On the sixth day of October, the third day of Hui Ang and Meng Zhong's return to the army, the Song army launched an attack on the sub-city of Tengcheng.

In front of the Song army's well, the sub-city of Tengcheng had no power to resist, and it only held out for less than half an hour before it fell, and Teng Hao, the current monarch of Teng, died on the wall of the sub-city at the age of eighteen.

At this point, Song finally completed the strategic operation against Teng.

After the war, Song Wangyan ordered the army to be sacrificed, and all the soldiers who participated in the war were promoted to the rank of one rank, while Meng Zhong was promoted to two levels in a row because of his meritorious service in dedicating the well and chariot, from corporal to sergeant, and was awarded the position of "pawn commander".

According to the Zhou system, one hundred people were one soldier, and the commander was a general who commanded one hundred soldiers, and his subordinates could appoint four "two horses" - that is, generals who commanded twenty-five soldiers.

This is the establishment of the division belonging to the Song king.

However, since Meng Zhong did not intend to participate in the next wars of the Song State against Xue Yi and Sihuai, this position was of little use to him.

But even so, it was a remarkable thing that he could be given such a position at the age of fourteen.

On the morning of the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, that is, the day after the breakthrough of Tengcheng, Meng Zhong stood on the wall of Tengcheng and looked at the city.

"What are you thinking?"

Beside him, there was an inquiry from his brother-in-law Hui An.

Meng Zhong said in a deep voice: "I'm wondering, if I hadn't suggested to Jing Jun's Sima that the Jing Qi car should not have suffered such an end?" ”

Hearing this, Hui Ang asked rhetorically, "Do you think so?" ”

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

"That's it." Hui Ang was relieved: "Teng's national strength is not as good as my Song country, as long as the king does not change his mind, this country will be destroyed by my Song country sooner or later, you offer a well chariot, it seems to have accelerated the destruction of Teng, but in fact, it has accelerated the end of this war, so that more Teng and Song people can survive." ”

After a pause, Hui Ang said again: "Ah Zhong, there are some things in this world that cannot be changed by manpower, Teng is unwilling to submit to my Song State, but he cannot invite reinforcements from Qi State, which is doomed to be destroyed." …… At the very least, you've done what you're supposed to do. ”

With that, he pointed to the seemingly peaceful city at the moment.

I have to say that Song Wangyan is still trustworthy, and Song Wangyan, who once angrily said that he would "slaughter the Teng clan" after breaking the city, specially ordered to prohibit further massacres after breaking through Tengcheng, which made some Teng people fortunate to flee after breaking the city, and were not chased and killed by the Song army.

And the rest of the Teng people who did not want to leave their homeland were able to continue to live in this land.

Even the only remaining son of the Teng royal family, Teng Hu's only son Teng Xu, Song Wangyan allowed him to continue to retain the title of "Teng Hou", and still regarded Tengcheng's sub-city as a fief of the Teng clan.

Meng Zhong nodded slightly.

As Hui Ang said, Teng was doomed, which had nothing to do with whether he Meng Zhong offered the well chariot or not, if Meng Zhong insisted on taking the responsibility for this battle on himself, it would be too arrogant - without the well chariot he offered, could the Song army be destined to be unable to conquer Tengcheng?

No!

At the moment when Teng Hu was captured and killed by Sima Mengqing, the former family of the Mengshi clan, the Teng State was already doomed.

Perhaps even earlier, for example, when the Song State decided to attack the Teng State, and the Teng State was neither willing to submit to the Song State nor was able to bring in reinforcements from the Qi State.

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

Around mid-October, the Song army entered the city of Tengcheng, trying to make this city a bridgehead for the Song State to attack Xueyi.

During this period, Hui Ang came forward to appease the Teng people on behalf of Song Wang Yan, hoping to dilute the hatred between Song and Teng, as for Meng Zhong, who had been promoted to "Pawn Chief", all he had to do every day was to ride in a chariot, while reading the "Mencius" given to him by Mencius, while patrolling outside the city with his royal soldiers.

At the moment when he was patrolling, he had encountered many Teng people who tried to escape, and they always dragged their families with them, but Meng Zhong always turned a blind eye to this and let them flee.

"A murderous monarch is destined to lose the trust of the common people."

Seeing with his own eyes the fear and hatred of the Teng civilians for the Song army, Meng Zhong felt more and more the correctness of Mencius's "benevolent government" proposition.

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

From this, we can derive a strategy that can be called "benevolent warfare": if the enemy treats the people cruelly, the more merciful we treat the people; The meaner the enemy treats the people, the more tolerant we must be to the people.

In the long run, when there is a contrast between those innocent civilians, there will be a large number of civilians who will come to our side, even the civilians of the enemy country.

Meng Zhong wrote his experience on a piece of cloth and ordered someone to go to the state of Zou and send it to Mencius, hoping that the latter would comment and give advice.

On 11 October, Meng Hu, who served as the "two Simas" under Meng Zhong, secretly told Meng Zhong that several Teng people had been executed yesterday for attacking Song soldiers, and that the bodies of these "prisoners" had been paraded through the streets.

