When the cavalry of the Qin State appeared in the territory of Yuncheng, Meng Zhong would certainly not sit idly by.

After all, the garrison of Yuncheng Sima is Cai Wu, and this time he was invited by Meng Zhong to lead the army to come to the aid of Fangcheng, which caused the current garrison of Yuncheng to be empty, in case Cai Wu was questioned by the King of Wei because of the serious attack on the Qin cavalry in Yuncheng, Meng Zhong naturally did not want to go.

Therefore, when Cai Wu brought the letter sent by Yuncheng to Meng Zhong to discuss, Meng Zhong was not dissatisfied with Cai Wu's desire to return to Yuncheng, but immediately summoned Meng Hu, Hua Hu, Mu Wu, Cao Chun, Cai Cheng, and Lu Wen, and prepared to ask these six people to lead the cavalry to support Yuncheng.

After learning what Meng Zhong meant, Cai Wu was a little embarrassed, and waved his hand again and again and said: "You can go back to Yuncheng next time, and you don't have to bother the cavalry under Fang Chengling." ”

But Meng Zhong insisted on saying: "In the past, our city was in trouble, and Cai Sima didn't say a word to come to help, but now Yuncheng is in danger, how can I be indifferent?" ”

After that, he saw that Cai Wu was about to resign, so he said again: "Cai Sima, don't be in a hurry to resign." The more than 2,000 cavalry, in the next thought must be the cavalry under the command of Bai Qi, he suffered a loss in the hands of the cavalry under my command last year, so he immediately formed a cavalry after returning to China, although this cavalry has not dealt with him in our city, but the cavalry is cavalry after all, and it must not be underestimated. Today, whether it is Yuncheng or Cai Sima's command, they are all foot soldiers and archers, and it is not difficult to hold the county seat, but the difficult thing is to expel those cavalry from the territory, or even annihilate them. ”

Hearing Meng Zhong's words, Cai Wu couldn't help but nod silently.

Unlike the vast majority of generals in the Central Plains, Cai Wu has seen the power of cavalry, thinking that in the battle of Yique, only more than 1,000 cavalry under the command of Meng Zhong dared to chase and kill tens of thousands of Qin soldiers under Bai Qi's command, and made the Qin army feel a headache, if the 2,000 cavalry under Bai Qi's command also had this level, even if he led the surviving more than 6,000 soldiers under his command to return to Yuncheng together, he would not necessarily be able to defeat the more than 2,000 Qin cavalry.

Thinking of this, Cai Wu said gratefully: "Then...... Thank you Fang Cheng for the order. ”

Hearing this, Meng Zhong said with a smile: "What did Sima Cai say?" Yuncheng and Fangcheng are not far apart, and their lips are cold and their teeth are cold, and helping Yuncheng is also for Ye Yi. What's more, we are all our own people, what are we doing with these polite words? ”

"Fang Chengling is right." Cai Wu nodded again and again with joy on his face.

In his opinion, if he could get Meng Zhong's "own people", it would not be in vain for him to lead the army to aid Fang Cheng this time.

After a while, Meng Hu and the others came to the Shuai tent one after another.

"Ah Zhong, are you looking for us? …… Cai Sima is also there? ”

After greeting each other, Meng Zhong told Meng Hu and the others what had happened, and he said to everyone: "Just now Cai Sima received news from Yuncheng that a Qin cavalry had invaded Yuncheng from Shangcai and had raided several villages. I think you all know that in order to support our city, Cai Sima has transferred most of his troops to this place, so that Yuncheng is short of troops at the moment, although the county town is temporarily worry-free, but it can't stop those Qin cavalry from attacking and plundering the villages in the territory, so I hope that a few of you will lead the cavalry to assist Yuncheng...... This is not only for Yuncheng, but also for my Yeyi. After that, he turned his head to look at Cai Wu and said, "Sima Cai, specifically, you can talk to them in detail." ”

Cai Wu hugged his fist towards Meng Zhong, and even told Meng Hu and the others about the current situation in Yuncheng, such as the situation of the defenders and so on.

Yuncheng is also an important border city of Wei in the south, because it only borders with Chu, so the main object of defense is Chu.

It's just that in recent years, the state of Chu has been defeated and retreated by the state of Qin, and it is simply unable to invade the state of Wei, so Yuncheng has also been given a period of peace, but I didn't expect that this time, there would be cavalry of the state of Qin bypassing Shangcai to attack Yuncheng, not to mention that Cai Wu didn't expect it, even Meng Zhong didn't expect it.

