Song Wangyan to Tengcheng, which was supposed to be preparing for the acquisition of Xue Yi.

Song Wangyan invited these two military Simas, as well as another military Sima Jingzi, Hui Ang, Tang Yang and Meng Zhong in the palace of Tenghou. For some reason, he was invited.

During the banquet, when Wang Yan of Song mentioned the capture of Xue Yi, Hui'an firmly opposed it.

Hui Ann believed that the State of Song had just destroyed the State of Song, so he should slow down and attack Xue Yi, who was attacking Qi again and again.

But Song Wangyan insisted that he should take advantage of the strong army to launch an attack on Xueyi.

The more the two argued, the more intense the two, especially when Hui Ang gave an example, there were still many troubles in Tengdi, Wang Song drew out his sword in a daze.

However, although Hui'an was not afraid at all, he looked at King Yan of Song.

Seeing this scene, even Meng Zhong was frightened.
Chapter completed!