Hearing this, Meng Zhong sighed.

He believes that this is the evil result of the unjust war carried out by Song Wangyan: although he captured the Teng state, he could not conquer the hearts of the Teng people, and unless the Teng people were all in their pockets, it seemed that this kind of revenge could not be eliminated in a short time.

Meng Zhong, who felt something, once again wrote what he had seen and heard on the cloth and ordered someone to send it to Mencius of Zou State.

From October 15 to 18, Mencius wrote two replies to Meng Zhong.

Mencius praised the idea of "benevolence" in the first reply, which Mencius praised and wrote in the letter that in the past, Shang Tang destroyed Xia and Zhou Wu destroyed Shang, both of which were "weak to challenge the strong", but why did they win in the end? It lies in the support of the people of the world - this is Mencius's idea of "more help for the righteous and little help for the unjust".

Moreover, Mencius also told Meng Zhong in the letter that the reason why the Teng State failed was not for other reasons, but because the Teng State was small, and if the Teng State could be as strong as the Song State, could the Song State still fall to the Teng State? It's impossible!

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

Because he remembered that two years ago, that is, when his brother Meng Bo's group of soldiers died in the Teng country, the clansmen in his family had already had a strong resistance to this battle, on the other hand, the Teng people, under the leadership of Teng Hong, Teng Hu, Teng Qi, Teng Hao father and son, have been insisting on resisting the Song army, and the losses of the Teng people are only a lot more than the losses of the Song army, but even so, there are still Teng people who are willing to die for the country and its monarch.

Isn't this what "benevolence and righteousness" bring to the monarch?

In Mencius's second reply, he expounded the difference between "righteous warfare" and "unrighteous warfare".

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

In fact, there is, not to mention far away, just say "Eliminate the monarch and chase the Song Dynasty and establish himself as the king", which is benevolent and righteous in Mencius's view.

Unlike Confucianism in Confucius's time, Mencius adhered to his concept that "the people are precious, the community is secondary, and the monarch is inferior", and he believed that the foundation of the state lies in the people, and although the people should support the monarch, if the monarch is ignorant, he can be overthrown and replaced by a virtuous monarch.

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

I have to say that Mencius is indeed an alternative in the Confucian heritage.

At the end of the letter, Mencius told Meng Zhong that the current contradictions between Song and Teng can only be slowly eliminated by benevolence and righteousness, and in a specific way, that is, to give preferential treatment to the Teng people, give the latter more favors, and do not kill again, so that after a few years, the Teng people will slowly forget their hatred of the Song State; On the contrary, if the Song Dynasty Wang Yan treats the people of the Song and Teng countries differently, so that the old hatred of the Teng people is not eliminated and new hatred is added, sooner or later a disaster will break out.

Meng Zhong thought so, so he took Mencius's letter to see his righteous brother Hui'an.

Unexpectedly, before he got out of the tent, Meng Hu hurriedly ran over and said to him a big thing out of breath: Song Wangyan ordered Wang Shi's soldiers to slaughter more than 100 Teng people.

After inquiry, Meng Zhong learned that just half a day ago, Tang Ying, a courtier of the Song State, personally escorted a batch of grain and grass and baggage to reward the troops on the front line.

Song Wangyan was furious because of this, and immediately sent people to arrest about 20 Teng people's relatives and friends in the city, and finally more than 100 men and women, old and young, were arrested, all of them were executed, and the corpses were hung on the wooden stakes erected in the city to warn the Teng people in the city.

"I don't know if my righteous brother knows about this?"

Meng Zhong thought to himself.

Later, I learned that after this incident, Hui Ang sat in a chariot and returned to the city from the sub-city of Tengcheng with a gloomy face. It turned out that Hui Ang had just heard about this, so he hurriedly came to the Song army commander's tent in the city to persuade Song Wang Yan to take back the king's order - the more than 100 Teng people had been killed and could not be saved for a long time, but it was too cruel to hang their bodies on the wooden pillars in the city.

Later, Meng Zhong heard that because of this incident, Song Wangyan and Hui Ang had a very unpleasant quarrel.

Around November, "Dai Busheng" and "Dai Yingzhi", who served as military commanders in the Song Kingdom, were recruited to Tengcheng by Song Wangyan, presumably to prepare for the capture of Xue Yi.

Wang Yan of Song hosted a banquet in the palace of Marquis Teng, as well as another military Sima Jingyi, as well as Hui Ang and Tang Ying, and Meng Zhong was also invited for some reason.

During the banquet, when Song Wangyan mentioned the capture of Xue Yi, Hui Ang resolutely opposed it.

Hui Ang believed that the Song State had just fallen to the Song State, and it was reasonable to slow down and attack Xue Yi of the Qi State again.

However, Song Wangyan insisted that he should take advantage of the strength of his troops to launch an attack on Xue Yi.

The more the two argued, the more intense it became, especially when Hui Ang gave an example that Tengdi still had many troubles that had not been resolved, and King Song angrily pulled out his sword.

However, although Hui Ang was not afraid, he looked at Song Wangyan.

Seeing this scene, even Meng Zhong was terrified.