According to Cai Wu, since the surrender of Chu to Qin, he secretly asked Yuncheng to monitor the movements in Shangcai, Xiangcheng, and Pingyu, if there are signs that Chu is trying to sneak attack Yuncheng, then he can only immediately return to Yuncheng - fortunately, Yuncheng is not far from Fangcheng, and he can return to Yuncheng in two days at most, but to his surprise, it was the cavalry that attacked him Yuncheng this time, and the speed of the cavalry was naturally different from that of the foot soldiers, which also led to the fact that the Yuncheng side had just learned the news of the enemy's invasion. Several villages have been attacked by the Qin cavalry, so that Yuncheng is also a little panicked, for fear that the county town will be captured by the Qin army.

After listening to Cai Wu's narration, Meng Hu patted his chest and swore solemnly: "Lao Cai, don't worry, it's just two thousand Qin horses, brother, I will definitely kill them to the point of not leaving a piece of armor to keep you safe." ”

Hearing this, everyone in the room immediately laughed, you must know that Cai Wu is over forty years old, and Meng Hu is only one year older than Meng Zhong, Meng Sui and others, just twenty years old, watching Meng Hu and Cai Wu talk about brothers, everyone only felt funny.

And in this regard, Cai Wu also felt a little funny, after all, Meng Hu was younger than his son, but he didn't care, after all, they had been in contact with each other for a while, and he also knew the temperament of Meng Hu and others.

The only thing he cares about is Yangguan's side.

Thinking of this, he turned his head to Meng Zhong and said, "Fang Cheng Order, if I wait to return to Yuncheng, then Yangguan is here ......."

As if he had guessed Cai Wu's thoughts, Meng Zhong shook his head and said: "Winter is coming, I think that the Qin army is at most a feint attack on my Yangguan to test the defense of my Yangguan, as for the real battle, I am afraid that it will have to be after the spring of next year, so Cai Sima does not have to worry too much." ”

Hearing this, Cai Wu nodded slightly.

He felt that with the army under Meng Zhong, plus the army under Zheng Zheng, there was no problem in guarding only one Yangguan for the time being.

Unless the Qin-Chu coalition army storms day after day at any cost, and purely exchanges the casualties of the Qin and Chu armies for the casualties of the Wei army, only then will Yangguan be in trouble.

But as Meng Zhong said, now that winter is approaching, the Qin-Chu coalition army is currently a problem even surviving the winter, how can they have time to build siege equipment to attack Yangguan?

While everyone was talking, suddenly Meng Zhong's guards walked into the house and reported with their fists in their fists: "City order, Mr. Qu is here, and he is already waiting outside the tent." ”

Mr. Qu?

Could it be Qu Yuan?

Cai Wu and the others in the room all showed surprise, they all knew about Qu Yuan's existence, and they also knew that Qu Yuan had recently helped Chu Min who had come to settle down in Yeyi, but they didn't understand why Qu Yuan came to Yangguan today.

Seeing the puzzled expressions on everyone's faces, Meng Zhong smiled and said, "I invited Mr. Qu here in order to appease those soldiers...... Okay, Ah Hu, a few of you quickly reorganize the cavalry and follow Cai Sima back to Yuncheng together, if there is any urgency, report immediately. Cai Sima, a few of them will be handed over to you. ”

"Don't dare, don't dare."

After a few words, Cai Wu left Meng Zhong's house with Meng Hu, Hua Hu and others, and when he met Qu Yuan who was waiting outside, he did not forget to salute Qu Yuan with a fist, and Qu Yuan also smiled and returned the salute.

It is also ironic to say that Qu Yuan, as a former important minister of the Chu State, was not valued in the Chu State before, but went to Fangcheng and Yeyi, and both the Wei people and the Chu people respected him, I have to say that this is indeed ironic.

At this time, Meng Zhong also walked out of the room behind Cai Wu and the others, and arched his hand towards Qu Yuan and said, "There is Mr. Lao Qu to run." ”

"Where, where."

Qu Yuan hurriedly returned the salute, then turned his head to look at the backs of Cai Wu and the others, and asked curiously: "That Cai Sima, just said goodbye to Zaixia, is it to leave Yangguan temporarily?" ”

"Hmm." Meng Zhong did not hide it, and said truthfully: "I just learned today that a group of cavalry from the Qin State invaded Yuncheng, so Cai Sima was in a hurry to return to Yuncheng, so I asked Meng Hu to lead the cavalry to help him......"

Qu Yuan was surprised and asked, "Qin also has cavalry?" ”

"Hehe, that's a long story...... Mr. Qu, let's go into the house and talk again, shall we? Please. ”

"Please."

After inviting Qu Yuan to the house, he instructed the soldiers to cook wine to ward off the cold for Qu Yuan.

After a while, after a bowl of warm wine, Qu Yuan suddenly no longer felt cold, he raised his head and said to Meng Zhong: "Listen to what Xiang Yi Cheng said, Fang Cheng ordered you to come down because of those Chu army soldiers?" ”

"Yes." Meng Zhong scooped a spoonful of hot wine for Qu Yuan, and then said: "The day before yesterday, our army ambushed the Qin-Chu coalition army, during which about 5,000 Chu soldiers surrendered to our army...... I can promise that as long as those soldiers are honest, they will never cause harm, and after this battle is over, they will be released back to Chu safe and sound, and as long as they want to leave, I will never force them to stay. ”

Qu Yuan nodded when he heard this: "Fang Chengling's promise, Qu can trust." ”

He didn't ask in detail about the process of the Wei army's ambush of the Qin-Chu coalition army the day before yesterday, nor did he ask about the casualties of the Chu army, after all, he thought about it and knew that at that time, neither Meng Zhong nor the Fang Cheng army would show mercy to those Chu army subordinates, but this was not the responsibility of Meng Zhong or the Fangcheng Wei army, if you want to blame him Chu army itself, blame Chu King Xiong Heng for his ignorant choice to assist Qin State.

After thinking about it, Qu Yuan nodded and said: "This matter is not difficult, but I am afraid that the reputation of Zai Xia is not as good as Fang Cheng Ling imagined, and those Chu pawns may not be willing to listen to Zaixia." ”

Hearing this, Meng Zhong immediately laughed: "Mr. Qu is too humble, in the hearts of most Chu people, you are more worthy of respect than the King of Chu." ”

Qu Yuan was shocked when he heard this, and hurriedly said: "This is a big rebellion, Fang Cheng ordered not to say so, I dare not be ashamed." ”

Seeing that Qu Yuan was frightened by his words, Meng Zhong shook his head helplessly.

In fact, he is not a compliment, as far as he knows, the two people who are most regretted by the people of Chu now are King Chu Huai and Qu Yuan.

Although King Chu Huai sometimes made mistakes, the most serious of which was to listen to Zhang Yi's lies and cut off diplomatic relations with Qi, but I have to say that this is still a very backbone king, even if he was under house arrest by King Qin during his trip to Qin to seek peace, he refused to betray the country, refused to cede land to Qin for his own safety, and finally died in Qin.

It was this backbone that made the Chu people forgive the king for his previous stupid decisions, and felt extremely sad for his death in the Qin State - of course, the main reason was that there was Xiong Heng, the current king of Chu, who made Xiong Heng even more ignorant than his father, King Chu Huai.

Qu Yuan, on the other hand, was boycotted by the old nobles of Chu because he deliberately weakened the interests of the nobles and improved the interests of the commoners when he presided over the reform of the law.

It was precisely because of this incident that Qu Yuan, who originally did not have much reputation, suddenly became a great virtuous minister in the eyes of thousands of ordinary people in Chu State.

Don't look at Qu Yuan now, but in the eyes of the civilians of Chu State, his words are more trustworthy than anyone in Chu State.

Meng Zhong had no doubt that as long as Qu Yuan came forward to appease, those Chu army soldiers who were still frightened at the moment and even thought about how to escape would definitely listen to Qu Yuan's words and honestly assist his Wei army in repairing Yangguan.

About half an hour later, Meng Zhong walked out of the house with Qu Yuan and headed towards the pass that was being repaired.

Yangguan, although it is a valley pass, but from south to north there are actually nearly two hundred zhang or so, far less narrow than the Hangu Pass that Meng Zhong saw last year, narrowly can only allow two or three chariots to run in parallel, but no matter what, this is a pass, as long as a city wall is built here, connecting Yingshan on the north side and Yinshan on the south side, the Qin army wants to conquer this place, it will have to pay a heavy price.

Unfortunately, the pass, which has been under construction since the beginning of spring this year, has not yet been completely completed due to various reasons.

One of the main reasons for this is the material used to build the walls.

In this era, the best material for building walls was nothing more than rock, but the problem was that it required a large number of experienced stonemasons to dig the rocks out of the mountain and polish them into huge stone bricks, compared to the manpower and material resources required to carry these huge stone bricks.

Because of this, the construction of a city in this era is often more than ten years, or even decades, if you want to build a city in just a few years, you must devote all your national strength, just like South Korea in order to build a new city a few years ago, almost all the stonemasons in the country were gathered.

The city walls built at such a price are of particularly reliable quality, such as Chu Fangcheng, which was obviously built by the Chu people hundreds of years ago, and still stands firmly on the mountains on the north side of Wancheng and Fangcheng.

Unfortunately, there were not so many stonemasons on Fangcheng's side, so Meng Zhong could only retreat to the next best thing and build this pass by building a rammed earth wall.

The construction step, i.e., the construction of rammed earth slabs layer by layer.

Specifically, the wooden frame is lowered at the place where the wall is to be built, and then the semi-moist soil that has been stirred with water is poured into the wooden frame, and after smoothing, the soil is trampled back and forth by hand to tample the soil solidly.

The mud is then injected, during which the moistened soil is also replenished in the area where it has sunken due to extrusion, and then the steps of pouring soil, stepping on it, and injecting the mud are repeated until it is repeated several times, and then it is allowed to dry to become a solid rammed earth slab.

Repeat the above steps to build a rammed earth wall layer by layer.

The rammed earth walls built in this way are slightly less solid than stone walls, but they are much better than wooden and earthen walls, and even if someone strikes them with a hammer, it will take a lot of effort to knock them down.

And more importantly, this kind of rammed earth wall is inexpensive, no matter what material of soil can be used, which is very suitable for today's lack of funds in Fangcheng, the only drawback is that it requires a lot of manpower.

Because of this, Yangguan has only been half-built so far.

It's no wonder, after all, what Meng Zhong wants to build is a city defense that can allow soldiers to climb the city wall to fight, not just a wall, which makes the construction period greatly extended, even if the Chu people of Yeyi came to help as soldiers for free in order to get a house in Yeyi, so far only about half of it has been built.

While taking Qu Yuan to visit Yangguan, Meng Zhong also introduced him to the specifics of Yangguan.

Similar to most passes in the world, Yangguan is actually just a combination of the city wall and the gate, the only difference is that Meng Zhong built some house-like sentry boxes on the city wall, which can not only allow crossbowmen to hide in them and shoot outward from those lookouts, but also allow the guards on the city wall to use this as a base to defend against being easily attacked by enemy troops.

In Meng Zhong's opinion, as long as the enemy army does not use heavy siege equipment such as catapults, the defensive ability of this Yangguan is still very strong, and it is no less than the walls of ordinary cities.

In addition to catapults, this kind of rammed earth wall is also afraid of water immersion, so Meng Zhong also asked people to dig a drainage channel inside and outside the city wall to prevent the wall roots from being soaked in water and becoming soft, which will cause the wall to collapse this slope.

Qu Yuan was not surprised by Meng Zhong's narration, after all, the rammed earth wall is a way to build walls, not to mention that everyone knows it, but it is undeniable that all countries have experience in building rammed earth walls, but Meng Zhong's construction method is more clever, for example, Meng Zhong asked people to bury bamboo silk in the rammed earth wall, which further strengthened the toughness between the rammed earth wall panels.

And this, even Qu Yuan didn't pay attention to.

In contrast, what Qu Yuan cared more about was those Chu people in the Wei army in Fangcheng.

Because when he came here, there happened to be some Wei soldiers who had a quarrel with the Chu army, and there were some physical conflicts between them.

And during this time, a Wei general turned a blind eye to this.

Given that Qu Yuan was beside him, Meng Zhong's face was also a little unbearable at that time, and he immediately summoned that Wei Jun to the front, but when he took a closer look, the other party seemed to be also a Chu person, which made him breathe a little relieved.

"Are you from Chu?" Qu Yuan asked the Wei general in surprise.

"Yes." The Wei army general nodded and said, "In Xia Dengshu, a native of Deng County." ”

Originally, if the Wei people beat those Chu army soldiers for no reason, even if he didn't say anything, he would be a little unhappy in his heart, but now that the Chu people are beating the Chu people, he really doesn't know what to say.

He thought for a moment and asked, "Why...... Why do it? ”

Deng Shu glanced at Meng Zhong who was beside him, clenched his fists and said truthfully: "It was they who hurt people first, they scolded us traitors, and the scolding was very difficult to hear......

Qu Yuan frowned slightly, and then pointed to the Wei pawns who were beating people in the distance, and asked in a low voice, "...... Is it also a Chu person? ”

I saw Deng Shu sneering and said: "These bastards don't dare to make a mistake in front of those Wei people in our army, only in front of us people have a little confidence, as if they think that we are good with ......."

"......" Qu Yuan opened his mouth, not knowing what to say.

He could understand the meaning of Deng Shu's words, maybe those Chu troops thought that even if the Yeyi Chu people defected to the Fangcheng army, it would be difficult to be reused, so they were angry that these comrades would rather be dogs for the Wei people than fight for their own country, but in fact, the status of the Yeyi Chu people in the Fangcheng army was the same as that of the Wei people - this is also one of the reasons why Qu Yuan admired Meng Zhong, that is, Meng Zhong did treat everyone equally.

Thinking of this, he turned to Meng Zhong and said, "Maybe this is the reason why Fang Chengling wants to come forward, right?" ”

Meng Zhong shrugged helplessly.

Indeed, he thought that letting Wei pawns, who were born in Chu, take care of these Chu soldiers, would help appease these soldiers, but he didn't expect that in the end, it was the two sides that had a quarrel or even a physical conflict, but it was the Wei pawns who really spoke the Wei dialect that passed by, and those soldiers did not dare to make a mistake.

But the problem comes, now the Wei army under his command, seventy percent of them are from Chu, in case these people are angry by those surrendered soldiers, and the killing of prisoners occurs in a fit of anger, this is not a good thing for the Wei army in other cities.

"Please, sir." He arched his hand.

Qu Yuan smiled slightly, and walked alone to those Chu State troops.

A moment later, Qu Yuan's voice persuading those troops to surrender could be heard in the distance.

"Below, it is Qu Ping's ...... of Danyang"

“…… In today's battle, the fault is not Fang Cheng, nor is it with you. …… On the same day, the Qin State sent troops to attack the counties north of the Hanshui of our Chu State, Chu Ying did not save it, thanks to the Fangcheng Order, led the Wei army to block the Qin army, so that hundreds of thousands of Chu people in the counties north of the Han River could move to Yeyi and live here...... The state of Qin is the threat of my state of Chu, but the king listened to the rumors, and actually made up his old enemy the state of Qin, and attacked Wei and Han......"

“…… Today, Fang Cheng Ling is kind-hearted, and he doesn't want to harm you, he wants to release you, but he is afraid that you have nowhere else to go, and finally return to the Chu army, so I temporarily detain you. …… You don't have to panic, Fang Cheng Ling has promised that after this battle is over, he will release you back to the Chu State. I know that many people are afraid that they are suspicious of this, but Qu Yuan can guarantee here that Fang Chengling is a gentleman who will do what he says......"

I have to say that for Qu Yuan's arrival, not to mention the Chu people in the Wei army in Fangcheng were very surprised, and the surrendered troops of the Chu army were even more unbelievable.

No, when Qu Yuan had just introduced himself, those Chu army soldiers whispered.

Qu Yuan, the former left disciple of the Chu State and the doctor of Sanlu, why is this person in the city fortress of the Wei people?

However, Qu Yuan did not explain the reason for his presence here, he only told the Chu army that as long as they were in peace, after this battle was over, Meng Zhong, as the commander of Fang Cheng, would release them back to the Chu State.

As for helping the Wei people build Yangguan, it was purely in return for getting food - there was no reason for the Wei army to raise them for nothing, right?

In fact, the same words, Meng Zhong had already sent someone to tell these soldiers, but the effect was not good to be honest, but the same words came from Qu Yuan's mouth, but those Chu army soldiers were convinced, I have to say, this is the difference between reputation and reputation.

As for those Chu troops surrendering, Meng Zhong pleaded with Qu Yuan this time, not just preparing to use these as labor, he was also preparing to use these Chu troops in the future to disintegrate the fighting spirit of tens of thousands of Chu troops under Zhao Ju's command, and even to drive a wedge between the two armies of Qin and Chu.

As long as they find a way to provoke the Chu army to become hostile to the Qin army, the so-called Qin-Chu coalition army is just a single horn of the Qin army.

And before that, it seems necessary to try to get in touch with Zhao Ju and see what exactly this person thinks?

Looking at the soldiers in the distance who were being pacified by Qu Yuan, Meng Zhong thought thoughtfully.